Professional Development

2008 Heartspring Award for Innovation and Creativity in Special Education

Aniel Redelinghuys, South Africa

Aniel Redelinghuys, is a speech-language pathologist from Pretoria, South Africa. Aniel was selected as a Heartspring Award winner in 2007, but was unable to travel to Wichita to participate in the summer session. So, we are pleased that she could join us this year.

Aniel grew up in South Africa, but left for several years to work in London, England as a speech therapist specializing in Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). Upon her return to South Africa, she faced numerous challenges while trying to educate children with autism in her homeland. She tells us that, “Services for autism are not a government priority,” and much of her efforts involves training and educating others to recognize autism and to then educate these children accordingly.

Until recently she has worked as a lecturer in the department of communication pathology at the University of Pretoria. She founded and chairs a national multi-disciplinary forum on autism, and she has provided the first training on autism for speech pathologists in the country. Aniel hopes to establish services by collaborating with other educators and to open a specialized pre-school for children with developmental disabilities including autism. Aniel also plans to start a multi-disciplinary diagnostic team for the assessment of children with autism. However, resources do not exist in South Africa and she says “funding, training and manpower will have to be obtained by establishing partnerships with national and international partners.”

Aniel recognizes that she still has much to do to help South Africa educate children with autism, though she has done much already. She describes her experience here at Heartspring as “a celebration of life.”