Mapping disability to push for education

What do you think is more effective? A solemn surveyor going door to door and asking: “Do your children have a disability?’’ or a humane approach that involves quizzing families on the day-to-day functioning of their children such as, “Are they able to walk long or short distances?” and “Do they have trouble accepting changes in routine?”

To identify children with disabilities so that they can also be enrolled in schools under the “inclusive education” clause of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (2009), ADAPT has started a first-of-its-kind mapping via household surveys.

And, to ensure that no child gets left behind, the Mumbai-based NGO is training people along with the US National Health Statistics Agency and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in using a new kind of testing method called Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS).

Speaking on the sidelines of a cognitive testing workshop on Tuesday, Mitchell Loeb, health scientist at the National Centre For Health Statistics, Washington DC, said: “When asked whether they have a disability or not, people are unwilling to answer because of the stigma associated with the word ‘disability’. Also, in many cases, children do not show any obvious signs of disability at a young age. Hence, people are unable to recognise that their child could be suffering from a disability.”

“The MICS approach is more accurate as it involves asking people about inabilities in their child’s  functioning and hence, they are able to respond to such questions,” said Kristen Miller, director Question Design and Research Laboratory of the centre.  “Also, through the survey we can identify children at an early stage and provide them timely treatment.”

The questions posed to families will be age appropriate, unlike the traditional method wherein survey questions were uniform across ages. 

Parents with children between the ages of two and four years will be asked different questions from those with children between five and 17 years.

“In India, the survey will also look at children between two to four years as the RTE includes children from three years onwards,’’ added Loeb.