– Shall we play a little puzzle? No? Maybe we should build a bit with duplo? Look here! An employee at the kindergarten at Høybråten in Oslo tries hard to get in touch with the little boy sitting next to her. Samuel struggles with interaction with others. Here, an employee tries to get in touch with him. Photo: Ingvild Edvardsen / news Four-year-old “Samuel” does not answer. He hums while slightly moving a red toy helicopter. Around him there is a high noise level. More children want attention. – Absolutely terrible Samuel’s name is actually something else. The mother wants him to be anonymised because she feels that their environment does not accept differences. Samuel is waiting in line to be evaluated for autism. He hardly speaks and shows little interest in other children, says the mother. In a decision from the Stovner district in Oslo, it is stated that, among other things, he needs to be screened in a separate room with an adult in order to develop interaction with other people. In the decision, he is granted 16 hours of special educational help according to a section in the Kindergartens Act. The decision also states that an adult with special skills must provide assistance. Every week the law is broken, because Samuel does not get the follow-up hours he is entitled to. The district is simply unable to meet the need in the kindergartens in the east of Oslo. Samuel would have spent many hours in a separate room to rehearse. Here he is lying on the floor with a toy helicopter. Photo: Ingvild Edvardsen / news – It is absolutely terrible. These are the weakest children. They are certainly the ones who need it the most, says director of the kindergarten, Linda Therese Karlsen. Karlsen says that when she started as board in 2018, there were no children with a decision on special educational help in the kindergarten. – Now we are up to six, and more are on the way. Board member Linda Therese Karlsen says both the children with the decision and the rest of the children’s group lose out because the help does not come. Photo: Roy Pettersen / news – There has been an increase in autism among children, do you notice it? – Yes, we are getting more and more people who have either already been diagnosed, or who are caught when they come to the nursery. Several thousand hours The proportion of young children diagnosed with autism in Norway has increased sharply in recent years. Children of immigrants are overrepresented in the statistics. Scientists have no clear answer as to why. At Ahus, which is the local hospital for the districts of Stovner, Grorud and Alna in the east of Oslo, the number of pre-school children receiving the diagnosis has increased sevenfold in the last 15 years. The increase has led to long queues for examinations and to a battle for special places in schools, including in Oslo. That more children need special educational help is well felt in the kindergartens in Groruddalen. This applies both to children with autism and children with other types of difficulties. The problem is described in several public documents: In August and September, 41 children in the district of Stovner alone missed 3,800 hours of special education. This is what the State Administrator writes in an order sent to the district. Earlier this year, the district of Grorud received criticism in a report from the Municipal Audit Office. According to the report, there is a risk that children do not always get their approved lessons and the district lacks an overview of lessons that have not been completed. In their own analyzes of the budgets for the next few years, both districts describe a demanding situation with many children who need special educational help. District director in Stovner district, Anna Ryymin, admits to news that the district has significant challenges in fulfilling the decisions on special educational help for children. This has created an increased burden for parents and children, writes Ryymin in an email. – We work actively to ensure that the children get the special educational help they are entitled to, but the increase in decisions, especially from 2022 to 2023, has made it difficult to meet all needs. District director in Stovner district, Anna Ryymin, says the resources are not enough. Photo: BENJAMIN A. WARD She also points out that there are limited resources, and that it is expected that the number of children with decisions on special educational help will increase further. Ryyim does not want to answer how many adopted children have autism. – We do not comment on diagnoses because it is the child’s needs that govern the decisions, not the diagnosis. – Increasing differences in Oslo Outside the nursery, Samuel’s mother has come to pick him up. When news asks what she thinks about the situation, she starts to cry. – As a mother, I cannot provide this help. I am not a professional and feel that we are completely alone. He is starting school soon so this is really bothering me. Samuel’s mother receives support from the mother of another child with a decision in the nursery. Nor does this child get all the lessons he is entitled to. Photo: Ingvild Edvardsen / news She tells about an active and good boy who is interested in basketball, swimming, trips and books. She says he understands a lot, but that language inhibits him and she fears for the future if he doesn’t get help. – He will be let down. He will be behind linguistically and socially, she says. news has spoken to employees in kindergartens, the health care system and in the support system, who say that the challenges apply to the whole of Groruddalen. Among them is PPT (Pedagogic-psychological service). The PPT observes children in the kindergarten and gives advice on special educational help. – The number of children with autism spectrum disorders has increased drastically, and we are concerned that the budgets in Groruddalen are not sufficient, says educational-psychological adviser Tora Bøhler Monsrud. Tora Bøhler Monsrud in PPT, says the lack of resources is particularly serious in parts of the city exposed to living conditions. Photo: Privat When a child receives an expert assessment from PPT, it is the district’s responsibility to make decisions and carry out the special educational support. Own support educators are employed for this purpose. Bøhler Monsrud says that the nurseries in many cases end up using up their own staffing or using substitutes. – Such a solution is not straightforward. Children with major needs, such as autism spectrum disorders, need systematic measures. The staff in the kindergartens do not have the time or expertise to provide enough support on their own, and there is a lack of support educators. She believes the lack of resources is particularly serious in neighborhoods with poor living conditions. – This increases the differences in the childcare facilities in Oslo, and we are concerned about the consequences for the children and their families. Samuel does not thrive with a lot of noise in the nursery Photo: Ingvild Edvardsen / news Does not want to eat Inside the nursery at Høybråten it is mealtime. The adults try to get Samuel to sit at the table with the others, but he is clearly frustrated and runs away. One of the employees calms Samuel down by the windows. Photo: Ingvild Edvardsen / news – He gets restless and can hurt himself. He needs someone to care for him, says director Linda Therese Karlsen. She says Samuel does not eat when there is a lot of noise and unrest and that he should ideally have been taken out of the ward. For two hours each day, Samuel has an extra adult with him for so-called facilitation. It is about him needing help to cope with the day of kindergarten itself, such as getting food. The hours with support pedagogue and learning should have come on top of this. This afternoon there are only two employees in the department. – What is happening now is that there will be chaos. There is one adult who will organize the meal for the other 17 children, says Karlsen. It takes time before Samuel finds his composure and manages to eat a bit of his slice of bread. Photo: Roy Pettersen / news She agrees that the situation contributes to reinforcing the differences in Oslo. – There are many resource-poor families in the area who need us in the nursery to shout loudly on their behalf. There are few who complain. They do not know the system and they may not understand what the decision is about. – You make rice for yourself when they come over to school. Then they have to spend millions to bring in these children and then it is often too late, says the director. Pays herself Samuel’s mother says that she has adapted her working situation to be able to meet her son’s needs better. – I run to the nursery when I finish work. I never go anywhere else. She has dug deep into her wallet to help her son. She recently took him to a private speech therapist, which costs NOK 1,243 an hour, but she says it is difficult to find when the available hours are often in the middle of working hours. – I cannot wait for public assistance. The speech therapist says Samuel has a lot of potential. He just needs a little help. When one of the “Blime songs” is played, Samuel breaks into a dance in the kindergarten. The mother hopes he will have a good life with the right help. Photo: Ingvild Edvardsen / news Read the answers from the district of Stovner and Grorud: District director in the district of Stovner, Anna Ryymin: – How do you comment on the findings from the Statsforvalteren? – The district recognizes that we have significant challenges in implementing decisions, which has created an increased burden for parents and children. We work actively to ensure that the children receive the special educational help they are entitled to, but the increase in decisions, especially from 2022 to 2023, has made it difficult to meet all needs. We have implemented several temporary measures, such as raising the skills of employees and reorganizing special educational support, but it is still difficult to achieve full effectuation due to limited resources. We are in dialogue with both the municipal audit and the state administrator about the situation, and we are working on drawing up a plan to close the discrepancies, with the hope of improvement by 2025. – How many children of kindergarten age have a decision on special educational help in the district? – As of September 2024, 130 children of kindergarten age have a decision on special educational help. This figure has increased steadily, especially in the period from 2022 to 2023, where we saw a significant increase in the number of hours per week. We expect the number to increase further, as more expert assessments are being processed. – The increase in children with autism in recent years, how does that play a role? – The district decides on special educational help based on the child’s needs, and this is done regardless of diagnoses. PPT provides expert assessments that form the basis of the decisions. It is the child’s individual needs that govern what help they get, not the diagnosis. This also applies to assessments of the need for facilitation in the kindergarten provision according to Section 37. District director in the district of Grorud, Ayub Tughra: – news is right when they write that there has been a large increase in the number of children with major complex and special difficulties in kindergarten age. This is particularly noticeable in certain areas of Oslo. Bodel Grorud has seen this tendency over some time. The district therefore has a great need to find new solutions and add new skills to all our employees, so that each individual child will have their unique needs covered and at the same time the individual will feel included in the community with the other children. Bodel Grorud has sufficient staffing to comply with all decisions on special educational assistance. In the face of this new and more complex challenge in the kindergartens, many employees have responded that we have too few staff. We take this very seriously. The district is in the middle of a process where all employees are involved in development work to increase the total capacity and competence among our employees. Children with major special needs benefit from being met by a uniform staff group with a high level of competence to meet the children’s needs throughout the duration of their stay and not just for the set number of hours in a decision. Therefore, guidance and skills development is carried out for all employees, and not just for the support staff. Bodel Grorud has drawn up a quality and competence plan for the kindergartens with this as its aim, we carry out all decision lessons individually and at system level (both in small groups, in children’s groups and as guidance for staff). Over several years, we have worked to reduce time spent on bureaucracy and case management around children with special needs. In that case, we have not focused on keeping records of hours, but rather on providing the help the child needs. This is commented on in the municipal auditor’s report and the district has introduced measures in this area. Autism Autism is a developmental disorder that lasts a lifetime. People with autism struggle with social interaction and communication, may have repetitive and rigid behavior and limited areas of interest. There are large individual differences in people with autism. That is why the term “autism spectrum” is used today. The term “childhood autism” is used when the symptom picture is extensive. Development before the age of three deviates from normal. “Asperger’s syndrome” differs from childhood autism in that linguistic and cognitive development is not delayed. Research has shown that genes play an important role in the development of autism. There is currently limited knowledge about environmental factors as the cause. Advanced age of the parents, certain medications and infections that affect the fetus during pregnancy can be important. Sources: Helsenorge, Autismeforeningen, Statped, ICD-10 Published 11.11.2024, at 20.43
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Brings in more kindergarten children with autism. Unable to help everyone who is struggling – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
