There may be no greater challenge facing Bermuda' schools today than the staggering increase in children diagnosed with autism. School budgets don't grow nearly as rapidly as the number of children classified as having special needs. Thanks to a greater awareness of autism over the last decade, parents demand more than basics — they want intensive services that offer the best chance to rescue their child from a lifetime of disability.

Founders of the Bermuda Autism Support and Education Society (BASE) and Tomorrow's Voices, Thea Furbert and Trish Crow spoke to Tricia Walters from The Royal Gazette about the issues facing education, and what needs to be done to ensure children with autism spectrum disorders mainstream into the school system.

Ms Crow and Ms Furbert both agree that early intervention is critical and the more hours devoted to learning, the better. Unfortunately in Bermuda resource of qualified, trained staff is sorely lacking, especially in speech therapy.

Ms Furbert adds: "Our system is overwhelmed with children with learning disabilities and there just isn't enough staff or funding."

"For autistic children aged two to five, 30 to 40 hours a week of intensive speech therapy is needed," Ms Crow elaborates. Unfortunately this is not the case in Bermuda where these children are lucky to spend 30 minutes to an hour a week with a speech therapist.

Why? "There are just enough therapists in Bermuda to carry the burden of dealing with the 60 children on their portfolio. Even the private speech therapists have a two to three year waiting list to get in to see them," Ms Crow adds. "And even then they can only give you an hour a week."

As for autism, there is currently no learning support in schools: "Learning support works with all children who have any sort of learning difficulty. But one learning support teacher can cover up to three schools and there may be 30 to 40 students per school that need it. That's a big load on them and they do the best they can, but it's too much," Ms Crow says.

She points out that through Tomorrow's Voices they wanted to give autistic children in Bermuda the necessary intensive therapy they need to prepare them for school, but more needs to be done once the child enters the public school system.

She warns parents of autistic children that their "battle begins" once they enter school: "If you thought it was hard before... just wait. Now you have other people who are saying they are going to do things for your child, but you can't accept that that is going to happen. You have to be more involved to make sure what they say will be done, is being done."

She adds: "The system is overwhelmed and it's very easy for children to fall through the cracks if there isn't someone advocating for them."

Ms Furbert adds: "I have high expectations. A typical child walks through the school door and there's a curriculum set up for them and everything is in place. For my child it should not be any different. Things need to be set up for him and the way he learns.

"Schools need to know how he learns and it means prepping the school and teachers before the time, what his characteristics are and what the expectations are," she says, adding that it's important to ensure that their children's schools deliver the services spelt out in the child's Individual Education Plan (IEP), the all-important document that drives the education of every "disabled" student.

One benefit of having a child attend Tomorrow's Voices — the early intervention centre — is that the child's therapists do go to school with them. "We want to be able to give schools the opportunity to understand how our children learn and the therapist help them see this."

Ms Crow explains that autism affects one in 150 children and is not a single ailment but a complex collection of behaviours that generally surface around age two.

Children can have a wide range of abilities, and the diagnosis runs along a spectrum, reflecting the child's level of cognitive and language impairment. Children with autism typically have problems with social interaction, and they engage in repetitive, seemingly obsessive routines.

However, by working with these children from a young age, therapists, parents and schools, can help children with autism "overcome" some of these social challenges.

"Right now we figure there are between 400 and 500 people of various ages on Island who have autism. In another ten years that number might triple," Ms Crow says. "We just want something in place to ensure that these children and their parents don't struggle the way we did."

Their greatest challenge: funding and finding trained therapists. "Our hope and vision for Tomorrow's Voices and for the Island, is that eventually we will all work together with the Department of Education and Department of Health to provide these children with well-rounded whole-person therapy."

There are currently four children receiving on-one-one intensive therapy at Tomorrow's Voices, but there are several children on the waiting list and without trained therapists and the necessary funding, the centre cannot grow.