Orlagh
This year for YSI (young social innovators) the group have decided to challenge the problem of the lack of resources for children with special needs. Our first guest speaker was Orlagh who is the mother of Sophia. Sophia suffers from a severe form of non verbal autism. We were all told about the horrific pregnancy that Orlagh had with Sophia. Sophia was born at 34 weeks instead of the normal 40 weeks. Orlagh spent 2 weeks in hospital before the berth.
Once Sophia was born the normal cry that is associated with new-borns was missing. Although showing many unusual signs Sophia was sent home with her parents for the very first time.
No support of any kind was given to Sophia’s family. The reason for this is because Sophia didn’t struggle from a physical disability. It took over 3 years to get Sophia tested properly.
We learnt about the horrors both Sophia and her family go through trying to find suitable education for Sophia. Due to Sophia’s condition she is not able to attend mainstream school. She did attend St Catherine’s but was later pulled out. Sophia got a place in the educate together school in Wicklow town but the legal requirement for numbers are 5 students in a class with a teacher and 2 SNA’s (special needs assistances), in Sophia’s class there were 9 students.
We were told about how family life has gone out the window for the rest of Sophia’s family due to the fact that they get no rest bite care. The family cant go out and cant have people in because it disturbs Sophia’s pattern.
Despite what has been said above Sophia is a very smart kid with huge potential but isn’t allowed to reach her full potential due to the lack of resources for children and family’s like Sophia’s.