# special education primary



## sophielooijer (Feb 20, 2010)

Hello, we are considering moving to the netherlands, and have a 7 year old with ASD. we have looked into the process of puttng her into mainstream with support, which all seems ok, but we are concerned about how she will learn dutch. I learnt that all children that need to learn to speak dutch go to seperate classes, but as she is behind in her development, i wandered how this works for children with special needs. if any one can shed any light on this that would be great. 
regards sophie.:confused2:


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## Mad Amster (Aug 31, 2012)

sophielooijer said:


> Hello, we are considering moving to the netherlands, and have a 7 year old with ASD. we have looked into the process of puttng her into mainstream with support, which all seems ok, but we are concerned about how she will learn dutch. I learnt that all children that need to learn to speak dutch go to seperate classes, but as she is behind in her development, i wandered how this works for children with special needs. if any one can shed any light on this that would be great.
> regards sophie.:confused2:


I presume you mean ASD as in the Autism spectrum and not the heart defect ASD?

I'm not an expert on junior schools, I teach in a secondary school. We try and keep special needs children in mainstream education. It isn't always possible and we do have schools for special needs children. We move heaven and earth to try and keep them all in the mainstream but it isnt always possible. Most junior schools don't have enough kids that don't speak Dutch to have separate classes. I don't know how serious your daughter's needs are but most kids learn languages better when put together with native speakers. 

A year ago the government decided to close all special needs schools and put all the kids back in mainstream schools. The kids that do end up in special needs just cannot cope in a mainstream environment. 2 national 1 day strikes by teachers and students got the plan reversed.


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## sophielooijer (Feb 20, 2010)

*asd.*

Hello Thankyou,yes i did mean Autistic disoder. Our daughter in high functioning so can intergrate in mainstream, and we would prefer her to learn alongside native speakers. But were told that our eldest child would need to do 4 days a week in a school to learn to speak dutch and only one day at the chosen school. We are looking at montessori. Again we would prefer her to just start at one school and let her learn the language with other dutch children. Do we have to follow schools advise or can we just state we would prefer not to attend language classes? Regards sophie.


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