Handicapped children hampered by denial
JAKARTA (JP): The difficulties faced by mentally-handicapped children are often compounded by parental denial that a problem exists, a psychologist said on Saturday.
Parents' self-denial often means late detection of the child's condition, according to Surastuti Nurdadi of the University of Indonesia.
"Usually the problem is only detected when the child is already at school, when the teacher notices that the child is lagging behind," Surastuti told a seminar. "This is sad, because earlier stimulation could have significantly helped the child."
Surastuti, discussing a problem which affects some 700,000 mentally-handicapped children in Indonesia, was one of the speakers at a seminar on brain development of fetuses and infants.
After the seminar, held by the Jakarta branch of the Indonesian Pediatricians' Association, Surastuti told The Jakarta Post that denial or self-deception on the part of parents is caused by a strong wish to believe there is really nothing wrong with their child.
With repeated consultations, parents may eventually accept their child as he is and start learning how better to educate him. "With poor families it is impossible to refer the child to the (more expensive) special schools," said Surastuti, a staff member of the University's Applied Psychology Institute.
"If the child is only a slow learner or mildly retarded, we can refer him to regular schools, but ones in which the teachers can -- hopefully -- pay greater attention to the child concerned."
She told the seminar that a mentally-handicapped child has a better chance of survival if he can be taught what behavior is tolerated by his surroundings. She cited toilet training as an example.
"If not, the child will be dependent on others forever," she added.
The first part of the seminar focused on nutrition. A nutritional biochemist from the World Health Organization, Ricardo Uauy-Dagach, spoke of recent progress in the search for the perfect infant formula.
He said new formula has overcome the main shortcoming of existing formulas, namely the lack of docosahexaenoic acid, a fatty acid essential for the development of the fetus' brain.
The new formula was introduced earlier this year in Europe and Japan, Uauy-Dagach said. He said breast feeding was still very important in countries like Indonesia, in which baby formula is still expensive for many people.
While the new improved formula is not yet on the Indonesian market, the head of the Jakarta branch of the Pediatrician's Association, Hardiono D. Pusponegoro, said the existing products for babies who cannot be breastfed are safe, provided that parents administer them properly and in accordance with medical advice.
He added that, under the Indonesian campaign on breastfeeding, all maternity clinics and hospitals must let mothers feed their babies first, before the infants are introduced to formula. (anr)