Sara began to notice that her daughter Cataleya, still a few months old, stared into space, did not demand attention, could spend hours playing alone without anyone being by her side, constantly touched her fingertips, did not point and had a significant language delay.
Sara studied Early Childhood Education and although she did not finish her degree, she has enough knowledge to realize that her little girl was not going at the pace of children her age “but since each one develops in a different way”, she thought that over time she would catch up. , although it was not. In addition, she has a nephew who was born on the same day as her daughter “and although comparisons are hateful”, she saw that the little one did things that her cousin took a year or never did.
The teachers at the children’s center she attended, in La Orotava, also detected that something was happening with Cataleya. She “didn’t understand why she had to do certain tasks or play a certain game. Children with ASD are not born with the instruction manual of other children, they have to be programmed, so to speak, because what is logical for us is not so logical for them”, explains Sara.
She photographed the unusual behaviors that caught her attention in ‘Cata’, to expose them to the specialists when she had a consultation and go “forward”, such as choosing small toys, getting under the table and arranging them on a beam.
At the 18-month check-up, he was given a survey that turned out to have a series of positive items related to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a series of developmental disabilities caused by differences in the brain that cause problems in social interaction and communication, which is why she was referred to the Neurology Service of the Hospital Universitario de Canarias (HUC) to corroborate it, since in most cases the symptoms appear in the first years of life.
From that moment on, a long process began, interrupted by the pandemic, which culminated in March of this year with a confirmation that did not take Sara by surprise: Cataleya had ASD. “It is a very long diagnosis because it requires the involvement of other professionals, such as otorhinolaryngologists, both from the HUC and the corresponding CAE.” In addition, it entails carrying out complex tests for the minor.
One of them is that of evoked potentials, which allows the measurement of the time it takes for the brain to respond to various stimuli from the different senses, including sight, hearing and touch, and for which it is necessary to keep the girl awake until dawn and that she is in “optimal” conditions; she cannot have been sick or runny nose days before, something “almost impossible” for a person of that age, says Sara.
As the young mother already suspected a possible ASD, she enrolled the little girl in speech therapy sessions, anticipating that the following year she would start school.
Cataleya is a very cheerful 4-year-old girl who in September 2021 began the first year of kindergarten at a public school near her home, the same one her older brother attends. After speaking with the counselor and after he met her daughter, she confirmed to Sara that she could do an ordinary enrollment without any problem.
Cataleya is lucky enough to have a permanent speech therapist at the center but she still needs support and occupational therapy to relate better to other children and in other areas, in which it is difficult for her to integrate into the games of others if she does not know them.
Therapies carried out outside of school since, unlike other autonomous communities, in the Canary Islands Social Security does not pay for them. In his case and for the moment, two speech therapy sessions of half an hour a week are sufficient, but there are children with more serious prognosis and who also require psychomotricity or other types of specific treatments that are very expensive.
Most families cover this expense with money from scholarships granted by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training for students with Specific Educational Support Needs (NEAE). This school year, close to 200 have not yet perceived it, forcing their sons and daughters to abandon therapies because they do not have sufficient resources to pay for them, despite the serious setback that this entails if they are suspended, since many cabinets, aware of this reality, They allow you to start in September and not pay them until the money is received.
That was what happened to Cataleya in April. He had to stop going to the psycho-pedagogical cabinet since his two parents did not have (and do not have) a job and they did not receive any type of help that would allow them to face the 120 monthly costs that their sessions cost, for the moment.
Sara verified an important regression in the little girl. She “was helpless because she wanted to communicate and could not do it” so she decided to ask for help from several members of her family who pay for a weekly session. “A favor that she -she underlines- would not have been necessary if the scholarships had arrived on time”.
The ‘extra’ attention that she must give Cataleya on a daily basis makes her compatible with raising her other two children, also minors, studying, and looking for a job. As if that were not enough, like other mothers and fathers with whom she shares a wazap group that includes 200 people, she has another open front with which to fight since August of last year that seems to have no solution: scholarships.
In his case, he presented them at the beginning of the school year, but he did not provide all the required documentation that appears in the bases of the call when he processed the request and on Friday, December 17, he received a request to correct it and present the missing documents. within ten days.
The school counselor made a report with the type of help her daughter needs “and she moved heaven and earth” to contact the area inspector since a report from her is also needed in which it is verified that the minor needs the aid. On December 23, she presented, in person, all the documentation with entry registration at the Ministry of Education.
She remained calm but time began to pass and she saw how there were families that were approved for the scholarship and it was not her case. Suddenly, in March of this year, she was told that she had been denied for not submitting her documentation despite having submitted it “in a timely manner.”
On March 31, he resubmitted an appeal for reconsideration in which he reattached all the documents and receipts from the entry records, and he still has not received a response.
No news from Tenerife
“From the Ministry the only thing they tell us is that the scholarships have been sent to Madrid and from Madrid, that nothing has arrived from Tenerife”. And this is confirmed in the consultation that one of the affected mothers made electronically directly to the Ministry to which this newspaper had access. The reply, dated May 26, reads as follows: “After the inquiry was made by the Resources Service of the Subdirectorate General for Scholarships, Study Grants and Educational Promotion, we inform you that your appeal for replacement or complementary documentation has not been received. from the Scholarship Unit of Santa Cruz de Tenerife”.
When consulting on this matter, from the Ministry they clarify that these scholarships are called and resolved by the Ministry and that in relation to the resolution times of the same, it moves in the same terms to resolve them as in past calls, that is, not there are delays compared to other courses.
They also add that there was a computer incident in the application that was notified to the Ministry the same day it took place and was also resolved.
Finally, they recall that “all the applications for the NEAE scholarships have been processed since April (the last files are those that required correction and were subject to a new review), within the usual deadlines, and that those who meet the requirements stipulated in the call will receive the aid”.
In the specific case of Sara, from the Ministry they indicate that after presenting the appeal “she will receive a new notification from the Ministry and is waiting for this state department to compare her economic data”.
No one has contacted her so far to inform her of her situation. “There are families that have received a response but have not yet received the money despite the fact that after 45 days they already have to have it deposited,” she adds.
The only thing that those affected ask for is that from the Ministry “they recognize that it has been an administrative failure, that they advance the payments and then settle with Madrid. It is not money that we are going to take advantage of so that our children go to study abroad, but so that they can develop their abilities, that they can go to the bathroom and know how to lower their pants to be able to urinate, ”he claims.
The truth is that Sara Martín de la Rosa is still waiting forever for her daughter’s scholarship. Meanwhile, she hopes to find a job soon and during the vacations to be able to maintain Cataleya’s therapies, “because without the reinforcement of the speech therapist, without being with the children at school and in that environment in which she is comfortable and has her routine , the recoil can be important”.
“It is impossible to process those for the next course”
Like other fathers and mothers in the same situation, Sara does not understand that those for the next academic year 2022-2023 have begun to be processed, something impossible given the requirements demanded by the Ministry. “How do they expect us to present the call if we do not have a response from the previous one and there is a section in which we have to answer whether or not we have received that scholarship before and also justify it,” asks this resident of La Orotava
