ABSTRACT
This chapter examines parents’ experiences of arranging pre-school education, taking Portage and pre-school playgroups as examples of available choices. Many Portage workers are parents dependent on their own experiences of educating a handicapped child, and they are usually represented on management committees of services receiving minimal public funds. The International Portage Conference in Ocho Rios, Jamaica in 1992 provided a battleground for these differences, heightened by the rift between the academics and Portage providers in developing countries. Tension was heightened by the announcement by the Wisconsin delegates at the conference that they had abandoned the Portage checklists, replacing them by a systemic approach to the whole family in assessing needs. The pre-school playgroups movement has its roots in the dearth of public nursery school provision. The competing demands of corrective therapy influenced decisions about using playgroups. Small numbers of children with cerebral palsy make use of Portage and preschool playgroups.
