Children with Special Needs and Barriers to Care

The term “special needs” included all kind of diagnosis and disabilities. Special needs children may have been born with cognitive impairment, syndrome , physical illness and serious psychiatric problem. Others are may facing learning disability and developmental delay etc. According to World Health Organisation: „Disability is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. „Disability is thus not just a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person‟s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. Overcoming the difficulties faced by people with disabilities requires interventions to remove environmental and social barriers‟. When a child unable to do his daily work without assistance or can say these children need extra support and service. In India around 20 lack disable children in which 14 lack belongs to rural area because lack of paediatricians in villages and about 6 lack in cities. Such children need social, emotional, academic, and sometimes medical help. Children with special need may need help and support in everyday issues or lifetime guidance. The most important help of such children is early intervention of their full academic, social, emotional and behavior potentials. In spite of having effective interventions, a huge proportion of the population those with these disabilities do not have access to care and treatment due to some barriers. Lack of financial resources, trained personnel, facilities, stigma ( at all level of society, mental illness is associated with stigma and insult ), lack of transport service, lack of awareness about mental disorders in children as well as in adolescents and communication barrier due to patient‟s native language. Reducing communication gap within a family and society as well, providing facilities, financial aids and personnel in every corner of the country, encouraging the development of national policy on child mental health, international personnel‟s conferences should be held to share new inventions to cure, awareness campaign, school program involving parents would be the intervention to reduce barrier to care and support.