Showing posts with label disability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disability. Show all posts

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. 

Posted byNeeti at 11:54 PM 2 comments  

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TV the idiot box...
Wednesday, September 22, 2010

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.

Posted byNeeti at 10:01 PM 2 comments  

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Early Intervention
Sunday, July 25, 2010


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?

  1. If the child is not reaching age-appropriate milestones in one or more areas of development.
  2. Is diagnosed with a physical, emotional or cognitive condition that may result in a development delay.
  3. 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.

  1. To enhance the child’s development.
  2. To provide support and assistance to the family
  3. 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:

  1. Support parents in meeting their responsibilities to nurture
  2. enhance the children’s development.
  3. 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.
  4. Intervention should be monitored periodically, to assure that the strategies implemented are successful in achieving outcomes.
  5. 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.

Posted byNeeti at 9:23 PM 0 comments  

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Primitive reflexes and their inhibition with therapy
Sunday, September 20, 2009

Every one is born with the set of some primitive reflexes which are known for the survival of the child. These primitive reflexes help the child to protect, to assist feeding and for survival. During a developmental screening the child is checked for these primitive reflexes. Presence of primitive reflex indicates the functioning of Central Nervous System before 1 yr of development. After first year of development these reflexes should be integrated to develop more sophisticated set of reflexes called Postural reflexes. Hence the primitive reflexes form the platform for more specific and sophisticated functions like speech, intelligence and cognition.

Absence of primitive reflexes before one year or prolonged persistence indicates the problem with the nervous system or brain functioning. It not only affects the motor, speech and social functions but also affects overall learning. Inhibition of primitive reflexes leads to lateralisation of brain which as physically be seen as hand dominance, speech, interest in maths or music, writing and reading.

Some times due to some reasons the child behaves odd. Inspite of average intelligent and normal physical development he struggles to pass the exams, poor hand writing, aggressive, hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, poor listening skills, clumsy are few common features.

According to the theory of Neurodevelopment, any missed developmental sequence may develop a physical, psychological and behaviourally problem. The treatment is recapitulation, which means the child has to go through all the developmental stages which guide the normal development. Abnormal reflexes are to be inhibited with special skills and physical exercises to guide the normal development. Most common reflexes which are to be integrated, ATNR, STNR, Moro’s, Grasp reflex and TLR.

Children with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, ADHD, Developmental Delay and other behaviour and psychological like emotional unstable, poor handwriting and confusion, dyslexia and poor reading habits may need reflex inhibition therapy.

Posted byNeeti at 6:29 PM 2 comments  

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Hand Dominance... its relevance
Friday, August 28, 2009


Handedness is an attribute of humans defined by their unequal distribution of fine motor skill between the left and right hands. Some are left handed and some are right handed. However, there are 2 more types of handedness seen, Cross dominance and Ambidextrous. Cross dominance means the child uses one hand for one particular activity and other hand for other specific activity. Ambidextrous is a unique quality that a child can perform a particular skill with both the hands with equal quality. Crossed dominance and ambidextrous is not a problem every time until it affects the function.

Handedness is comprised of hardware (musculoskeletal, strength) and software (neurological), interacting to produce an efficient action. Handedness depends on neurological inhibiting of the recessive hand, so that the dominant hand can develop the precise, corrective, rapid movement without any competition from the non-dominant hand. Generally hand dominance is established at the age of 3 to 4 yrs but as late as 7 yrs. It is important to develop the hand dominance. However most of the child does develop hand dominance spontaneously at age but sometimes children with developmental delay and autism may have problem with it. Parents often have concerns that their children can write from both the hands but not sure.

To develop hand dominance it is important to know the preferred hand of child. Parents and teachers can observe the child in various functional activities. Observe child closely for preference of hand, control, strength and stability. Observe the child in unconscious and sudden or alone without interfering or biasing. It gives a better idea than intentional observation which sometimes becomes biased. Sometimes poor shoulder stability leads the child to keep on shifting the hand which gives a wrong expression of poor hand dominance.

Many activities like horizontal and vertical eight can help in finding the midline orientation and laterality. Bilateral hand activities like scissoring, hammering, tearing the paper, screwing, unliding the bottles, pick up games, lifting heavy objects, push ups and pull ups can be done. Observe the child preference and effort during movements. Once if it gives the idea of hand preferences stimulate that side with graded finger and shoulder exercise.



Posted byNeeti at 10:51 PM 0 comments  

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Project Eye Care I Care event report from Parvath nagar school
Wednesday, April 22, 2009


On 18th April 2009, with collaboration of Sakshum another event of the project 'Eye Care I Care' was successfully completed at Parvath nagar school, madhapur Hyderabad. There were 10 volunteers who screened 117 children in this govt school. Mr. Veeru from LV Prasad Eye hospital helped in detailed assessment and referral to LVPEI for further diagnosis.
Out of 117 children 7 were found with vision problems varying from visual defect, refractive error and cognitive challenged. The child with visual defect
was directly referred to LVPEI for vision rehabilitation and for disability concession and certificate.

Volunteers found this activity an important event as early detection and treatment can improve the vision and academic learning.
As a matter of fact Sakshum has screened close to 600 children so far and found 58 children with vision problems. Beacuse of dedicated volunteer efforts in this project we have been able to direct these children for proper diagnosis and treatment for a better future.

Please continue to support us....

Posted byUnknown at 12:06 PM 0 comments  

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World Autism Awareness Day
Wednesday, April 15, 2009

On 2nd April 2009, thrusday, Niloufer Hospital for Women and Children, Lakdi ka Pool, celebrated World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD). On the occasion of WAAD, an interaction session among parents and professionals was arranged. Dr Usha gave an inaugural speech and Dr Kalaknatha discussed about the dietary management for the children with Autism.

Dr Neeti took a detailed session on Sensory Integration and use of home activities for sensory issues. Most common problems, like oro motor dysfunction and sensitivity, hyperactivity and attention deficit. Parents asked lots of question regarding the sensory issues and behaviour problems. Some parents shared their experiences for various skills development which could be beneficial for other. One parent discussed the success story of his child who is now mainstreamed in regular school after continuous dedicated efforts for 3 years.

At the end of the programme, a checklist for early signs designed by Department of Child Psychiatry, headed by Dr Usha Naik, was distributed to various other hospital’s Paediatrician, Neurologist and Physicians so that the child is detected at earliest and refer for Early intervention.

These kind of team work and collaborative efforts definitely upgrade the detection of Autism at earliest and helps in social integration.

Posted byNeeti at 12:06 PM 0 comments  

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Learning Disability
Thursday, February 12, 2009


Children with learning disability, the most common of the psychiatric disorders that appear in childhood, are often the subject of great concern on the part of parents and teachers. It is estimated 5-6 % of school children have learning disability. ADHD sometimes associated with conduct disorder, behaviour problem, emotional instability, and drug abuse.

Learning disability it is not a single problem rather it is combination of multiple problems. Attention deficit, un coordination, poor balance and clumsy, poor friendship, self activity and poor academic performance etc are common problems.
Learning disability may overlap to mental retardation. Generally, a LD child, the intelligence scores in average limits. He can talk properly and sensibly but can perform good in academics. Some signs of learning disabilities present themselves in early childhood which is beneficial because the earlier a problem is recognized, the sooner an intervention can be made, allowing for a better prognosis. Like poor walking, left right confusion in wearing shoes, delay in speech, difficulty in writing and shoe lacing etc

Learning disability could be of different kind like mathematics, writing, reading, motor dyspraxia and poor speech and language coordination.

Various theories for the causes of the Learning Disability have been explained. Theories vary from the brain damage during birth, sensory problem to environmental and family issues. Sometimes, they may be an obvious cause but sometime it is not. Most of the children with learning disability don’t have physical problem so it sometimes take more time to get proper diagnosis and treatment. The problem is problem in different perception and interpretation of codes

As a part of treatment, learning disability response well to multi mode approach including medications, therapy and child and family counselling. Relaxation and physical training is also beneficial.

Apart from the medications it needs a plan therapy if various areas:

  1.  Give lots of visual inputs with enlarged view of objects in various colours and let the child to do in big sizes on the chart papers, on sand or on wall.
  2.  Improve eye hand coordination
  3.  Teach the left and right concept
  4.  Give small, clear and loud commands which are easy to comprehend
  5.  Work on discrimation skills like sorting the objects and phonics and alphabets for younger kids
  6.  Be gentle and patient
  7.  Work on sensory systems and their development (may need a specialist consultation)
  8.  Improve physical movements for better coordination and balance.
  9.  Since the child have poor attention so start working on the objects which child like, initially start the session for short duration and then increase gradually.
  10.  Find the child preference in learning ie auditory, visual or kinaesthetic and work accordingly.

Posted byNeeti at 9:38 PM 1 comments  

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INCLUSION FOR ALL
Wednesday, December 3, 2008



Every child has a right to Education without any discrimation on the basis of caste, religion and physical and mental capability. In India approx 2% of the total population is diagnosed with one or other type of disability. Children with disability under 19 yrs contribute to 35 to 37% of total population of disabled. Out of this percentage only 3–4% has access to education. In India there are many Laws and Policies which favour education among children with disability. Biwako Millennium framework and PWD 2005 advocates for education among disabled.


In past few years there is paradigm shift among special need children to get proper inclusive education. Parents and various NGO’s are demanding for the inclusive education rather than a segregated setup (special school). Inclusive eduction not only sensitizes the community about disability but it is equally important for socialization and inclusion and participation of disabled in the community. To setup an inclusive setup is not an easy job. It requires consideration of policies matters, laws, financial and human resources, infrastructure and professional guidance.
Inclusive education is based on the principle….. school should accommodate all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, linguistic, caste and religion. In some European countries inclusive education is compulsive. “The only condition for a child to be included is that he/she is breathing”.


Mainstreaming


Generally, mainstreaming has been used to refer to the selective placement of special education students in one or more "regular" education classes. Proponents of mainstreaming generally assume that a student must "earn" his or her opportunity to be placed in regular classes by demonstrating an ability to "keep up" with the work assigned by the regular classroom teacher. This concept is closely linked to traditional forms of special education service delivery.


Inclusion


Inclusion is a term which expresses commitment to educate each child, to the maximum extent appropriate, in the school and classroom he or she would otherwise attend. It involves bringing the support services to the child (rather than moving the child to the services) and requires only that the child will benefit from being in the class (rather than having to keep up with the other students). Proponents of inclusion generally favour newer forms of education service delivery.


NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICIES


Ø The integrated education for disabled children scheme, launched in 1974, to admit children with disabilities in regular schools
Ø The National policy on Education 1986, which promotes the integration of children with mild disabilities into mainstreaming
Ø The PWD (Person with Disability) act, 1995, recommends making changes in assessment and curriculum, and removing architectural barriers to support inclusion. It also recommended free books and uniforms to the children with disabilities.
Ø National Trust Act, 1999 which includes Autism also, which recommends promotion of inclusive education.
Ø The Sarv Siksha Abhiyan, 2000, which pledges that the “SSA will ensure that every child with special needs, irrespective of the kind, category and degree of disability, is provided education in an appropriate environment.
Even after these many policies and laws, the inclusive education is either not being provided by most of schools. If some schools initiate it, they either charge heavily or can’t sustain the services because of lack of professionals and resources. Most of the teachers and parents have a mind set that no regular school teachers can handle a disabled child. The people who can handle them are special educators. It is true that special educators are trained and qualified to handle and teach special need children. But, in the paucity of trained and qualified professionals this conception is not completely true.



If we have to make an inclusive education compulsory and successful, regular teachers should also be trained to teach the children with special need children special who are mildly or moderately delayed in developmental scale. Few specific qualities have to be developed in the regular teachers like patience, dedication and creativity. It becomes more critical for the schools who are facing the challenges in finding a special educator or who can’t afford the special services in their school.

Posted byNeeti at 10:38 PM 1 comments  

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WORLD DISABILTY DAY (3rd Dec)
Sunday, November 30, 2008


India is a developing country with second largest population, next to China. It is estimated approx 2% of the population is disabled. To define disability is not an easy task. According to ICIDH (International Classification of impairment, disability and handicapped), disability is the interference of a whole person with respect to its immediate environment. Disability can be classified as physical, mental, visual, hearing, speech or multiple, depending on the part is being affected.

In past decades there is marked improvement in health facilities and diagnostics scale, still there is not much drop in disability statistics. It may be because of better awareness and availability of rehabilitation services. But, disability is still one of the biggest challenges in front of our country. Disability not only affects the person and family but it affects the country as a whole. The country which have small in number but productive population always perform better than a country which have a large population and less productive people. Having a person with disability in family is always challenging as it requires a lot of financial, personnel and time resources. Disability becomes more severe and complex if it is combined with poverty.

The PWD Act 1995 advocates for Equal Opportunity, Full participation and Protection of rights, but still it has reached to couple of disabled and benefited them. I am sure that 50% of disabled may not be knowing about the policies and concessions allowed for them and how to avail them. In our country disability is still considered as a stigma to family and society. As per our beliefs disability is because of our bad “Karma” or ill deeds of our previous life. Lack of proper channels for dissemination of information and poor education among disabled is one major reason. The status of information, awareness and facilities are further poor in rural areas than urban. Lack of preventive education and expensive rehabilitation services make the treatment for disabled hard. At a large scale the facilities and opportunities are not available for most of disabled. Barrier free environment is not commonly seen in most of the shopping centres, public places, bus stands and other tourist places.

Pre natal counselling and care, Early diagnosis and Early Intervention is still not available to 20% of population. Because of increased demands and less umber of qualified professionals makes the basic services expensive.

Government facilities are not up to mark and can’t cater the services of such a big number and for more then 50% can’t avail the services on private sector. In this scenario the role of NGO and NPO becomes important where they can collaborate and network among themselves and with Govt so that a large population can be targeted. Other important area is education and awareness about sanitation, healthy practices and prenatal counseling should be given more emphasis. It is estimated that 50% of chances of developing disability can be reduce with preventive measures.

A little dedicated effort on preventive aspect, standardisation of services and rehabilitation, mandatory early intervention services and better education, collaboration of various NGO and govt agencies working in same area and sensitization in community for better acceptance can really improve the quality of a disabled person in community.

Posted byNeeti at 12:50 AM 0 comments  

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Easy to Cope
Saturday, December 22, 2007

Disability not only affect the person who is inflicted rather it also disturbs others like parents and family members equally or more. As treatment is ongoing process so sometimes parents get frustrated. Thus getting professional counselling is one of the most important aspects because parents are pivotal in the management of their child. The main objectives of counselling is to properly explain the child's condition and help the parents to accept it, guide them regarding proper treatment, address their concerns about the child, try to alleviate the immense psychosocial stress that they face, remove the feelings of guilt and blame and help build positive attitudes. Both the parents, and sometimes the grandparents too need to be counselled together. It channelize the parents' thought process towards positive goals.

SUGGESTIONS FOR COPING
No matter, how much our country is progressive still in disability field we are back, poor awareness of the disability and its denial may aggravate the problem.As a family it becomes its duty to take care of their child no matter how the child is. So there are few tips that might help them to cope up better to the situation.

1. Educate yourself about your child conditions from various resources available. It not only helps you to know about the problem rather it also helps you to get the right diagnosis on right time. It also prevents you from misleading.
2. Accept the child as s/he is. Don’t just concentrate on what the child cannot do rather try to find what the child can do. This provides you more positive outlook.
3. Be patient. Discuss your concerns with your relatives, spouse, friends and professionals. This helps you in coping with your own fears and anxieties, also helps in developing good relations with others.
4. Spread awareness about the disability, what your child has. It helps in uplifting yourself.
5. Join a ‘self help group’ or ‘ support group’ which can give you the right direction by sharing their experience and guide you. If you could not get any group try to find a family or relatives with the help of professional you even can help each other.
6. Make time for yourself and your interests. This seems hard or near to impossible for most of the parents but remember that we can take care of others if we are happy. So indulge yourself occasionally and time to yourself.
7. Celebrate and enjoy your child’s every success no matter even if it is small one. This encourages the child.
8. Consider your child as normal as possible, give proper attention but don’t pamper him. Like normal child the child with special needs does learn, may be slower.
9. Be brave and remember no efforts go into vain.
10. Meet other parents who are having similar problem and share your efforts and concerns. Don’t hesitate.
11. Be advocate for your child.
12. Try to update your knowledge about the benefits and schemes provided by the Government.

Posted byNeeti at 12:28 AM 1 comments  

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