Challenges Faced by Children with Special Needs in Accra and the Support Systems Available to Them and Their Families

Background: Children with special needs have longstanding physical, developmental, emotional, and behavioural problems that require attention. Caring for these children can be overwhelming, thus, support systems are needed to ease the burden and improve the quality of life of the children and their caregivers.

Aim: To examine the problems of children with special needs and identify the support systems available to them through their families, friends, governmental and non-governmental institutions.

Study Design: Cross-sectional study.

Place of Study: Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, the Special Mothers Project Group and With God Physiotherapy and Care Center, Accra, Ghana from May-June 2018

Methodology: The study was conducted in 2018 among 64 caregivers of children with special needs at the three sites using purposive sampling. A questionnaire was designed for data collection. The data were summarized using descriptive statistics.

Results: Developmental conditions encountered were cerebral palsy 24(38%), seizure disorder 15(23%), speech delay 5(8%), Down’s syndrome 3(5%), ADHD 2(3%), autism spectrum disorder 1(2%), 4(6.3%) unspecified and 10(16%) others. Caregivers reported problems with delayed development, feeding, health, speech, intellectual capacity, and behavior including social interaction. About half of the 33 respondents had some form of assistance at home. Majority of this help, (45%), came from the nuclear family. Support from friends, the church and access to specialized care was limited. While 24(42.1%) of the children were not in any school placement, 24 (42.1%) were in mainstream, 8 were in nursery/crèche and 1 was in a special school. Speech and Language therapy and physiotherapy were the most used forms of rehabilitation. Financial support from government and other institutions was limited but 42.2% had access to support groups.

Conclusions: The most significant challenge for caregivers was their child’s developmental problems. While the family remained the most dependable source of support, support groups, therapy services and school placements were also available but uptake was sub-optimal and external financial support was limited.