Help expands for children with mild developmental needs

SINGAPORE — Children with mild developmental needs will be able to get specialised help at more pre-school centres. Some operators are set to expand the Development Support Programme (DSP) to more centres, while 30 other preschools will come on board by year end.

Under the programme, children who need help in areas such as reading and writing attend one-on-one or small group sessions with specially trained Learning Support Educators.

During these sessions, educators use various tools to make learning more interesting.

For example, they use figurines to help children learn the alphabet, as well as games to help them pick up new words. For children with other issues, such as behavioural ones, therapists, including psychologists, will conduct the sessions.

My First Skool, which offers the programme at more than 90 of its centres, plans to expand it to 20 more next year, which means the programme will cover about 90 per cent of its centres.

In line with the expansion, it has hired more learning support educators, who receive training on how to assess a child’s ability in different areas such as language and literacy, and how they can help them.

“When we notice that certain children seem to require this programme to help them get ready for primary school, and when we speak to parents about it, the parents tend to be more receptive because they know there is support,” said Ms Chan Yin Jie, My First Skool principal at Blk 248 Kim Keat.

“Whereas in a centre where this programme isn’t available, parents sometimes are at a loss as to how they should get help for their child. It’s very different from special-needs children (who can go for therapy, among other things).

“The DSP supports mild learning needs, and therefore there can be very grey areas.”

Over at PAP Community Foundation Sparkletots Preschool, the educators also conduct briefings for teachers.

For instance, the school shares with the teachers the different profiles of the children that will fall under this programme, and the teachers then identify the children who may benefit from the support programme.

”Sometimes, children need more time to complete their activities in one way or another,” said Ms Munirah Ahmad, PCF Sparkletots Preschool principal at Block 326 Kembangan-Chai Chee.

“So when the child comes in with the teacher, the child will have a guided time one-to-one in terms of completing certain activities faster ... (The DSP) helps us in a way that children will be guided in more manageable routines.”

About 2,000 children have benefited in more than 300 preschools since the programme was piloted in 2012. After subsidies, Singaporeans pay between S$5 and S$200 per month for packages under the programme. The duration of a package can range from six to 15 weeks.

One beneficiary is six-year-old Mohammad Hazrel, who is enrolled in My First Skool and used to struggle with reading. But since he joined the programme last year, his family has seen improvements.

“Before he joined the programme, his reading was not so good,” said his mother Ms Junizawati, who also cited Hazrel’s difficulty recognising the letters of the alphabet.

“After he joined the programme, he can read the words ... (and now) he can read the storybooks.”