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November 20, 2001
National Child Day is here
– but will children with special needs be celebrating?
Ottawa – The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) today marked National Child Day with the release of a report highlighting the difficulties and barriers facing children with special needs – problems which should be diminishing, given the Prime Minister’s public commitment to Canada’s children in the last Speech from the Throne, but which in fact remain daunting.
Children with special needs are those with physical disabilities, chronic conditions, intellectual disabilities, emotional problems, activity limitations or learning disabilities. Approximately 21% of children aged 6 to 11 have special needs. The report Children and Youth with Special Needs reveals that children with special needs run the risk of being socially excluded from many opportunities that the majority of Canadian children take for granted.
"While Article 23 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children with disabilities have the right to enjoy full and decent lives, our report shows that in Canada this opportunity is not enjoyed by all children with special needs," said Marcel Lauzière, Executive Director of the CCSD.
"Most troubling in these findings is the association between low income and children with special needs," said Louise Hanvey, author of the report. Among its key findings, the report shows that children with special needs:
miss more school, change schools more often and perceive themselves as not doing well in school; face barriers including inadequate funding for community-based services (such as educational, recreational and social services), an inability on the part of communities to provide supports and negative attitudes among the public and some professionals; are frequently barred from participating in activities due to the inaccessibility of facilities and a lack of transportation (children in rural communities being particularly hard hit by this).
Children and Youth with Special Needs was written by Louise Hanvey, Project Director of The Progress of Canada’s Children. Findings in Children and Youth with Special Needs are based on new survey research by the CCSD and new analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY).
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Children and Youth with Special Needs - Related Material
Canadian Council on Social Development,
190 O'Connor Street, Suite 100,
Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 2R3
Tel: (613) 236-8977, Fax: (613) 236-2750, Web: www.ccsd.ca, Email: council@ccsd.ca
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