Schools 'failed to help my boy'

DUBAI // The mother of an eight-year-old boy with speech problems says schools in Dubai fail to help pupils with special needs.

The mother says the boy's current school threatened to ask him to leave and insists the family pay for a shadow teacher to help him.

The family's difficulties began when another school refused to admit their son after an assessment showed he had severe emotional and social difficulties. His speech problems only became apparent as he was about to join his current school.

He started to receive speech therapy but the parents say the clinic to which they took him was poorly run.

"Our son started going to a new speech therapist who saw him for nearly a year and followed the initial speech evaluation in terms of goals set," the mother says.

"However, I didn't see any major changes except that now he was stammering along with having poor vocabulary and expression."

* Colin Simpson