Sakshum ... cultivating dreams

2010-12-22T23:54:00.004+05:30

Yoga is an excellent system for promoting healthy development. It is a preventive medicine as it facilitates the overall wellness and health. Yoga is a form of exercise, meditation, and breathing practices from Indian roots to bring harmony to the mind, body and soul.

It is always advisable to start yoga in childhood as young bodies and minds are prone to learning new things easily and quickly. With the help of Yoga, they can become more coordinated and flexible. Yoga is safe foe every one but for children it should be done under supervision or by qualifies yoga trainer.

The benefits of yoga can be defined in 3 major areas.

Physical Benefits

Yoga helps in developing the flexibility and strength. Regular yoga poses train the child for coordination, agility, stamina and focus. There are many poses in yoga and they have different role. It helps in developing strong, flexible and healthy bodies where a healthy mind resides. Yoga improves the digestion and circulatory system. It helps in elongation of spine which assist in having good posture and better concentration. Healthier and physical strong body has better immune system which helps the child to have better immunity for fight the physical and mental stress

Stress Reduction

Because of the competitive world, most children are under great stress. Endless homework, tough competition, student relationship and the pressure from peers and parents are major cause of stress. They have to learn to deal with various problems. Fortunately, with Yoga, children can learn ways to relax and get control of stress in their lives. It negates the negative effects of the stress.

Self-discipline

Yoga means connecting to God. A child's mind has a pure mind. The yoga helps in developing the discipline by organising the sleep cycle. The child becomes more positive and self confident. It helps them to channelize their energy in more productive way. Yoga increases the emotional stability and quotient. It increases the concentration and self awareness and hence overall learning improves.

Yoga for children with special needs

By teaching self awareness, self control, and concentration, yoga can also help to manage children who have been diagnosed with ADHD - attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, autism and learning difficulty. Yoga has also been used to develop strength and coordination in children with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other childhood disability.

Many studies have shown that many children who practice Yoga, especially those with problems such as ADHD, are able to concentrate for longer periods of time. It benefits the overall development and also helps them to adjust with the transitions, which is important for the children with special needs. In an era of children acquiring conditions and diseases, proper breathing, exercise and deep relaxation may be the powerful healing force.

A best gift for a child is to teach himYOGA.

Eye contact...

2010-12-08T20:31:00.001+05:30

Children with specturm diagnosis have difficulty in eye contact and theory suggests that human eye contact increases the anxiety among them. but, eye contact is a part of development as it assist in communication and socialization. Many a time it is difficult to get the eye contact from the child with ASD even if you physically prompt.

The main idea to promote eye contact is creating a need for child. this indirectly enhance the communication, verbal or non-verbal. The simple line is always remembered "create needs and provide opportunities to child".
for eg: tickle the child for 3 times with counting numbers and then stop. Since the child likes the act he would look at you or ask for more. This example was giving opportunity by tickling him and then creating a need by stopping the activity. once, he looks at you, appreciate and reinforce by giving him a kiss or smile.

Use verbal command often "look at my face". However. it is found that "look at my face" is reinforcing than look into my eyes. The step is data collection. Maintain a record for how often the child looks at you on demand. If sometime the child does not follow use the physical prompt to encourage him to look at you.

The timing for eye contact and persistence is important. If he is engaged in other activities it is difficult for him to acknowledge the command. Prompt him physically or wait for his involvement.

Early Stimulation II

2010-11-17T20:10:00.006+05:30

Early visual stimulation

Young babies are attracted by bright, irregular shaped or patterned objects. Irregular shaped objects enhance the contour, depth perception and discrimination function of vision. It is good to use patterned objects and surrounding to enhance visual functions like bed sheets and dresses. Use of large, bright, red objects in the line of the vision is suggestive. Move child hands for hand regard and midline orientation. Expose the child to various areas of house and let the child interact with family members during meal time and play time.

Mirror shadow attracts the child. Expose the child to mirror and assist him to watch himself and tap on the floor. Mirror should be placed 7-8 inches over head or in front of the child to avoid accident and this placement enhance the visual function. This activity is important for body image development. Body image is important for efficient use of the body parts in space.

Large sheets of colour paper or gift wrappers attract the child not only for visual awareness but also for movement. Place the plastic sheet under the child. The child gets excited to move when he hears the crepitus sound of sheet while moving.

Picnic chale ham

2010-11-16T20:17:00.017+05:30

When I was a kid, there was one thing that i hated to the limit - to stay at home. I always wanted to go out to a new place different from my regular school and home. I wanted to go to places where I could do those wonder things which i had heard in stories. I wanted to be with my friends so that they can see me when i do those exciting things, so that i can take pride in talking about our wonder moments with them - incessantly, and so that I can add one more story to my book of adventures.

As a child you get to hear a lot of stories. These stories take a child to a world unknown. They rock him, they move him. These stories regale him, enthrall him, mesmerize him , hypnotize him and above all inspire him. Anything new is a story for a kid and thus he remembers it and savours it.

It is these stories that make kids remember a lot of things which otherwise would have forgotten. So one fine day, few weeks back, Sakshum thought of adding a few more stories to those adventure books possessed by every kid.

Plots for our stories were Planetarium and Park.

First we took our young heroes to Birla Planetarium - just to add some more stars to their stories. But as expected the kids had no clue about that place. While we were cooling our heels, the kids were busy conjecturing what’s inside.Some of them were expecting to see some Telugu flick in the building which appeared a movie theatre to them. Kaleza was the most popular guess.

And then came the moment when all the guesses came to the halt, when the gates opened and the cool breeze of the theatre brought excitement and commotion along with it.

The kids were now under the the huge curved screen and so were adventure, buzz , anticipation and hope. Right from the very moment in which we barged in under the overhead curved screen of planetarium till the very last conclusive second, every kid was in the state of awe.They were star-strucked by every single thing present there.

The show came to an end in an hour or so and then came the time to take the kids to our second plot- Sanjeevaiah park near Hussain Sagar. I don’t know that how much the kids learnt but anybody who was present there would have certainly got the vibes of inquisitiveness amongst the kids. It was an exclusive experience watching the kids prying and probing.

With the revving engines we embarked upon the second phase of our journey and the buses left for the park. The journey was full of gusto and energy. I don’t remember any school bus trip which was not fun and this was no different. There is some magic that the revving engines, honking horns and blowing winds bring along with them. Enchanted and captivated we reached Sanjeevaiah park.

We all had our lunch and then the kids were set free. The storm was unleashed and it took the entire place in it’s grip. The whole place came to life and started breathing afresh. Everyone, kids and volunteers alike was charged. It felt that we have come to a carnival.

Soon came the time to go but the energy levels were still at the peak. There was no stopping to the fun. In a matter of seconds the passengers of the two buses turned to two rival teams and the roads of Hyderabad turned into a racetrack. And then started the relentless support and chanting by the two teams. The support shown was overwhelming to say the least. The kids put their everything behind their drivers and made them the protagonists of that little cameo.

That was a day which never dropped in its energy level, which showed us that why every adult yearns for his childhood. I am sure that this episode must had given a lot of stories to our youthful daredevils which they will relish in years to come and which they will keep forever in their wonder books.

Early Stimulation I

2010-11-13T22:48:00.003+05:30

Early stimulation is essential for every child but it is necessary for the children who are diagnosed with or “at risk”. It forms the platform for the development of refined and mature skills. Early stimulation is a holistic approach including multi sensory approach.

Early stimulation has various areas and it includes

Motor which includes gross and fine motor
Auditory stimulation
Visual stimulation
Tactile stimulation
Oro motor stimulation
Cognitive stimulation
Speech and language stimulation
Socialization and emotional development
Self help

However these above are the specific areas to work on independently but none of the areas are isolated. All the areas are interrelated and need to be stimulated together.

Mouth play II

2010-10-22T20:50:00.002+05:30

Activities for improving oral functions

Because of hypertonia and hypotonia of oral muscle, most of the children with disability have feeding problems. It includes inability to chew, poor control tongue for moving bolus, poor jaw coordination and instability. Many of children have poor oral sensitivity varying from hypo to hyper sensitivity which also affects the feeding and speech. Children with hypersensitivity are hesitant to try new taste and tend to swallow the food than chewing. They are “picky eater”. The hyposensitive child takes longer time to eat and keeps the food inside mouth for longer time. They are less aware if the food stick around the mouth and most of time they have hanging tongue or drooling. Because of poor oral tone they develop open mouth posture.

Mouth play can improve all these above problem and even can prevent the problem to arise if started as earliest.

Deep pressure around the jaw improves the jaw stability and awareness. It helps in improving the tone of facial muscles and helps in oral function like chewing, swallowing and sipping.
Firm pressure on the root of the tongue with the help of spoon increases the muscle tone of tongue and increases the voluntary control over gagging. Controlling gagging reflex helps in preventing the vomiting.
Blowing plays an important role in developing oral functioning. Assist the child to learn blowing and sipping. Both the activities play an important role in breath control and tone regulation.
Exposure to different type of food helps to desensitize the oral hypersensitivity.
Pleasant touch around the mouth reduces the hypersensitivity. Touch should be firm but given in a playful way so the child accepts it well. Activities like bathing and grooming can distract the child and child readily accepts the touch. For younger children mouthing toys can be helpful which assists in chewing and improves the oral tone. For elder children chewing rubber stick, tubes or chewing gums are advisable.

The above activities do need an Early interventionist, Occupational therapist or Speech therapist guidance.

Mouth play I

2010-10-19T22:43:00.004+05:30

The child learns through their mouth first. The mouth sensation develops even before their birth. Around 5 months in utero or womb the child brings the hands to mouth and sucks the hands. This is the first exposure of mouthing. After birth the child first exposure to mouthing is mother feeding. During feed the child does not even get touch sensation inside mouth but also around the mouth. This is favoured by rooting reflex which is a primitive reflex. According to Freud's psycho-sexual theory of development, the oral stage is a primary focus of libidal energy or libido. At the age of 3 months the child start bringing his hands in midline and starts mouthing. This way the child preoccupies with the pleasure of mouthing. Oral stage prepares the child for better oral functioning. It prepares the child for sucking, chewing and swallowing and later for speech.

Mouthing the toys and other objects helps the child to learn jaw control, chewing, tongue movement and speech. During this process the child learns to use different part and angles of the mouth. This prepares the child for transition of food from liquids to solids.

This is a normal process and most of the children undergo to this process by their own but it is not automatic process for children with special needs. They need assistance to learn it through guidance with early interventionist or occupational therapist.

Happy feeding

2010-10-14T23:44:00.006+05:30

Feeding to infant is difficult but pleasurable act. It is not only the source of the nutrition but also for emotional and early communication. Infant spends most pleasurable time with mother during feeding. However, feeding is not pleasurable to mother and child every time. Many a time it needs lots of effort from parents. But, little modification may bring comfort and pleasure to both.

1. The feeding position should be comfortable to both child and mother. Mother should be comfortable and have proper support in cradle position for infants and tailor position for toddlers. The child hands should be placed forward and head tilted little forward. This helps in smooth swallowing and prevents choking and aspiration. This position not only provides stability but also opportunity for eye contact and early communication of their emotions. This position also helps in head control and midline orientation. It is important for children with Down’s syndrome and cerebral palsy. For children with special need, this position avoids the excess air intake which may lead to stomach cramps.

2. Environment plays an important as well. The environment should be calm and less distraction. The act should be pleasurable by adding some music or singing lullabies

3. Mouth play is important for developing better oral functioning and speech

Enjoy feeding!!!

My child does not speak...

2010-10-08T23:33:00.003+05:30

Child development is amazing. All the developmental milestones are fixed but flexible. Many a time child does not follow the sequence and time but most of the children follow the predictable developmental sequence. Parents always keep a track of their child development. However, many a times the parents miss the track and most common is the speech and communication delay. There are many myths and mis-believes are associated with the speech development. Many say the girls speak earlier than boys or someone spoke late in the family so the child is granted to speak late. Here we forget to face the reality. It may happen the child may catch the pace of development but what would happen if it does not catch the pace? In that ignorance we lose the critical period of child development.

There are few red flag sign like

Not speaking or uttering specific words at 15 month
Not responding to his/her name
Not understanding the simple commands
No social communication

Either one or all symptoms are present….the only mantra that’s works is an immediate evaluation

Evaluation may point to

Developmental delay
Autism
Hearing loss
Speech and language disorder
Other less known conditions (deprivation/abuse, cerebral palsy, central auditory processing disorder, Landau-Kleffner Syndrome, selective mutism)

Early detection and evaluation may assess the risk factors. Early intervention may provide the opportunity for the child to improve significantly. Early intervention is must for all children who are deviated from their normal development.

Gandhi Jayanti Celeberations

2010-10-07T08:31:00.006+05:30

Sometimes in life fate takes you back to your past. It makes you wonder that how beautiful those days were and how different things were during those days. Going down the memory lane you recollect all those events and you wish if few things had stayed the same.

But the truth is that past is a foreign country where things are beyond our control. However, what we can certainly do, is that, we can take assertive actions to turn the dreams of our past into the realities of our future.

This 2 October Sakshum endeavoured to take one such action. The father of our nation once dreamt of education that builds nation by polishing characters of our youth. He believed that education is much more than an asset which enables you to earn money.

This 2 October Sakshum decided to live this dream. Contrary to a normal school day, this day started by enlightening the students of the school about issues related to environment.They were given a presentation which showcased the challenges that our environment is currently facing and steps which can avert these unwanted changes. The enthusiasm shown by the students starkly manifested their hunger for the education of the subject.

Theory was then succeeded by some practical. Now kids were asked to plant saplings in the school campus and here again the kids did not stop to surprise us. It sometimes bewilders you when you see kids enjoying some activity which is insipid by your understanding- they did not only plant trees but also spawn a relationship with them. It was heartening to witness such gusto among kids.

The event culminated with a drawing competition. Almost every kid based his painting around nature. It appeared that these kids already knew what we wanted to convey- as if some divine power is assisting us. They always remind you the true human nature which loves being in nature and exploring it.

There is no doubt about the fact, that more often than not we learn from them rather then teaching them. The biggest challenge is to preserve the basic goodness in them that every human is bestowed with.

We wish that these kids stay the same and nurture there basic human traits. May they all turn into Vaishnav Jan like our Bapu always wanted them to be. Amen!

P.S.- Here is the link for the pics of the event.

Independence day celebrations at our adopted school

2010-10-03T22:30:00.005+05:30

It was a beautiful Sunday morning.The early morning air was as crisp and fresh as ever.But there was something special about this day.It was the 15th of August 2010;the 64th Independence day of India.We were looking forward to this day for quiet sometime.Sakshum had planned to celebrate this day with the children of the School that it had recently adopted.

All the volunteers of Sakshum gathered at the school by 9.00 am.The children were dressed in their best clothes and were all pretty excited.Their teachers had decorated their school well.The atmosphere was as festive as it could get in the school.There were a few local leaders who had dropped by to celebrate the day too.

Once the children arranged themselves into neat lines, the principal hoisted the Indian national flag, which was then followed by the national anthem that we all sang encore.Being at the school, and singing national anthem with the kids was a very special feeling.After the flag hoisting, we all settled down for a round of patriotic songs & speeches.

We were then joined by our Chief Guest,Prof. K.L Srivastava, chief Coordinator of Center for Social Initiative and Management (CSIM),Hyderabad.He is one of those souls who does his work with lots of love & dedication.He is a father figure to all the students at CSIM.

We then started out with the sports events.We had the 'Book on Head race', 'Needle thread Race', 'Leg Pair Race' etc.Few competition had already been conducted on the previous days like Kabadi,Caroms and running race.The sports event was real fun with all the children cheering the participants.We had a great time.After that it was time for prize distributions.The volunteers gave away the prizes for all the competitions that were conducted on the independence day and the days leading to it.

The celebrations ended with the distribution of sweets & bananas, which the children relished, more so because of all the energy spent through out the morning :)

Child development and Early intervention

2010-09-26T11:09:00.010+05:30

Most of the parents have concerns about their child development. Many of them often visit to paediatricians for regular physical and well being check-ups. In our countries due to the lack of awareness, many a time the development screening either does not complete or remains superficial. Moreover the paediatricians are busier in immunization or vaccination. Many a time they miss the developmental delay or forget to refer to early interventionist or developmental paediatrician for further evaluation.

Here as a parent, you should be aware of child’s development and behavioural growth so that you can share your concerns with the professionals and if there are issues then you can intervene earliest.

DEVELOPMENT

All children go through developmental “stages” in various developmental areas like motor, fine motor, cognition, speech and language etc – typical and predictable changes in the areas.

The next stage of development depends on the previous stage and hence they are interrelated.

Every child develops on his own pace.

DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENING

The checklist which guides the child development with respect to normal population. Experts have developed a list of developmental milestones in all development areas. Most of the time, it is conducted by psychologist, early interventionist or a developmental paediatrician.
Screening includes interactive session between parents and specialist. This may include a checklist or questionnaire about the family, prenatal, natal or antenatal history. The developmental history includes all developmental areas.
According to evaluations and results, recommendations are made for further services.

IMPORTANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENING

To determine the healthy growth of the child and to monitor the child development.

To detect the developmental issues at earliest and intervene early.

CONTACT

Child’s paediatrician or EARLY INTERVENTIONIST or child psychologist can provide developmental screening.

TV the idiot box...

2010-09-22T22:01:00.009+05:30

Most of the times parents of children with language or communication delay complaint or have concern about their children watching television for longer time. Recently a parent approached me and had a concern that child talked very less and whatever he talked was monotonus or like parrot talking. During assessment it was found that both the parents were on full time work and they left the child at home alone. A nanny took care of him and most of the time child was kept in front of cartoon channel and there was very less human communication with child.

Other child of 6 years was indulged in watching a DVD. She had almost memorize the whole DVD and she could repeat the whole DVD without mistake. most of the time, child was preoccupied with the self talking and it was all about the DVD content.

Researches have proven that excess TV watching is associated with delayed language development. Research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical period for speech and communication development and that needs direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills. Children who watched television alone were 8.47 times more likely to have language delay when compared to children who interacted with their caregivers during television viewing. As recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), children under the age of 2 should watch no television at all, and after age 2 watch no more than one to two hours of quality programming a day. Therefore, exposing such young children to television programs should be discouraged. Parents should engage children in more conversational activities to avoid television-related delays to their children language development, which could impair their intellectual performance.

Vowels in Speech therapy

2010-08-26T23:05:00.002+05:30

For the children who are learning to speak, it is difficult for them to pronounce the vowels and consonants combination in initial stages. It is advisable to start with lax or open vowel sounds than the stressed vowels. Lax vowels mean which are open and have short sound like /a/ than /o/.

Stressed vowels are difficult because they need more planning, coordination and lingual strength. Dipthongs are further difficult as they require 2 oro motor movements than one, thus requiring further motor planning.

In order to help children to pronounce vowels more accurately some visual or tactile (physical) cues should be provided.

Babbling...

2010-08-19T23:20:00.002+05:30

Children with apraxia or children with Autism, mostly have low oral tone and poor oral coordination. It is hard for these children to plan, coordinate and execute oral movements, resulting in poor verbal skills. Imitation and verbalization both are difficult for them.

As normal speech development, a child at the age of 5-6 month starts babbling. Babbling helps the child to practice oro motor function and develop the ability to change what he hears and understands the motor act of verbalization. Babbling helps in syllabic understanding and production hence, it facilitates the normal speech and language production. Babbling at earlier stages has vowel both short and long vowel but, long vowels predominate. After this, babbling changes to reduplicated babbling - sequence of identical, repetitive sequences of CV syllables (e.g /ma/ma/, /da/da/). Later it changes to CV, V, VC, VCV format.

Initial forms of vowels are /a/, /aa/, /oo/ and then /i/, /e/ and then dipthongs (combinations of 2 different vowels like ie/, /io/)

Initial course of speech therapy should follow normal course of development. Babbling should be a part of curriculum and used as methodology during speech therapy. However, teaching to speak is not easy task. The child who does not speak will take longer time to learn to speak than child who can speak few words.

Easy Flashcards

2010-08-13T18:32:00.003+05:30

Recently i started designing flashcards and got an easy idea. Cut the cardboard of the desired size and put stickers. These stickers are easily available in markets and durable. They are mess free than the cut and paste books. They are attracting because of their colors.

Flashcards designs depends on various categories. They could be alphabets, numbers, vegetables and animals etc.

Friendship for children with Autism

2010-08-05T22:44:00.006+05:30

Friendship plays an important part in everyone’s life. It is not mere a relationship. It teaches many social skills as well. Friendship becomes relatively more important in children with Autism. As a common feature these children are poor in social and communicative skills so most of time they do not have friends or can’t maintain a friendship. Friendship teaches us to think about the world in a “relative” and not absolute manner.

Most of the parents of the children with Autism desperately search for friends for their children. They feel that the things would have been better if their children could have friends. But, there are no shortcuts or different methods of having and keeping friends. What matter are the social skills or socialization.

There are 2 types of skills for teaching socialization.

Instrumental skills
Relationship skills

Speech sound production

2010-07-29T22:53:00.003+05:30

http://www.talkingchild.com/speechchart.aspx

details about relation between the child sound production and specific age for mastery

Early Intervention

2010-07-25T21:23:00.007+05:30

Early intervention is a program to identify & evaluate as early as possible those infants and toddlers (0-3years) whose healthy development are compromised and provide for appropriate intervention to improve child and family development.

Who is eligible for Early Intervention?

If the child is not reaching age-appropriate milestones in one or more areas of development.
Is diagnosed with a physical, emotional or cognitive condition that may result in a development delay.
Is at risk for development delay due to various biological and/or environmental factors

Why intervene Early?

There are three primary reasons for intervening early with an exceptional child.

To enhance the child’s development.
To provide support and assistance to the family
To maximize the child’s and family’s benefit to society.

Principles of Early Intervention

The primary goal of Early Intervention is to support families in promoting the child’s optimal development & to facilitate the child’s participation in family & community activities.

The focus of Early Intervention is to encourage the active participation of families in the therapeutic process by imbedding intervention strategies into family routines. It is the parents who provide the real early intervention by creatively adopting their child care methods to facilitate the development of the child, while balancing the needs of the rest of the facility.

Early intervention requires a collaborative relationship between families and providers with equal participation by all those involved in the process. An ongoing parent professional dialogue is needed to develop, implement, monitor and modify therapeutic activities.

Intervention must be linked to specific goals that are family-centered, functional & measurable. Intervention strategies should focus on facilitating social interaction, exploration & autonomy.

Family centered:

Support parents in meeting their responsibilities to nurture
enhance the children’s development.
Intervention should be integrated into a comprehensive plan that encourages trandisciplinary activities & avoids unnecessary duplication of services. The plan should be built around family routines, with written home-activity programs to encourage family participation in therapeutic activities on daily basis.
Intervention should be monitored periodically, to assure that the strategies implemented are successful in achieving outcomes.
Children and their families in the early intervention system deserve to have services of the highest quality possible. High standards will be set for the training & credentiality of administrative & intervention staff training, supervision & technology will be focused to achieve excellence.

Taare Zameen Par...

2010-07-20T22:52:00.008+05:30

Most of us here must have seen Taare Zameen Par, a story of a dyslexic child and an art teacher. If the art teacher role played by Aamir Khan, would have not realised the problem of dyslexia in his student, the child would have never done something special and hence, accepted by the society. The teacher has recognised the child so well and soon not because, he was teacher, but because he himself claims that he was dyslexic too. That’s all about a movie which always has to have a happy ending and that’s why called as a beginning. But like this special need child, there are thousands of children who are having some or other (personal/family) issues that continuously bother them. However, we can understand the problem better if we have been anytime in our life, have came across with it.

The regular school teachers should know or understand a little about the early sign or so called ‘Red Flag Sign’ of conditions like Autism, Dyslexia and other learning disabilities and Mental Retardation especially the borderline cases or mild to moderate cases. It is not to blame teachers, but I think it is the system that has always trained them for the regular students only.

In our country given the paucity of trained resources in the rehabilitation field, it is impractical to think replicating developed world model of health care. So, we need to develop resources locally, which can be available by training and developing skills to enhance care level. Empowering teachers, educate them with the basic child development and psychology can help in identifying the problem areas earliest. Any ignorance or lack of knowledge can aggravate the problem. In India, majority of population is educated from the school run by Govt where in total they just get the basic education. Since, funds and resources are limited there are a few schools that can afford a child psychologist or a counselor.

Conditions like ASD (Autism spectrum Disorder), learning Disability, ADHD (Attention Deficit hyperactivity Disorder), mild/ moderate Mental Retardation; Family issues etc generally don’t attract attention early as the child grows physically normally. However, to handle the special need children the school may need the special staff if the child gets into inclusive education. Besides, family the teachers are the care takers and are considered to be the builder of a person. So, if the teachers are aware and educated about the above problems, they can help them by referring earliest. Hence, the child can get the benefits of Early Intervention. However most of teachers might feel uncomfortable to handle special needs children as they require more attention and effort.

Teachers can play an important role because:

Ø The parents think always optimistically and not ready to accept the problem or can easily be misguided by the surroundings. So, teachers should always be alert to notice the signs and then refer to further assessment and evaluation.

Ø Now days most parents are working so, they have little time to spare with their children. Maximum time of the children goes in their Pre schools with primary teachers. So, teachers need to be more prompt to realise the problems.

Ø Since, every parent wants their child to get proper education so they send them to the best schools as per their affordability. So, if teachers are aware that something is different with the child, they can inform parents and ask them to take professionals help.

The child development is flexible and its potential may vary with the environment. Every child is different and hence, special. The distribution curve shows that most children resemble with the average in many traits, but there are few children who deviate from the generally accepted norms in any one of many ways. These deviations may give rise to multifactorial problems of adjustment at home, school and social setting and thus, leads to addition of problems in deviation. Deviation can be in terms of physical, social, emotional and mental characteristics.

According to PWD ACT 1995, the differently abled children are to be integrated in regular school. Integration in regular school promotes personal, emotional and physical adjustment to establish healthy interpersonal relationship.

As very well said for teachers, "I touch the future. I teach." (Christa McAuliffe)

Teachers are one who polishes the child to diamond; otherwise no body can recognise the capacity of child. If the teachers are cooperative and encouraging, the slow learners and mild to moderate MR can learn in control and stimulated environment. However, the teachers have to bear the extra load of arranging the different curriculum and have to be creative. For these special need children, the teacher has to play a role of designer, instructor, motivator and trainer.

Education is not for all

2010-07-05T22:33:00.006+05:30

Success school, “it is not our name but, it is our aim too”. The school in Hyderabad has recently asked a child to leave the school with in 3 days of admission. Moreover, the school administration has denied refunding the fees. The reason that school administration gave was that the child is mental and can’t cope the schooling.

The child who is in PPI has diagnosed with Autism. The parents have already discussed the issue with the school principal and Director. Inspite of knowing the school wanted to increase the strength and repetitive asked the parents to pay the fees earliest and block the seat for the child in school. The parents have paid the fees in April and secured the seat.

If somebody sees the prospectus it is designed with fake photos from google image and designed on international standards. In prospectus so many fake promises and commitments are done. But, on the other hand it is a small building with poor ventilated class rooms. No where, in the school prospectus, the actual standards of the school are mentioned. All 10-12 pages of prospectus are filled with fancy and promising words which actually don’t mean anything for any one.

Isn’t so sad? Where should those parents go? It is already a financial burden for a parent to bring up a child with disability and on the top if schools act like this, further add on the psychological distress. What about these schools that don’t even bother to implement the Laws and Policy.

Brain Gym

2010-06-27T23:25:00.004+05:30

Remedial educationist Dr Dennison, developed simple pattern of 26 exercises based on movement. According to him, movements are important keys for development and learning. Originally it was developed for Reading difficulties among children but later it was proved beneficial for the children with learning difficulties, ADHD, Autism and other disorders of coordination. It helps in improving memory, coordination, learning, attention, behaviour pattern and hence overall performance.

According to brain gym theory, some specific movements stimulate specific brain area and hence, stimulate its function. It also increases the coordination among various brain areas and increases learning. As a whole brain is stimulated in various but specific activities it also improves the emotion, cognition, understanding, conceptualization, abstract thinking and coordination.

PACE is one but important part of the brain gym. PACE stands for

P: Positive: hook ups

A: Active: cross crawl

C: Clear: brain buttons

E: Energetic: water

Other activities are important but this group stimulates the learning maximum.

Autism update

2010-06-23T20:40:00.003+05:30

Sakshum: Magic Show this saturday!!!!

2010-05-07T07:58:00.000+05:30

We are conducting a Magic Show plus some other fun activities at our Adopted School CN Thanda, Madhapur under project Adopt a School (http://www.sakshum.com/ui/page/AdoptASchool.jsp).

You can volunteer for this event at:

Venue: CN Thanda School, Thanda Nagar, Madhapur

Time: 10:30 am to 12:30 PM.

Date: 8th May 2010, Saturday

Contact Person: Shyam (v_sraog@microsoft.com)

Meera: 9246244886 (meera.j@sakshum.com)

Bhargavi 9885865018 (bhargavi@sakshum.com)

If you wish to contribute please do it at: http://www.sakshum.com/ui/page/DonateNow.jsp

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Vik
+91 9985 1777 97
info@sakshum.com
www.sakshum.com
www.sakshum.blogspot.com

We are Growing!!!

2010-04-27T16:19:00.003+05:30

Dear volunteer:

 We are pleased to share that Sakshum registered its 600th subscriber just 3 days ago.

We are growing fast and it took just 20 days for us to reach from 500 to 600

subscriber base.

Please continue to support us and volunteer in our activities.

You can find what we are doing at: http://www.sakshum.com/ui/page/OurWork.jsp

You can join us on twitter at: http://www.sakshum.com/twitter or

at Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/242276/53251106?m=12d3bddc

Please forward it to a friend http://oi.vresp.com/f2af/v4/send_to_friend.html?ch=71323feae0

Thanks and Regards

Vik & Neeti