Kiangan opens special education center

KIANGAN, Ifugao -- Parents of special children here are very happy with the opening of the town’s first Special Education Center (Sped) to cater to the needs of learners with differences or handicaps.

Inaugurated last October 1, the Kiangan Sped Center with the assistance of the Municipal Government through the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office (MSWDO), strives to be an institution geared towards a cohesive Pro-God, Pro-Peace, and Pro-Nature Society to develop the special boys and girls in the town their maximum potentials to the fullest that will emerge as value-oriented resourceful and competitive participants in the community.

MSWDO head Celestina Talosig said the center is a dream come true for parents with children who have disabilities and cannot attend normal and regular classes due to their individual handicaps.

The center will address the special learners’ needs through individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipments and materials, accessible settings and other interventions designed to help the learners with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in the school and community than would be available if the learners are given access to a typical classroom education.

There are now 10 enrollees composed of learners afflicted with Down Syndrome Disease, seizure disorder, mentally-retarded and with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disease (ADHD), and autism and are under the supervision of the MSWDO.

The class is being temporarily conducted and handled every morning by Sherdilah Bullong Pagaddut, an occupational therapist, and Joy Tayaban, a midwife, at the old Kiangan Central School Home Economics Building until a new building for the center is constructed. (Dan Codamon)