Individual integration and integration classes

We wanted to offer her the same opportunities as her "big sister Dörte": toddler group in our village, mother-and-child pre-tumbling . . etc., but also always aware that many things were difficult for her to learn. So physiotherapy, pre-school education and speaking therapy became an integral part of her life, too. The fact that we had two children in our family at that time with each family member expressing his own demands and wishes forced many therapeutic opportunities into the background.

Through Dörte´s and later Imke´s toddler-group still existing contacts in our village were established. In our local kindergarten Imke learned under the guidance of an additional teacher (-first financed by a special work-creation program <ABM>, later by "work instead of social aid") to play with children her age. The children of her former kindergarten still know how to take Imke as she is, are able to judge her way of communicating with them, listen to her more closely when she tells them something, because they are interested to know what she wants to tell them. After three years of kindergarten and integration we had to face the first obstacles: the new teacher of our church pre-school group which had also been attended by Imke, did not see herself in the position to take up a handicapped child.

So Imke visited the day-care and educational centre of "Lebenshilfe". First Imke caused al lot of troubles there:

Two times she locked herself in the room of the speech therapist so that a locksmith had to come to open the door.

On an outing to Bremen she ran away in a department store.

When I asked a boy of Imke´s kindergarten group how he liked school he answered that he always had to think of Imke not being in his class. He even asked why she could not go to this school, too. This confirmed me in my conviction that not only Imke profited from education based on integration but other children, as well.
The opinion of Axel Wieland, university of Oldenburg, that Imke had to be in an integration class made me visit a lot of lectures about integration classes. Especially my experience with the primary school in the Uhlandstraße in Hannover, their lessons, the learning atmosphere, the relationship between children and teachers convinced me that an integration class would be desirable for Imke as well as for the Kirchlinteln area.

During Imke´s time at he "Lebenshilfe" it proved to be very difficult to keep up the relationships with the children of her former kindergarten group. Imke´s growing liking for cake, her lack of energy and her refusal to learn anything affected our family life more and more. My own physical health became worse, our son Michael suffered from permanent inflammation of the middle-ear. Frequent visits to the doctor of Michael, our daughter Dörte and me were an integral part of our life during that year. More and more we felt that Imke did not belong to the other children in our village any longer, was standing aside.
Often the other children were already playing with friends when Imke wanted to visit them. The only permanent contact for her with the children her age was the gymnastics group for children in the school´s gym. Inspire of all the different activities in which Imke was involved in her "Lebenshilfe" group, she did not seem to be really in the "midst of life", she was standing at the edge.

When Imke had her first day of school at the primary school in Luttum everything was bright again. Her enthusiasm for everything that happened at school affected our whole family life. Everything became easier. We all shared her joy and enjoyed her. Whenever we were asked by other people in Kirchlinteln how Imke was, we could always tell them something positive. Imke showed an enormous eagerness of learning how to read, write and calculate. She became a happy, bright and independent pupil. The times of her running away had passed.

On a family-weekend in the Niels-Stensen-House in Worphausen Imke was late for our final singing. Everybody was already sitting and we had started to sing when Imke came. Smiling confidently she walked single-mindedly through the room to her chair throwing her silk-scarf over her shoulder with a casual wave of her hand. I wish I could see Imke being always like that: looking straight ahead.

A physiotherapist visiting Imke´s integration class was absolutely enthusiastic about the physical tension and the lively general condition the three Down-Syndrome children showed.
Our positive family situation at that time contributed to our decision to answer a newspaper article, which asked for new parents for a 15-months-old girl with Down syndrome. In fact, we did not want to have a "handicapped" child - but why shouldn´t we take up one with Down syndrome? Imke´s positive experience at school most probably influenced our decision to take up Nadine.

Nadine has been in our family now for almost four years and she also attends the kindergarten in Kirchlinteln having individual integration guaranteed by the new law for kindergarten and day-care centres in Lower Saxony. This form of integration is accompanied and counselled by a so-called "integration-teacher" working 12 hours a week in that kindergarten. I am glad that our local community administration and also the community council showed a positive attitude towards the integration of handicapped children in kindergarten and schools and were helpful to initiate the whole process.

I was pleased that administrators of our local community administration and our community council showed a positive attitude towards the integration of handicapped children in kindergarten and school when the first steps towards individual integration according to the law for child day-care institutions were taken.

In view of rising public discrimination hostility and even aggressive acts towards handicapped people this attitude must be regarded very positively.

In the 3rd grade Imke underwent a difficult time. Without any obvious reason she gained weight of more than ten kilograms within three months. This also affected her learning ability. Some of the things she knew in her 1st grade she was no longer able to accomplish. Specific physio-therapy and a treatment with thyrocid-hormons as well as many positive experiences in and after school with her classmates helped her to get over this difficult time. Proudly she told everybody who asked her of her school, her class and especially her math-teacher.

Now Imke attends the 6th grade in the "Orientierungsstufe" (-comprehensively taught orientation classes, grade 5 and 6, preparing for secondary schools. -) in Kirchlinteln. It is fascinating to see how strongly Imke is motivated by this new experience and how much it radiates on her daily life. Full of enthusiasm she reports of her English lessons and her homework already done all by herself while taking the dishes out of the dishwasher or sweeping the floor without being asked. Having a handicapped child one is much more scrutinised by other people than with a "normal" child. You just feel better when your daughter reacts positively on other people we meet in the street, the supermarket or in church, who try to establish contact with her. Then she is willing to tell them everything about what "is going on" at school.

In Lower Saxony children with Down syndrome are partly being cared for and educated together with "normal" children within the framework of integration projects.

Integration in day-care centres for children in Lower Saxony:

1. Therapeutic care and treatment of handicapped children in integration groups is questionable under current regulations. This care and treatment must be financially secured. If necessary financial regulations must be guaranteed by the state and legal health insurance companies to save the continuity of measures during the time of care. (Integration of ambulant help in the educational process!)
• 2. In rural areas handicapped children must often be transported over long distances. The cost for transport are no longer financed for integration groups Free transport for handicapped children must be as indisputable here as for children being bussed to "Lebenshilfe" institutions.

• 3. Integration groups are soon "full", i.e. only very few handicapped children can benefit from them, others can not. Beside centralized integration groups regional concepts must offer the chance of individual integration, where common living and learning is possible within the neighbourhood together with those children who attend the local kindergarten. Costs for transport do not incur in cases of individual integration. In combination of integration groups and individual integration these integration groups as well as the "Lebenshilfe" institutions (-and here especially early-support groups-) could take over functions comparable to those of educational support centres. Only then sensible care and support in special education is possible.

• 4. There is still one obvious disparency: single-class kindergartens cannot reduce the size of their group. Exceptions should be possible here.

• 5. On a medium-term basis cooperative forms of care should offer the first steps towards integration. Basing on existing financial regulations of special kindergartens and regular kindergartens the extent of common care of handicapped and non-handicapped children should be defined according to educational goals.

• 6. In many villages toddler-groups exist meeting three times a week for three hours. These are designed as a gradual introduction to the kindergarten for younger children (about 3 years old). The state implementing regulation (Durchführungsverordnung -DVO) concerning the law for day-care centres does not provide any measures for the financial support of handicapped children in these groups. So there have to be exeptions offering the handicapped children in these toddler-groups therapeutic pedagogical advice at least. One should also consider, in case the local community responsible for the kindergarten agrees to offer a place for the child in a regular group guaranteeing sufficient opening hours the following year, if the stiff and narrow regulations of the DVO could not be dispensed with in favour of communal integration.

Example: individual integration - a good way

In our local "Lebenshilfe" a cooperative kindergarten exists. The rush on this kindergarten is big - handicapped children have to attend a special group for at least one year before they are accepted. It was our wish to send our daughter Nadine (Down syndrome) to our local kindergarten in Kirchlinteln together with those children her age who she already knew from our local toddler-group. It is the same kindergarten our daughter Imke (Down syndrome), our son Michael and our eldest daughter Dörte also attended.
A very qualified special teacher is having an eye on Nadine´s special needs. She is employed by "Lebenshilfe" (-there she built up the early-support group before her maternal leave-) and is taking care of a further child in another regular kindergarten.
The community of Kirchlinteln being responsible for the kindergarten has a contract with "Lebenshilfe" concerning the special educational support in the local kindergarten. The special teacher is in permanent touch with "Lebenshilfe" by visiting this institution once a week. Furthermore she keeps contact with the physio-therapist and the speech therapist (both kinds of therapies are acknowledged and paid for by health insurance. We make use of them after the kindergarten hours together with Nadine). In the kindergarten the role of "Lebenshilfe" can be compared to support centres.
Nadine´s positive development to a self-confident and open-minded girl confirms the fact that she feels at home there. The kindergarten in Kirchlinteln seems to be the right place for her and is well handled in terms of special educational care.

Integration in schools in Lower Saxony

(Excerpt from: "The integration of handicapped children in the Kirchlinteln community" by Jutta Liebetruth)

A personal report of a concerned mother about integration at school describing the way of her daughter Imke having Down syndrome (The German report was published by the commissioner for handicapped people in Lower Saxony, Box 141, D-30001 Hannover).

The Excerpt:

. . . the "Orientierungsstufe" (orientation classes 5 and 6) has shown how the integration of handicapped children can reach its optimum. But we must realise that this is not the rule, yet. It must be our goal to let handicapped children participate and are our life with them. With this report I would like to encourage others to dare integration and start with it.

In Lower Saxony many handicapped children are fortunate to have the chance of playing and learning together with other children in their neighbourhood. In kindergartens and schools they are accepted as equals. Rejection or even discriminating attacks of children the same age they experience only rarely. Those children are often the mouthpiece of their parents anyway.

I am convinced that it is important for the development of human relationship and living together in our society that children in need of special support (physically, and mentally handicapped and those with a learning deficit) deserve additional assistance and support in schools of general education as far as possible and if desired by their parents.

They should not feel as if rejected but instead they could learn to assert themselves in our society in spite of their deficits. Fellow students learn to accept people being different either because of their nationality, their colour of skin, their religion, their language, or their handicap in their difference.

I am a school teacher by profession being on maternal leave because of my four children, two of them handicapped with Down syndrome. Integration has become an integral part of our family life.

Our 13 year-old daughter Imke attends the 6th grade in an integration class at the Orientierungsstufe Kirchlinteln.
Our 6 year-old daughter Nadine visits the local kindergarten on the basis of individual integration.
Our 11-year-old son Michael (not handicapped) attends an integration class in the primary school in Luttum.
Our 16 year-old daughter Dörte (not handicapped) experiences mentally and physically her sister´s way of learning and living.

In my very personal report you will hear how we managed to reach this way of integration for my children in this rural community. Alone I would never have accomplished all that. I always happened to find people who helped me to overcome obstacles and resistance.

But without our family´s permanent fight, those endless calls and talks, those numberless meetings and seminars, all this would not have been possible.

I became a member of LAG (state working group, living together - learning together), when I tried to find a place for my daughter Imke in our local kindergarten among the children of my neighbourhood.

That was 9 years ago. In fall 1995 the LAG celebrated its tenth anniversary in Hannover. Thus the LAG has been an address of reference and assistance for everything concerning integration for almost the last 10 years. It is not an inflexible and rigid organisation but consists of many engaged and active people in Lower Saxony.

There is always somebody who can give advice and assistance, be it the integration in kindergartens and schools or the consideration of new forms of professional training and jobs.

I would like to thank here all those who have supported us so far and who have put so much effort and time into this. In Kirchlinteln I received a great deal of assistance and support from members of our local administration.

But at the same time I would like to ask all not to deny us, the parents of handicapped children, further help. We need all kind of support in order to develop and improve integration in kindergartens and schools and to open up new ways in professional training and professional careers . . .

Imke´s integration class is now in the "Orientierungsstufe" Kirchlinteln

Imke likes her new school very much. She has even become more active and stronger. She really blossoms, has become livelier, can easily be motivated to learn. First of all, she absolutely wanted to write everything in cursive writing. She was able to learn this within two months (-leading her hand first and naming the letters at the same time seems to have become an integration part of her knowledge -). Only for a short time all the many new teachers and subjects, some even in other rooms, caused any problems for the three children with Down syndrome.

The mother of another girl, who was new in Imke´s class, told me that Imke had said: "I am getting better and better at school. Soon I can stay in the classroom all the time and needn’t go to the group-room anymore." Her desire to work and learn even more together with all the others of her class made me visit her in class. Her teachers convinced me of the importance working in a small group still had for her.

Especially in English lessons Imke would be taken the chance to learn the language ( - just sitting in class and not being able to understand everything would result in failure after some time - ). Her English teacher experienced some astonishing and surprizing incidents with Imke and Julia, another girl with Down syndrome in her class. When they played Four Corners, a competitive game to check vocabulary knowledge, Julia very often won. Recently, when the English alphabet was introduced and the spelling was practised in little games and with the first names of the children, surprisingly Imke was five times able to spell names correctly. Beside this there are often phases during the English lessons when the children with Down syndrome are able to participate actively.

In German Imke is especially interested in the book they read in class, "Rokal, the hunter of the Stone Age". She would prefer to read the book on her own. But I read it together with her, thus being able to read the longer and more complicated words for her and helping her with some other difficulties. I would never have believed that her teacher in needlework has been able to teach her knitting in a rather short time.

It is good to hear how much teachers and educators enjoy the handicapped children in this class. The only problems are sometimes caused by some boys and their inadequate and disturbing attitude during lessons.

Imke is very enthusiastic about her drama group, which is open for all students of the 5. and 6. grade. She also knows a great number of children from other classes, either her grade or even higher, from her time at the kindergarten and arranges times to play with them. Once Imke wanted to play with a girl of her class who I did not know and whose parents neither. They wanted to go ice-skating and her mother asked me if she had to observe anything. I told her that if they wanted to go skating to a nearby pond it would be o.k., as Imke would realise that she was not very good on skates and would take them off then. This afternoon proved to be very successful for all who were involved. When Imke´s class went on an outing recently to go skating to the indoor ice-skating hall in Bremen I expected that Imke would not take the risk again and put on her skates.

But surprisingly, incited by her classmates she took the risk and let herself being pulled across the ice with the help of teachers and classmates. Her balance became better and better and after two hours she was able to skate some meters without help.

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