Vientiane - Post Report Question and Answers
What accommodations do schools make for special-needs kids?
If your child has special learning needs, none of the schools here seem to be able to accommodate. - Mar 2024
This is a work in progress in Laos. My recommendation is that families work with the schools to see how/if they can accommodate. - Oct 2018
During our time we outsourced a speech pathologist and occupational therapist for our son. VIS administration and the teacher were very willing to work with both therapists and myself to 1) offer a room for the sessions to be held during school at a time when work would not be too heavily missed and 2) come up with a plan of action. From their website: VIS serves a diverse community and therefore provides some limited services to students with mild learning difficulties. Defining "mild" is difficult and depends on many factors. A general definition for VIS is that a student with a mild learning difficulty can access the regular curriculum with; some limited or short term additional adult intervention, some limited additional time to compete tasks, or some limited adjustment to expectations. Learning difficulties are beyond mild when a student: requires a separate programme of instruction, needs significant ongoing adult intervention to access the curriculum is unable to meet the requirements of the programme for a sustained period Children can experience mild learning difficulties for a variety of reasons and the school will make accommodations where it is possible. Whether VIS can provide a suitable programme with support or not will be determined by considering information provided by previous schools, parents, external agencies and professionals and in-school assessments. Our programmes are challenging and are designed to meet the needs of college-bound students, and the context of the programme will be considered in assessing the likely success of the student. The basis for the decision will be in the best interest of the student and whether the school can provide a programme in which the child is likely to be successful. As partners in the education of your child, we seek to consider all relevant information during the admission process. - Jan 2014
