Catherine De Padua was a trainer and facilitator by profession. For more than two decades, she was in the business of developing and grooming leaders to reach their potential.
Then, five years ago, the road she charted took a sharp turn—at her command.
You see, Catherine has two special needs children. Her eldest son is gifted with very high IQ and her daughter has Down syndrome.
Because both of them were on the IQ score bell curve, education was a chore to her and both her children. They could not fit in and were often ostracised by either their teachers or their schoolmates.
When her son was little, Catherine realised that he processed thoughts and conducted himself differently from other children. He learned concepts much faster and found himself bored very quickly.
When it was time to enter primary school, Catherine enrolled him in a Chinese medium school because she wanted her children to be exposed to different languages. Unfortunately, she said that it was one of the biggest mistakes she has made.
“They failed to recognise him as a child who is different and applied the same teaching strategy across the board. He ended up being reprimanded in school for fidgeting and getting distracted when lessons were ongoing, which he was not used to, and it terrified him. It became so traumatic for him that he started having nightmares and created excuses to escape school,” she shared.
“The one incident that broke the camel’s back was when I dropped him off in school and was driving off, he came running up to my car crying his heart out, saying he didn’t want to stay,” she recalled.
They took him out of the national school and started exploring alternative education. He managed to enter a homeschool system and completed the first six years of education in four years. Then, it was time to enter secondary school, but he was too young to be enrolled in any.
Most international schools Catherine approached were not keen to get him on board their secondary education. It didn’t sit well for Catherine to let her son continue primary school for fear that he would disrupt classes because he was bored.
She finally found an international school that sympathised with her predicament and allowed her son to take an entrance exam to enter secondary education. At age ten, he entered Year Seven. He went on to finish his A Levels at 17.
She knew that getting her daughter, who has Down syndrome, into a school would be worse, so she started early. She managed to enrol her into the same international school her older brother was studying in.
Unfortunately, the parents of her daughter’s classmates did not think it was a good idea. These parents, with the help of a lawyer, held a petition at the school premises for her to be removed from the school.
It was a good thing the teachers stood up for her, and she could continue schooling there.
But then, it unfortunately went further downhill. The children started being mean to her, bullying her and reducing her to selective mutism.
After a few years of schooling, Catherine realised that she must take her out of the system so she can learn in a safer environment.
At age 50, Catherine went back to university to take a course on special needs education. After graduating, she opened her own centre to cater to those who are neurodivergent.
The Ups and Downs
With a proper certification in special education, she took the leap of faith to start a centre. Though she had limited experience, her daughter was the inspiration she needed to make it happen.
After renting a multi-purpose hall for a few months only to find that it was not suitable for the children, she officially started her centre, Oaktree Resource Centre, in 2017.
Her centre was growing when COVID-19 hit—and if teaching a non-neurodivergent child online was difficult, those who are neurodivergent presented a new set of challenges.
However, she pressed on. At the same time, she was seeking to set up her centre according to the local authority guidelines.
The situation got tougher as more and more students opted out of the program due to online learning, and she had to dip into her savings to keep the centre afloat. At one point, she told her daughter that she was going to give up and close her centre.
“My daughter was very upset when I told her about my plans. She told me I must not close the centre because the centre was for her benefit,” Catherine said.
She took it as a sign to press on.
Changing the Lives of the Neurodivergent
Because she had an instructional design background, she used what she knew to design a curriculum that she believes will bring out the best in her special children.
Now, neurodivergence includes those with autism, Asperger’s syndrome, dyslexia, dyscalculia, epilepsy, hyperlexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and Tourette syndrome (TS) and having them all together in one space can prove to be overwhelming. Nevertheless, she wanted to have a space where parents of neurodivergent children can find a place to grow and learn.
Many such centres prefer not to focus on academics as most of them are regarded as very slow learners and may “never catch up”.
Catherine, however, remains optimistic.
“I am one who believes that you will never know if you never try.”
– Catherine De Padua
“Hence, I introduced this academic learning that comprises various subject topics, literacy, numeracy, science, geography, as well as Bahasa Malaysia as a second language. We also introduce thematic topics and other general themes every month.”
Other than academics, Catherine’s employers, who consist of early childhood specialists, special needs specialists and experts in exclusive fields, plan activities and group play to aid their social skills. Sometimes, it can be very simple games like musical chairs which took them two months to teach as the children cannot understand the concept of rules and taking turns.
Despite the difficulty in playing even simple games, Catherine’s school managed to put up a stage performance.
“We created the whole Jungle Book scene and those children who are very verbal became the narrators and others who were not verbal acted out the different animal movements.
“The main objective is about teaching them competence, their self-worth, and the fact that they had the courage and confidence to just step on the stage,” she said.
Other areas they emphasise include living skills, music and movement, emotional regulation and personal hygiene.
Because special needs children need special care, there is a low instructor-to-student ratio of a maximum of 1:5. They are currently operating at a 2:5 ratio.
Teachers are also given time off when needed to recuperate and build relationships with each other so the team is able to cover each other when it gets difficult to manage a child.
Community Awareness
Though there is more awareness about neurodivergent people, there are still some out there who regard it as a disease or a curse.
However, Catherine has developed the attitude when attacks from the public (that include bullying, stares and outward actions to remove her child) do not have to be offensive to her. Through this process of bringing up her children, she explained that she has grown very strong to stand her ground and not worry about how people look, talk or act toward her family.
“At our centre, we operate based on faith, hope and love and we hope parents can do that too.
“First, we need to have faith in them that they can do better, then comes hope which drives us to love them. If everyone can apply these basic three principles, I believe that our kids will be in a very good place,” she said.
Catherine says that she sees more acceptance today than a decade ago, although it’s still a very, very small number. If parents believe that their children may be neurodivergent, she hopes that they will not delay in getting their children checked with a child psychologist.
“The earlier they get treatment, the better their quality of life will be in the future. Parents may want to live in denial but it is detrimental to their child’s learning. If they are slow learners, they must start much earlier than the rest,” she said.
Parents of neurodivergent children may want to give them a ‘normal life’, but they can only live the most normal and fulfilled life when their needs are met.
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