Special needs groups
Special needs groups which are given priority of access to child care services include
children who have a continuing disability including intellectual, sensory, or physical
impairment, or parent(s) with a continuing disability; children referred because of the
risk of abuse or neglect; children of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander families; and
children from families with a non-English-speaking background, including children
where tlie first language of one or both parents is not English.
There is little comprehensive data on the special needs characteristics of children in
informal care and their parents except some information on the birthplace of parents in
the ABS Child Care Survey 1990.
Very little data on either the special needs characteristics of children attending
preschools or their parents are collected by State or Territory governments, even by
those which contribute additional funding for defined special needs groups. The South