Children with Down syndrome who are deemed to have mild intellectual disabilities are to be provided with an extra two-and-a-half hours of resource teaching every week, following a 10-year campaign by parents.

Until now, children who were considered to have ‘mild' Down syndrome were not provided with any extra resources in school.

According to the Department of Education, these supports are now being provided ‘in recognition of the fact that children with Down syndrome experience a cluster of difficulties relating to this syndrome, in addition to general learning difficulties, including speech and language and developmental delays'.

However, this is just an interim measure pending the introduction of a new model of allocating additional teaching supports to children with special educational needs. It is being introduced now ‘in recognition of the length of time it will take to introduce the new resource teacher model', the department said.

The decision was welcomed by Down Syndrome Ireland (DSI), the national charity that provides support to families affected by the condition.

"This announcement brings to an end a 10-year battle that families have endured and fought so desperately to highlight and change. The unjust situation brought unnecessary stress, pressure and trauma on families and this decision, whereby now all children with Down syndrome with intellectual disabilities have access to resource hours, goes some way to alleviating that," commented DSI chief executive, Pat Clarke and DSI chairperson, Mary Doherty.

They pointed out that children and their families will no longer have to ‘bear the trauma and expense of assessments, where resources were allocated on the basis of IQ while the complex nature of Down syndrome was ignored'.

"Children with Down syndrome and their families bore the brunt of this situation, which was based more on bureaucracy rather than reality and logic, for far too long," they said.

The charity added that it remains ‘cautious in its optimism', pending the full roll-out of the new model of resource allocation for children with special needs, which was expected in September.

However, the department announced earlier this year that ‘it had not been possible to address fully some of the concerns relating to that new model, in time for it to be implemented from September 2015. The department is currently working to devise a pilot of the new model, which schools could opt into on a voluntary basis'.

"Over the next couple of years, we will pilot and then implement a new model of allocating supports that will remove the need for parents to pay for assessments, and for children to receive a diagnosis in order to receive additional teaching support. In the meantime, I have decided that the needs of children with Down syndrome are sufficient to warrant this interim allocation," explained Education Minister, Jan O'Sullivan.

Meanwhile, Mr Clarke and Ms Doherty insisted that people with disabilities, including those with Down syndrome, ‘suffered disproportionately' during the recent recession.

"Quite apart from the financial cuts that our members have suffered, there has been an inordinate deterioration in the level of services to our members due to the funding cuts to services and the HSE, that is charged by the State to provide for our members," they noted.

They thanked all of the families who campaigned so hard for the allocation of these extra resource hours for children with Down syndrome with mild intellectual disabilities.

This extra resource is available with immediate effect.

For more information on Down syndrome and DSI, click here