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Candid With Together-We-Can, Recently we came across a power packed group functioning out of their social media page, which has currently crossed 10,000 followers. TogetherWeCan is a group effortlessly working on issues related to children, their disability rights, mental health, family empowerment and rehabilitation. Yes this group does exists where you, as parents can empty all your worries regarding your children and get help in ways you would not have ever imagined!!! So in this autism awareness month we at 1Special Place are sneaking into awesome work TogetherWeCan is doing. It is primarily an advocacy group working towards bringing in transparency, ethics, accountability and inclusion in the disability sector.It was initiated in wake of reports of malpractice and abuse within the private therapy centers in Kochi, Kerala. We soon realized it was not just restricted to Kochi or Kerala, it was rampant across the country. They are a group of like minded parents, professionals and just about anyone interested to live in an inclusive society.Through their active petitions and lobbying they have urged the Government of Kerala to publish the Draft Guidelines for therapy centers. It’s a huge step in the right direction to empower the parents and their children for every right they are entitled for. The objective is also to move to a Rights based approach from a “Charity” or “Service” approach of working in the disability sector. When was it formed and how eventually did it grow ? It was formed in 2015 as a Whatsapp group of 3 individuals – Ms. Preetha, parent of Shiva, 10year old, was the first parent to actively say a YES to “let’s do something” about this situation when her son , then 6 years broke his hand during a so- called occupational therapy session in a private therapy center in Kochi, Kerala. She claims that it’s a parents’ duty to make the environment more friendly and favorable for their children. She enjoys including her son in each and every activity, a family with neurotypical child would be doing. Ms. Seema Lal , external PhD student at VU Amsterdam with the backing of The Banyan Academy for Leadership in Mental Health, had been working closely with Preetha then and been listening to various such incidents from several parents but none were willing to take it forward and raise their voice. She says- “it is most stressful to work with professionals who call themselves “experts” in the field and are obstinate in their thinking and unwilling to even listen to a parent perspective. The vulnerability of parent is blatantly clear and so is the power struggle which paves the way for abuse of all kinds.” With the alarming increase in diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders, autism in particular, the disability sector becomes a perfect for both business and abuse thanks to the extreme vulnerability of both children and parents. We glorify disability by calling it a different ability/special need/divyang but fail to provide the basic humane right to safety and dignity of life. Education and inclusion becomes a far cry unless families are empowered to voice for the same – Ms. Seema Lal Ms. Padma Pillai Mother of 14year old child in Spectrum, joined in soon enough. According to her “The sense of injustice that our children who already suffer because of their sensory disorders, communication issues etc have to face such insult and abuse at the hands of experts was a major driving force. Along with social awareness about Autism, it became crucial to include the Neurotypical majority of the public in this crusade to ensure safety, respect and fair therapy interventions for our children.” The strength for every fight is derived from the absolute innocence with which our children look up to us as their only advocates and champions.-Ms. Padma Pillai Ms. Anita Pradeep Parent of 25 year old, Brian, on Autism Spectrum, learnt the harrowing experiences of parents and children during therapy through Facebook. Ms Anita specifies “ Social interaction and communication is lacking and keeping the children at home is not going to help in anyway. So I didn’t worry about the stares. We just lived life the way any family would live. Be it the supermarkets, restaurants, trains, airports, you can always feel those countless pairs of eyes boring into your very soul. That didn’t stop us from going out.” They started the page which slowly and surely gained attention from parents and professionals across the country and abroad. Read about Appu, a child on the Autism Spectrum and his wonderful journey. And the group eventually grew with more strengths joining- Vaishnavi Jayakumar( our mentor who show us the way when we falter and put us on to the right contacts in the government and otherwise) , Sandhya Raju (our first advocate, who helped us file all our initial petitions) SudhaNambudiri(from Times of India followed our story and kept writing sensibly and sensitively without sensationalizing anything and that was instrumental in helping us gain unconditional media support), Santhosh Mathew and Anil Sebastian(our current advocates from Ninan and Mathew Group, work pro bono. Since they took over we have been getting more frequent hearings in the court).The team is both passionate and professional. They did grow both personally, professionally and as team. From no parent being willing to open up we had parents from across the country send us video recording and shared openly on social media their experiences with therapy centres both positive and negative. When people began to see that we did make a difference in bringing the order through from the Child rights commission. The government too started taking notice with the Health Minister responding to us on television, our movement gained momentum. Ms. Preetha Anoop Menon says- I believe that it’s our duty to make the world favourable for our kids. I believe that if you don’t make others understand about autism there’s no point in telling that they don’t accept the differences. How do you all work? We work mostly through our little WhatsApp group of the team above mentioned.The rest is all via emails, phone calls, and meetings. Ms. Anita Pradeep quotes- Lack of awareness was a major hurdle here. Not just schools that need inclusion, Society as a whole needs to be inclusive. Acceptance, understanding, support and love is all that they need. We are their voice and we all need to speak up and act without fear.  So we move forward together hoping and praying for a positive change. More about a super artist, Mohit, who is on the Autism Spectrum. He and his remarkable life! Is your explicit work based only in Kerela? Or other parts of the country too? For now we are based in Kerala, but we have initiated a PAN INDIA movement 3 other states have expressed interest in taking this forward-RuchikaSethi from Haryana, Aditi Baranwal from West Bengal ,Arpita Yadav from Rajasthan. Our followers on page are growing rapidly and that’s a great sign too. What groups of children and families do you help? As long as we find the issue with any child or family genuine, we will support directly or will do our best to network and make sure they get support. How can parents reach out to you? twctogetherwecan@gmail.com or message to our page. What are your team’s future plans – would you expand the work to other places in India? Our current PIL is focused on therapy centres only, we will soon be lobbying for inclusive education, regulation and monitoring of special schools, rehab homes/ashrams.There is enough budget allocation and it is the job of the government to provide the same. Read about Siddharth’s journey with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Any important message which you all would like to spread to parents of specially-abled children? Parents are the BEST therapists You will always know your child better than anyone else Focus on child development rather than the diagnosis and working towards a cure Know your rights, Break the Silence and Fear. We can -Together We Can Team 1SpecialPlace wishes all the very best to the team of Together We Can in all it’s future endeavours! Leave us a reply to share your story. Subscribe here to read more such inspirational stories. #disabilityadvocacyindia #rightsfordisability #disabilityrightsindia #disabilityethicalpracticesIndia #autismindia

We are back with our wall of fame series, this time our guest being a pioneer in the field of cochlear implant rehabilitation. We take immense pleasure in featuring Dr. Chandrakant Vishwakarma, in a candid tete-e-tete! Hearing loss may be mild, moderate, severe, or profound. ‘Hard of hearing’ refers to people with hearing loss ranging from mild to severe. It can affect one ear or both ears, and causes difficulty in hearing conversational speech or loud sounds. Not everyone performs at the same level with this device. The decision to receive an implant should involve discussions with medical specialists, including an experienced cochlear-implant surgeon. The process can be expensive. In some cases person’s health insurance may cover the expense, but not always. Some individuals may choose not to have a cochlear implant for a variety of personal reasons. Surgical implantations are almost always safe, although complications are a risk factor, just as with any kind of surgery. An additional consideration is learning to interpret the sounds created by an implant. This process takes time and practice.  Please introduce yourself to our readers. Hi friends, I’m Dr.Chandrakant Vishwakarma, PhD & Master’s Degree in Audiology, running a center SHABDA-BRAHMA Speech-Hearing Clinic & Cochlear Implant Rehab. Centre, Ahmedabad since 2009. I am also a Consultant with Apollo Hospitals, Ahmedabad; Honorary Audiologist to Govt. Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad for its Cochlear Implant Programme. My primary area of interest is Cochlear Implants. What are your perceptions on hearing impairment as a condition? “Hearing is birth right of every individual”, it helps you to connect with the environment, people around you and far too. What are the various interventions available for the hearing handicapped? Depending on degree and type of handicap there are different interventions available. You have Hearing Aids for moderate to severe hearing loss and it’s sometimes effective in profound losses as well. We also have CROS/Bone Bridge/BAHA for Unilateral Hearing Loss, Bone Conduction devices can also be advocated in conductive hearing losses. For those who are not getting adequate benefit with hearing aids, they are recommended for Cochlear Implant or EAS Cochlear Implant provided the auditory nerve (AN) is intact and cochlea is present. If there is an absence of the auditory nerve or presence of a cochlear Aplasia, then Auditory Brainstem Implant is the recommended option. Can you elaborate on cochlear implantation and its effectiveness? The effectiveness of it depends on many factors such as age of implantation, use of appropriate hearing aids and previous therapy if attended, no compromised/ malformed cochlea ,socioeconomic status of family, family education and support , any other handicap existing, behavior of child, ongoing speech -language therapy/auditory verbal therapy , support at school/ work environment and many more. Please describe your journey with SHADBA-BRAHMA? It has been a wonderful journey! I came back from Australia in 2009 with the idea of setting up a Speech & Hearing Clinic with state of the art facility and support, especially dedicated to Cochlear Implantees. I started alone initially, until I found a rock solid support in my better half (Dr. Rupali Mathur- HOD Speech-Language Pathology) who joined my venture and expanded the centre in the area of speech & language pathology. Rupali also took a special interest in research activities and presented and published many papers at various levels. Later almost five special educators joined our team. Mrs. Leena R. Vishwakarma (Head of Special Education) took role of keeping special educators updated and educated which was well supported by Rupali as well. In total now we have six special educators, one speech language pathologist and two audiologist working under one roof. Looking back at the 10 years which have flown by, deep down I feel happy and proud that our center has catered services to the needy, not only in the Ahmedabad regions, but also across the entire regions of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. We also have clients from UP, Bihar, Orissa, Haryana, Karnataka and Maharashtra. We get clients from abroad as well, have extended our services to clients from Afghanistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Dubai, Mozambique, Nigeria, USA, Australia and UK. Initially when I came back, it was moment of confusion whether I should go back or settle in Ahmedabad, as I had to start from scratch. I went to many hospitals and ENT doctors, saw their OPDs and off course the test results and rehabilitation some them undergoing. At times this was disheartening to see wrong reports and involvement of non-professionals, which is prevalent now also. There were few proper speech & hearing centers, we joined the league and started. Then the uphill task was to convince doctors to send and see the difference in testing, which I think we managed well and our doctors are I would say 99 % happy and satisfied by our services. I learnt to say “NO” to doctors and clients if I felt something is not right, whether it is testing or providing services which is required and demand is opposite . In terms of center we have not opened any of branches yet due to shortage of man-power and quality assurance. Can you elaborate on the functioning and activities at the clinic? We are complete Speech & Hearing Clinic. We do awareness activities (talk with group, advertisements through articles, posts on Facebook, WhatsApp, camps), identification of problem through New Born hearing screening at various NICU across the city, assessment through Hearing Tests at the clinic (PTA/Impedance/ OAE/BERA/ASSR), assessment for Speech and Language difficulties and Therapy. Our Centre is the first (for providing services to different brand CI and other Implantable devices) and biggest (more than 1000 clients database) center in Gujarat for Cochlear Implant Rehabilitation. SHADBA-BRAHMA is one of the referral centers for Government run school health programme. We are also tied up with Smile Train Programme which Dr. Rupali looks after. SHABDA-BRAHMA, believes in teaching and making each and everyone learn through reading, learning, participating in workshops / conferences, and practice. That’s where we involve our team. Can you share a few inspirational experiences while working with parents of children and individuals with hearing impairment? Well it’s difficult as every other client has a story to say about their struggle to the success. To quote few I would like to congratulate and say the parents of all the kids are doing commendable job by bringing their kids to Centre for therapy activity. The work does not stop there; they also ensure that the activity done at the centre is well practised and that additional activities are undertaken at home for the child to be confident and learn the task. Some of them really take this challenge very well despite having many odd’s in their own life. One such child is Ms. Dhyana Rana (permission taken) who is brought to our Centre by her mother sincerely. Her mother is physically handicapped. Here I can only say that one particular type of handicap is not preventing her from bringing her child to get over her child’s handicap ( deafness), so that she can be independent in  her life. It was all by chance where my staff coming to Centre and Dhyana’s mother driving her to Centre were on the same road and my staff could record the video of same. Such parents are our motivation to do and strive for the better! Hats off to the sheer dedication and determination portrayed by Dr. Chandrakant Vishwakarma. In creating waves of wonder in the lives of individuals with hearing and speech-language difficulties, through SHABDA-BRAHMA! We, at 1SpecialPlace wish him all the very best in his future endeavors! If you wish to know more about Speech Therapy, kindly contact us at  info@1specialplace.com Book your appointment now For more ideas check out our other related blogs About 1SpecialPlace At 1SpecialPlace you have the right to be confident in your communication and to learn from the finest. In fact, our clients say they don’t feel like they’re doing “therapy work” during their sessions. Speech is what we hear; it is how you express yourself. Language is more than just what you want to say; it is also what we believe. When you have good speech and language skills, you can fully express yourself and connect with others. We’ll work with you to develop your own specialised strategy and identify your most effective communication methods. #hearingimpaired #cochlearimplant #CochlearImplantIndia #audiologist #hearingloss

Mini Dwivedi Gopinathan, We are back with another interview with the most talented super mom and Founder & Director of PlayStreet, Bangalore. We would like to know about you in your own words. Whenever I face a situation that is against me, I opt to be adaptable rather than grieve about it. It is not always easy, but I learn how to cope with the big changes. Even when the odds are stacked against me, I work tirelessly until the goal is achieved. I think that my biggest strength is that I can find creative, ingenious solutions to problems. What was the motivation behind choosing Special Education? My son’s diagnosis of Autism had necessitated me to take diploma in Special Education in Autism to learn to work with my son and help him to learn in his own unique way. I completed many more certifications after starting PlayStreet. Mini completed my Oral Placement Therapy level 2 certification and a module on sensory integration. Mini attended a conference on decoding Autism inside out, which became the cornerstone of my practice and inspired me to become a RDI Consultant. How did the journey of ‘PlayStreet’ begin? After my son was diagnosed with Autism, my husband and I were taking him for many therapies in the anticipation that “More is Better”. Every therapy we were not attending seemed to be the solution and what we were doing was not seeming to be enough. We were talking about the problems, the behaviours, the skills to be developed, but never talking about the child. There were two main challenges we faced; the first one was that all the ‘good’ therapists were at various locations and were not working in sync with each other. Hence, as parents, we were very confused on what to prioritise in the limited time and energy we had. The second challenge was to clearly recognise the approach that was the best for my child, as we heard of some treatment approaches that were popular as the missing link to solve the puzzle of autism. We as parents were clueless and were pondering if there really was a single solution to autism? In our journey We realized that the only way to help our child is to preserve his childhood and to not lose our role as parents. We learned that as parents, our focus should not be on just focussing on developing his skills, but also on developing his sense of self and his faith in us; to help him understand that we believe in him and accept his differences completely. Thus, PlayStreet was born with the vision of empowering parents to understand their child with Autism with a new perspective based on latest research. Since we realized that it’s not just one approach that helps the family with a diagnosis of Autism, we made it our mission to provide all the effective therapies under a single roof, so that each child reaches his/her own potential. What are the various services offered in Play Street? As the name suggests, “play” has a very important role in PlayStreet. Our vision was to find solutions that enable our children to ‘enjoy’ play, find enjoyment in interacting with others and connect with them before they even begin to learn. So our array of services was chosen based on the vision of providing naturalistic approaches. We developed school programs to cater to children at different stages of their development with each school program having different focal points and a naturalistic environment was provided in a structured way: The entry level sub-program is called the NAUTI Program and its focal point is parent empowerment, where parents are made to understand the importance of communication and the strategies needed to develop communication and interaction with their child. This is done through 25 to 30 classroom After the NAUTI Program, the students move to the next sub-program called the CATERPILLAR Program. Here the focal point is play and early skills In this program, the emphasis is given on developing play skills and also developing other skills using play. The last sub-program is called the BUTTERFLY Program and is an emulation of a regular classroom environment. The focal point of this program is to develop readiness for Group Instructions, Academic readiness and Social Skills. The second set of services provided by PlayStreet are clinical services as individual therapies. The various therapies provided by us are: Oral Placement Therapy Speech and Language Therapy Occupational Therapy & Sensory Integration Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) Interaction Program & AAC (Alternative and Augmentative Communication) for developing language, Communication and Cognitive Skills Special Education AFTERSCHOOL program to support the students attending mainstream schools. PLAY and SOCIAL SKILLS development program The third array of services which we have developed is aligned with our most important vision which is Parent Empowerment. We do structured trainings for parents in a variety of ways through paid classroom trainings, blogs, free camps, webinars, Facebook Live Events or Facebook Groups, parent observations of the therapy sessions and also therapist’s observations of the parents’ interaction with their children. We make sure that parents understand that they are the most important part of our team, and hence our motto is “One child, One goal, One team” We have been constantly improvising our trainings to make them more effective by helping families to integrate the therapy goals into the natural situations. Do you want to know more about PlayStreet? Please click here. Is there certification courses conducted for professionals? Yes, We have developed a state of the art model to provide meaningful inclusion in the mainstream schools to give educational services to children with special needs. We have implemented the model in one mainstream school already. Currently, we are developing the certificate training module for professionals to implement the model at different mainstream schools. How does your typical day at work look like? My typical day at work is quite eclectic and needs careful planning to organize my time, my schedules and my workload and use the day more efficiently. Every day is not same for me and my role needs a ballet of moves from one work to another. It varies from helping parents/therapists with RDI, OPT and PlayTalk, or planning events like trainings or creating new services, or developing content for social media for creating awareness and acceptance for Autism, or creating activities for language/cognitive development for PlayTalk, or helping parents to deal with the diagnosis of their child etc. How does typical work day at PlayStreet look? A typical day at PlayStreet for the therapists is multi modal. We provide our school programs in the mornings where all the therapies are provided almost every day. During afternoons our therapists provide individual sessions to students who are going to other schools and need extra support. The team works to provide IEP meetings to all families thrice in a year. As I mentioned that play is a very important part of our program, thus our curriculum involves a lot of events across the year to break the monotony of therapies and bringing fun to the plate of students’ learning, and thus, our therapists also work for making the events successful. The example of events could be field visits, trainings to parents, or intra-staff knowledge sharing. There are few decorative products on your online store.  Are those made by PlayStreet children? Yes, the products are made by our school students with the help of staff. They are being trained on various skills. On PlayStreet’s 6th anniversary in August 2018, we launched the online store (store.playstreet.in) to sell the hand crafted products by children with the help of the staff. The social impact of PlayStreet’s online store is to use technology to help various families to find a common platform to bring visibility to the products made by their children, thus working towards a program for teenagers with autism to provide an aid to lead a fairly independent life with sustainable income. This program is called “The Creative Curve” and will be launched this year. Do you provide vocational training? The program “The Creative Curve” mentioned in the previous answer is a program in progress to provide vocational training. You have developed app called ‘Unkludge’. We are keen to know more about it. The word “Unkludge” is coined by my husband which means removing chaos. Goal Track with unkludge.com is a web app developed by him that provides tracking and monitoring the progress of the child and IEP creation services for children. It gets parents onto the same team with therapists. Parents have access to their child’s goals and data on their progress through this software. Aims of Goal Track As a parent of a child with special needs, it is very important that they recognize every achievement that their child makes, since he is achieving them against immense odds In the din of everyday activities, we tend to forget how far we have come. A platform for interaction between therapists and parents regarding the goals of the child. Reduce the administrative work load on therapists so that they can concentrate on the children. Continuity of service to child even when a therapist has to be reassigned or is unavailable for a time. A record of the child’s progress not just with text, but also with images and videos Standardized goals for the children as defined by supervisors. This helps maintain a high an uniform level of service from the organization Facility for child specific remarks and clinical notes Progress updates for a child – parents have access to their child’s goals and progress information Create and track checkpoints so as to facilitate meeting with parents without any additional paperwork Would you please share more about AAC PlayTalk developed by you and your team? PlayTalk is an alternative and augmentative communication software for Android Platform. There are many AAC apps, but PlayTalk is different from other AAC apps as it is a comprehensive communication solution. Through PlayTalk, I asked a child with Autism, “How do you feel about Autism?” He said, it is tough. When I further asked, “Why do you think it is tough?” he said that “other people treat us like idiots”! This statement encapsulated the pain of the child, and is always a reminder to us for believing in our children. Currently I am working on creating modules to help the child to move beyond the need based communication. Since Children’s early conversations tend to revolve around things in their immediate environment, like their toys, food, familiar people, and daily routines. Eventually, though, they need to learn to talk about things beyond the “here-and-now.” We call this language for thinking and learning. In order to understand and use language for thinking and learning, there are many things that children need to be able to do, for example, Talk about past experiences (“I saw a Lion at the zoo.”) Talk about things that might happen in the future (“We’re going for a movie tomorrow.”) Explain (“I need a blue crayon so I can colour the sky.”) Talk about feelings (“I’m excited to go on the airplane!”) Use language to solve problems (“I can use tape to fix my picture where it’s ripped.”) Describe (“The mud was cold and squishy.”) Pretend (“My teddy is hungry and wants a snack.”) Use language to predict (“I think he’s going to sneak out of his cage.”) Thus, PlayTalk becomes a very important catalyst for the quality of communication of our children. We heard about the Women Icons Award. Please share more about it. Women Icons is the thought leadership, networking and recognition platform that celebrates and honours the accomplishments & contributions of women who have excelled in different spheres of life. It is conceptualized and organised by the Singapore-headquartered Business Excellence & Research Group Pvt Ltd (BERG), the initiative underscores the paramount role played by women in society, while appreciating their attitudes, initiatives, will power and perseverance. I received this award for my journey as an Entrepreneur & Provider of Education for Children with special needs by bringing excellence and innovation in the field. What is your most overwhelming experience till date? The most overwhelming experiences for me are the times when a non-verbal child indulged in stimming perceived as someone who is disconnected to the world, shares his/her thoughts with us on PlayTalk and let us have a peek into their beautiful minds and their matured outlook to the world and tell us that how accommodating and loving they are to this world which disrespects them and do not believe in them for their limitations. Every time they share their thoughts, it sets me thinking that how small we are in front of our children. What are your words and suggestions for young professionals in this field? My few words for young therapists are that never underestimate the abilities of a child with special needs, rest assured that the child knows much more then what we think he or she knows. What is your ‘take home line’ for parents of children with special needs? My take home line for Parents of children with special needs is “Slow down yourself to speed up the development of your child”. Other than Founder, Director, RDI Consultant, how else we can see you? What are your interests and hobbies? Currently I do not get much time to pursue much of my hobbies. These days when time permits, I cook as cooking is my forte. I focus on writing these days and I write articles about believing in our children. It is so well informative conversation with Mrs. Mini Dwivedi Gopinathan. We thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and sharing worthy information with us. We wish you best of luck for all your future endeavours. Our personalized Online speech therapy works for people of all ages and ailments, and it’s also convenient and fun. In fact, our customers tell us that they don’t feel like they’re doing “therapy work” throughout their sessions. Have you subscribed to us ? If not, please click here. #communication #AAC #SpecialEducation #Autism #speechtherapy #OnlineSpeechTherapy

We are back in our latest Wall of Fame series featuring Ms. Aparna Das, Director of ARUNIMA: A Project for Adults with Autism. Ms. Aparna Das is a loving sister with a far-sighted vision to make a better place for adults with Autism in India. Q. Share with us your journey of establishing “Project Arunima”? It was around 2005 when my sister Arunima (Runi) was 25 that I really started worrying about her future. While she stayed with family, we were not going to be around forever. What made it especially worrying was the fact that she was so attached to me, that she had started waiting for me all day, while I was at work, unwilling to do anything if I was not at home. She seemed to be sinking into a depressive state, and it was heartbreaking to see her this way. Added to this was the knowledge that I would not be around forever – no one is! What would happen to her when I was no longer around? There had to be another place, other people, with whom she could connect and form bonds with. And so, began my family’s search for a place that would answer the dreaded question – “what after us”? If the thought of Runi’s life after us was worrying, what we came across in our search was frightening! There was no way we were going to send her into that sort of existence, where people lived sans dignity, decency, or safety. Reflecting on these experiences, we realized that it had to be those who cared for Runi, and believed in her right to a dignified and stimulating life, who would have to “be the change we wanted to see”. And thus, the seed was sown, 11 years ago. It took time to plan what we wanted to see and set up, and eventually, a whole year later, Project Arunima was born. Q. What is a typical day at “Arunima”? We will celebrate 10 years on the 2nd of April, 2021, and here is what a typical day at Arunima looks like. Our friends (yes that’s what our residents and day trainees are called) wake up between 6-7 and start with a dose of good health – milk and almonds. After spending a little time together, everyone gets ready in time for breakfast. We are off to the training center on the Arunima bus at 9:30. Morning meetings, important announcements, are followed by yoga and exercises. A variety of different responsibilities and activities create an interesting buzz here! Someone works at the office, while the cooking team whips up delicious meals or snacks! Another group goes shopping while some others hone their artistic abilities. There’s work to be done and hand-crafted items to be made for Arukriti, our shop. Communication sessions are important skill-building times, be it social skills or general knowledge. Different groups participate in varied activities at different times, and before we realize it, it is already time to go back to the residence for lunch! Our friends, rest for a while and wake up for tea and snacks. Everyone completes their household chores before leaving for evening games or a walk. Once we return, we spend time together, either singing, or talking, or watching TV. A bath before dinner, some free time, and then all are off to bed. Q. Who is eligible for the “Assisted Living Centre”? Project Arunima is a program for Adults, and its aim, or vision, is clear: To enable adults who are differently-abled to live a life of dignity, and maximum independence possible. People over the age of 18 are enrolled in the program. We are acutely aware of the fact that we are working with adults, not children, and all our interactions need to be age-appropriate. Q. What are some of the life skill training programs offered? Life skills are the most important ones to learn or improve. Personal care and grooming, caring for one’s own space and belongings, learning to recognize and express one’s needs-all of these are essential to independence. People move on to learning how to shop independently, handle money, job skills such as writing a resume or participating in an interview. The list is endless because learning never ends. The plan is developed organically because each individual is different. Something we keep reminding ourselves about and want to tell others too is that we are not trying to “fix” our friends, or make them “like us”. Our goal is to bring each person to the level of “happy independence” possible because that is a human right. They are not the only ones who have to learn the ways of the “neurotypical” world. The world has to learn their ways too, and both respect and accept them, to achieve true inclusion. Q. How do you prepare them to avail employment in the community? Availing employment is a goal for many, though not all. As mentioned earlier, it is a two-way street, where the community learns about people who are differently-abled, and we teach our friends the skills needed to do a job well, including, of course, very important social skills. Sometimes jobs need to be customized to be a good fit, which makes job readiness a work in progress. We have one member of Arunima who has joined a premier staffing and recruitment agency. She marks our first foray into mainstream employment, and we are so proud of her achievements. She has learned much along the way, taught us, as well as the company she works with. Like I said, a two-way street. Q. What was the biggest challenge for you in setting up “Project Arunima”? 10 years is a long time, but it does seem like we inaugurated Arunima just yesterday! Yes, there have been many challenges along the way, but we would not forgo any of the difficulties, because of the valuable lessons they taught us. We are in a better place because of our struggles. Issues like funding and staffing are relentless in a sense, and we face them even today. The challenge here is to make the service and it’s quality self-sustaining so that the generations to come don’t struggle the way we have. The challenge that has been somewhat scarring is the lack of acceptance from the community. I remember days when neighbors gathered outside our gate and asked us to leave, or when someone complained to the police when one of our friends was having a hard day. The scars hold no bitterness but are an important reminder of how important awareness-raising is. Ms. Aparna Das, The journey with this teacher called “autism” has been one of constant learning. It started with Runi and has evolved into Project Arunima. Runi and Project Arunima are amazing teachers! Looking back, I would say that there were times when we were over our heads with the challenges autism brought, and often thought that the light at the end of the tunnel had somehow been switched off! Runi was diagnosed in an era when people understood very little about the condition. However, I realize now that Runi’s journey so far, and the establishment of Project Arunima as a result of this, proves – as her favorite Shahrukh Khan would say – “agar kisi cheez ko dil say chaho, toh poori kayanat use tumse milaane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai.” Ms. Aparna Das, Click on the link to learn more about Project ARUNIMA http://www.projectarunima.org/ Recommend someone you know for the 1SpecialPlace wall of fame! Mail us at info@1specialplace.com #Autism #autismawareness #autismspectrumdisorder #successstoriesforautism

Picture : Café Arpan Family [Photo Credit: Brinston & Dylan] Parenting a child with a special needs, whether it’s a physical disability, a learning disability, an emotional challenge, or a developmental disorder, can necessitate the acquisition of specific skills, such as care giving or advocacy, as well as time and energy commitment that can jeopardize careers, marriages, and relationships with other children. This time we are delighted to be featuring Café Arpan. Website: Yash Charitable Trust  Facebook: Yash Charitable Trust  Instagram: yashcharitabletrust Yash Charitable Trust (YCT) is a Mumbai-based public charitable organization founded in 2014 by Dr. Sushama Nagarkar; its vision is that  persons with developmental and Intellectual Disabilities (PwIDDs) like Autism, Downs’ syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, etc. will live and work in the community of their choice with dignity and self-respect. Picture : Dr. Sushama Nagarkar & Ms. Aarti Since its inception, YCT’s mission has been to enhance the quality of life of our beneficiaries (PwIDDs) through inclusive community-based activities which assist them in becoming more responsible and productive members of society. Picture : Café Arpan (Exterior 2020) We attempted to address the problem of livelihood primarily by training and offering supported employment at two of our flagship programs –  Café Arpan and  Arpan Food Services . These opportunities are inclusive in nature, create natural friendships and community involvement leading to an enhanced quality of life. Additionally, we also run weekly therapeutic enrichment activities and community-based initiatives. Q. Share with us your journey of establishing “Café Arpan”? Our first supported employment initiative was Arpan Dabba Service was set up in 2015. Over the next 3 years, the team expanded, the work-load grew but our physical space didn’t. As we could not accommodate more people who wanted to join, it was time to expand. While doing our research, we came across a heart-warming story of a family-based in the Philippines who started The Puzzle Café. They started it so that one of their adult children – a person with autism – has a place to work. The one thing missing with our Dabba service was customer interaction. We wanted our team members to engage face-to-face with their customers. And so the idea of Café Arpan was conceived. Picture : Ms. Aarti Nagarkar Greeting at Café Arpan Entrance [Photo Credit: Koumudi Chouhan] We started by raising sufficient funds, reaching out to professional resources within our networks to help with the interiors, the menu, the branding, and training. It was challenging to find a suitable location but we were fortunate enough not just to find an ideal location but wonderful landlords who believed in our cause. The whole set-up took six months during which we procured all our necessary permits, set up a training schedule, and prepared to open doors to the first café in the city that only employs PwIDDs. Café Arpan was inaugurated on August 2, 2018, and since then has matured and found a niche space within the F&B industry. It is an all-inclusive space open to anyone and everyone. We operate 6 days of the week, have a fun menu of quirky dishes and we guarantee a feel good-vibe as soon as you enter. Our hope is that others will feel inspired by our story and start their own supported employment enterprise within their own community. Picture : Café Arpan – Flower Wall (Interior) Q. What is a typical day at “Café Arpan”? Café Arpan operates Tuesday to Sunday from 11 am to 8 pm. The team members (our PwIDDs), work in two shifts. The first shift is responsible for opening and setting up the café while the second shift takes on the role of closing for the day. Some of their daily tasks include – checking inventory, preparing the tables with certain fixed items (tissues, sugar sachets, water jug, etc.), prepping the vegetables and/or sauces required and some members even go to the bank to deposit the previous day’s earnings. Picture : Café Arpan Family [Photo Credit: Brinston & Dylan] All of them follow our HR protocols, clock-in and out of our attendance system, have fixed responsibilities and job goals, and are accountable for their actions just like the rest of the working population. Q. Who are the team members at “Café Arpan”? The Café Arpan team comprises persons with developmental and intellectual disabilities (PwIDDs). Of the 32 beneficiaries we have at YCT, 18 adults (between the age group of 22 and 50) currently work at the café and back-end kitchen. In addition to our special team, we have a café manager and two support staff in the kitchen that helps run and manage the daily operations of the café. YCT Team 2019 [Photo Credit: Brinston & Dylan] Q. What are some of the training skills provided to your employees? Before Café Arpan opened, we gave our team members a brief and fundamental training. Our team members were given job roles based on their preferences, abilities, and overall qualities. For example, my cousin Aarti  and her friend  Abuli  are very social and love meeting and talking to people; they are assigned as greeters and servers;  Aaron  and  Pratibha  love to cook and follow recipes – they are now chefs at our kitchen and can prepare anything off the menu with minimal supervision. Picture : Café Arpan’s Food [Photo Credit: Puja Shenoi] We encouraged everyone to think of the café as their home and how they would welcome and treat any guest that visited. Our PwIDDS received practical training throughout Café Arpan’s first year of operation.. Subsequently, many more people came forward wanting to join YCT and the number of beneficiaries grew rapidly. Training on the job was no longer a viable option. YCT now has a curriculum that focuses on the hard skills required in the F&B space as well as a soft skills component that gears the adults to develop many of the skills required in a workplace: interpersonal communication, grooming, and personal hygiene, time management, developing personal responsibility, taking instructions from supervisors and so on. Picture : Ms. Pratibha Kamath with her Sandwiches [Photo Credit: Rema Choudhary] Q. What has been the feedback of customers visiting “Café Arpan”? Since Café Arpan was officially launched back in August 2018, we have been showered with positive feedback and overwhelming support. We officially went viral for the first few months! The team was ecstatic at being able to interact and serve every kind of customer that walked in. The menu was simple but special – made with lots of love – food that’s good for the tummy but also the soul. More than anything else, customers loved the ambiance, the feel-good vibe and always complimented our team members for making everyone feel warm and special. Picture : Chef Aaron Colaco preparing our special Pasta a la Arpan [Photo Credit: Koumdudi Chouhan] Café Arpan is a first of its kind in the city and therefore we have had many customers visit out of plain curiosity. Picture: Chef Sanjeev Kapoor Visits Café Arpan with his family (he’s been a supporter of our work since we began) The lockdown and pandemic have definitely impacted our sales; however, the customers who are comfortable visiting are still overtly positive in their feedback and continue to embrace our efforts and whole-heartedly supporting our vision and mission. We hope that Cafe Arpan serves as an example of endless possibilities and perhaps one day inspires another family, individual, or group to start something in their own community. Read our blog on Children with special needs here Q. What are the future plans for “Café Arpan”? When we first opened Café Arpan in 2018, we did not know how the community and city at large would respond. In the two years of running the café, we have proven that our model works – that PwIDDs can work in a supported environment with dignity and respect. With training, guidance, and support, we have seen the impact that our work has made on the lives of our beneficiaries, their families, and all our stakeholders. Running a food business in a competitive market like Mumbai will always be challenging. But we believe that our work is replicable. In January 2020, we successfully launched Café Arpan @ Accenture Vikhroli – an exclusive café catering to the 1500 staff at the company’s head office. We hope to restart that cafe (once Covid goes away) and many more like that in the next few years so that we can generate continuous skilling and supported employment opportunities for PwIDDs. Q. What was the biggest challenge in setting up “Café Arpan”? As you can imagine, setting up anything new is hard. We started with our first crowd-funding campaign (on Impact Guru). It was challenging to find a suitable location because many shop owners did not want to rent to an NGO.The majority of the difficulties we encountered were external (obtaining various licences and clearances), yet they were handled gracefully and completely openly. Most people think that training our team members was difficult, but the reverse was true; because they were all about to begin their first official jobs in the real world, our team members stepped up to the plate like pros. Q. What would you wish to tell other entrepreneurs? Cafe Arpan was established with the sole purpose of being a safe and supported space for our team members to work and be included. Eateries like ours are just one example of what PwIDDs are capable of – all they need is the opportunity and support. Persons with disabilities are an asset to our working population. For many PwIDDs, they thrive with routine and uniformity. So, we encourage potential employees to assign jobs that suit an individual’s skill set. We have been successful using this method at Café Arpan. It’s important to have an open mind, be passionate and see the potential in diversity. Café Arpan will always work as a therapeutic space for everyone, for people who work there and for people who visit. Having access and being able to support businesses run by a differently-abled workforce, will be a wonderful start towards a more inclusive future. A country like India has the second largest population in the world, a country with such diversity will flourish with acceptance, empowerment, and inclusion. These three words form the pillars of what I believe should be the future of the disability sector. Picture: Ms. Ashaita & Ms. Aarti Recommend someone you know for the 1SpecialPlace wall of fame ! Mail us at info@1specialplace.com #Childrenwithspecialneeds #Intellectualdisability #successstory

We are back with yet another story. We are delighted to feature, Mr. Pranav Bakhshi, India’s first Autistic model. Mr. Pranav Bakhshi has made headlines with his talent to walk the ramp and he has represented several top brands in India. Mr. Pranav’s Instagram profile says “Autism is my Superpower” Here are a few excerpts of our interview with Mr. Pranav’s loving mother Ms. Anupama Bakhshi. Q. Please introduce yourself and Mr. Pranav Bakhshi? Pranav is a twenty-year-old with Autism. He is a fashion model and has worked with brands of national and international repute. Pranav is a self-taught and self-inspired photographer who has been the official photographer for many events besides being awarded for his photographs. He is a guest columnist with Newz Hook, an e-mag that features a disability. He has done two TEDx talks. Pranav has represented himself at various forums as a self-advocate like being the keynote speaker at the e-cell initiative ‘Understanding Autism‘ at IIT Bombay. On World Autism Day, he addressed ‘Microsoft’ pan India, and India Inclusion Summit featured him too. As he possesses extensive knowledge about contemporary English music, he has been featured by Radio One 94.3. Because he broke the glass ceiling and debunked myths, he has received extensive media coverage nationally and also internationally. He is a fitness enthusiast and studies graphic design. Picture: Ms. Anupama Bakhshi and Family I love my identity as an autistic mom and mom to my neurotypical daughter who works in the mental health sector. Professionally, after a long stint as High School Head and Head of the Department, English, I have moved to the Learning Solutions industry as a content creator. Q. What has been your journey through discovering Autism? It has been an intense and eventful journey; an amalgam of heartaches and triumphs and Pranav has led the journey. I read up on all that research and documentation had to offer but never thought of ‘applying’ or ‘imposing’ that on Pranav. His intrinsic personality and self-esteem mattered the most and he was always given choices in everything. I constantly talked with him, discussed things with him, and encouraged him to express himself. He has a habit of writing a journal every day. Challenges come with the silver lining of learning lessons and each day comes with a new revelation and a new array of possibilities. Picture: Childhood Picture of Mr. Pranav and his mother Ms. Anupama Bakhshi Q. Share with us what inspired Mr. Pranav to pursue modeling? Well, it was meant to happen, I think. By the time Pranav reached his teens, I had identified his creative streak and was looking for creative spaces for him. This led to his attending the Velvi Art for Autism festival where he was introduced to ramp walk as a structured activity. He fell in love with it. I initially thought it is the music that is attracting him but soon discovered that he had fallen in love with this medium of self-expression. He was very clear in his expression of the desire to become a fashion model and my daughter and I supported him whole-heartedly. It was initially a tough journey, but Pranav was determined and more than willing to take up the challenges. Picture: Mr. Pranav Bakhshi Q. What are some of the challenges you faced on your road to success? There were far too many. There were no precedents that I could refer to and there was no support available on any platform. Why would anyone then take a chance with him? The fire in Pranav’s eyes led the way and we kept trying. It was very clear that the little place that was to be created for him would be in the mainstream modeling world and not a ‘special appearance’. He fulfilled some criteria of the mainstream modeling world like height and a lean and fit body and he was more than willing to work on the rest. We were very lucky when finally, after auditioning with a very good mainstream modeling agency, he cleared the audition and became India’s first mainstream fashion model with autism. Read a detail blog on Autism here Q. What is your favorite part about being Mr. Pranav’s mother? Every single thing! Pranav’s mother feel so honored that I am his mother and a mother to his older sister, an amazing sibling. I love our journey as it unfolds itself each day. She get the strength to face all the challenges from him and there is nothing that she would not do for him. I love the fact that he is such an empathetic, affable and polite young man and his witty ‘Pranavisms’ are worth documenting. Pranav’s mother love the way he changed the narrative about special individuals always being in the position of receiving support. They can offer support, too, Pranav proved during the COVID times. He was anxious and worried about people not wearing masks, the deaths, the migrant laborers, and the lockdown. I suggested to him that he cannot change things but he can help. Pranav was as it is inspired by people who he saw helping others. He pooled in his earnings as a model and a photographer and designed three sets of trays and coasters. Pranav used two of his photographs and one of his photoshop designs. He tried to spread the word through social media and was able to sell the products. He managed to collect a considerable amount of money and donated it to the PM Cares fund to help support the COVID effect. Well, his feeling of joy and fulfillment was indescribable and so was my happiness and pride. Picture: Mr. Pranav Bakshi at the TED Talk Event Q. What do you wish to tell other caregivers of Autistic Persons? Sounds very cliched but every cloud comes with a silver lining. ‘Can do’ narrative, instead of ‘can’t do’ is the right approach. Even the uneven skill profile carries a promise. The strengths can be worked upon. Overall, I am very wary of the ‘suffer from autism’ narrative. It is a condition and individuals with autism brave all odds to live with the condition. Let us not belittle their journeys by labeling them as ‘sufferers’. Since Pranav is such a big Marvel fan, his autism was introduced to him as his superpower and he believes in this positive stance. There is time enough for him to discover the limitations of superpowers and the humanization of superheroes but it works best for him and us.       – Ms. Anupama Bakhshi Recommend someone you know for the 1SpecialPlace Little Miracles! Mail us at info@1specialplace.com Book a session now #Autism #Autismstory #Autisticchild

Chef. Tanishq, We are back with a wonderful story of a young boy Chef. Tanishq, whose culinary skills are amazing all his subscribers on social media. He is an 11-year-old boy, diagnosed as Autistic. Tanishq has his own YouTube and Instagram channel, handled by his loving mother Mrs. Veena Viswanathan. His culinary skills have left his 500 plus subscribers very impressed. Read on to know more! Here are a few excerpts from our interview with Chef. Tanishq mother. Q. Please introduce yourself and Tanishq Chef. Tanishq is now eleven years old. He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS at the age of two. Tanishq as a child didn’t have a sitting tolerance for watching cartoons but he used to spend most of his time watching the food channels on television. Most of the programs were short and repeated, so he enjoyed watching them. As a five-year-old one day when he insisted on flipping Dosa (South Indian staple breakfast) with his limited vocabulary, his grandmother allowed him and saw that he was able to do that and he could grasp the skill of pouring the Dosa batter easily. I realized gradually that he enjoyed cooking and allowed him to assist her while cooking. His motor skills also kept improving due to his participation in kitchen chores. Picture: Chef. Tanishq Q. Tell us about Tanishq and his journey as an “Autism Chef”? Tanishq used to watch cooking programs on television in Hindi. As he grew up, he learned to explore YouTube. Chef. Tanishq, would go to the search button and type and watch all those programs he used to watch on TV. In the process, he has come across many other food channels and recipes. He would insist on making something he has watched on YouTube and we at home would help him replicate it. Our cooking-related vocabulary has improved a lot thanks to Tanishq. Picture: Pastry by Tanishq Q. Please share with us Tanishq’s unique culinary skills. Tanishq now comfortably cooks, South Indian staples like rice, sambar, sabzi, idli, dosa, chutney, etc. When he cooks something different than the routine, we photograph and videograph it. When one such video was shared with close friends, within a week’s time they had sent back pictures of their kids with special needs trying their hands in the kitchen. Tanishq and we as parents felt very happy and were elated to share his cooking videos. During the lockdown, we created an account for him on YouTube. They named it “Wonderfud” with the tagline ” Food is Ishq with Tanishq!” (Ishq means love/passion). Cupcakes made by Tanishq The dishes are decided by Tanishq. He cannot be asked to make something for the video. Only when he wishes to cook, he will. We cannot interrupt Tanishq while cooking, he is so focused. He will not wait for the videography nor will he repeat a step for the sake of recording. Read a detail blog on Autism Spectrum Disorder He will not dress up formally for a video recording. So, if the ingredients are available at home, he starts cooking and his mother records it from a distance. Then it is uploaded on the channel with slight editing. He is verbal now and his cooking vocabulary has improved tremendously – he loves to comment while cooking. A few celebrity chefs he admires have encouraged him and featured him on their Instagram stories and tweets. Samosa by Chef. Tanishq Q. What is your favorite part about being Tanishq’s mother? I get to learn and experience so many things on daily basis compassion, perseverance, patience, and most importantly the unconditional love showered by him on us. Q. What would you wish to tell other caregivers? Don’t worry about the tag given. It is just a developmental delay.  Enjoy the parenthood and be happy that we are blessed with someone with a genuinely pure heart. Don’t drag the child to our cruel world, try to get into their wonderland and see how beautiful life is. YouTube channel: Wonderfud Instagram channel: w.o.n.d.e.r.f.u.d Recommend someone you know for the 1SpecialPlace Little Miracles ! Mail us at info@1specialplace.com Book a session now #Autism #Autismstory #speechtherapy #successstory

Conversation with “Nayi Disha”. In this month’s Wall of Fame series, we are delighted to interview with the team “Nayi Disha”.   “Nayi Disha” is an NGO Resource Centre that supports caregivers of persons with developmental disabilities. They offer a one-stop-shop resource for caregivers. Online and in-person support is provided by the Helpline at “Nayi Disha”. Their services are free and they have support groups ranging from information on diagnosis, assessment, treatment, and counseling. Their platform receives thousands of visitors a day from caregivers across India. Here are a few excerpts from our interview with “Nayi Disha”. Nayi Disha Helpline Q. Please share with us the Vision and Mission behind “Nayi Disha”. Our Vision is to enable and equip families affected by developmental disabilities to be the change agents in the development journey of their loved ones, and not leave any family behind. The mission is to provide verified and quality information in an easily accessible manner, build an evolving ecosystem and a strong interactive community of service providers, non-governmental organizations, and peer families, and drive the reach countrywide through the power of digital technology and innovation, in an understood language. Q. How does “Nayi Disha” empower caregivers. As we know, every family having a loved one with developmental disabilities goes through varying degrees of anxiety and helplessness. During their early days, parents often struggle to find out how to deal with the situation and who to get help, advice, and treatment. Timely information becomes critical for the child’s development. But more than just information, parents also need hope and strength as they face everyday challenges. We become a life-long partner to the family and at every step, we provide support to bridge information gaps and overcome fear and uncertainty along that journey. Through a digital knowledge hub and community that draws special needs families into an eco-system, we make available comprehensive and credible information and compiled a directory of support services. Here, parents can find curated knowledge, relevant references, and resources across life stages, an accessible helpline, and guidance (or counseling) that can provide the right solutions at the right time and place so that the child may be guided to reach his/ her true potential. Parents can engage with other parents in similar challenges, become part of peer support groups and communities, and evolve and further build such communities. They can participate in training, exchanges, and events curated to enable such caregivers to cope, feel supported life-long, and embrace a haven where they feel acknowledged. We are also reaching out to families with limited resources in remote areas of India, and use technology as a driver to communicate with them in a language they can understand. Q. Tell us more about the helpline at “Nayi Disha” We launched our Nationwide Helpline to provide free counseling and guidance to families. Through this helpline, available on the phone and WhatsApp, our counselors provide counseling support and guide caregivers to find the right government schemes and benefits, providers, and vetted information. Parents can save the Helpline number on their mobile phones approach over a phone call or through WhatsApp messages. Conversation with “Nayi Disha” Q. What are some of the services “Nayi Disha” provides? Our online services are complemented with in-person services (pre-covid) to reach parents across the socio-economic and digital divide. Online services:In-person services: Online1.     Information Resources – 480 published articles in English, Telugu, and Hindi about Autism, Down syndrome, etc. See video here.1.     Parent training workshops: short training sessions and Saksham- 8-week parent training program in partnership with Saamarthya foundation.2.     National directory of vetted services -1,890 providers from 98 cities tagged with geo-location, with ability for parents to provide feedback3.     Sakhiyaan / Saathiyaa – Support group meets. (Also done Online due to Covid)2.     Strong community of families – 20 support groups based on location, conditions and age-group4.     Printed resources –Information for families who cannot access online material4       Helpline Q. What are some of the challenges faced while establishing “Nayi Disha”? Creating a quality knowledge hub customized to the Indian context requires professional expertise which is expensive. Since Nayi Disha believes that information should be available for free, raise funds for the venture was a huge challenge Overcoming technology challenges with limited resources has been a huge challenge. Enlisting service providers to create a nationwide directory has been another challenge. Recommend someone you know for the 1SpecialPlace wall of fame! Mail us at info@1specialplace.com Book a session now #childsdevelopment #Earlyintervention #Parentingchildrenwithspecialneeds #speechtherapy

Babies and toddlers are keen at learning all the time, even when they seem not to be doing much. Knowing how to interact and how it helps them with their listening, understanding, talking and making sounds is important for parents. We have borrowed some ubiquitous technology terms to run you through these tips! Do you Facetime, sign-in, kindle with your child??!! Here is a fun way way to talk you through the most important foundation tips: Have Real-time FaceTime FaceTime is a popular technology term and it really fits well in the context of talking to babies!! When you are face to face with your baby, it is known to release feel good hormones wanting your baby to look at you all the more!! Your babies will love to watch your mouth, facial expressions and also help them feel secure when you hold them close to your face. Have a chat by holding your baby close to your face. For toddlers, get down to their level while talking to them about anything that strikes their interest. iTune: Tune in to your child’s play – Tune in or join in to make your baby or toddler feel interested in them and their play. Often times, parents of babies do this on hearing the baby cry. This is critical to make them feel secure and understand their needs. As toddlers begin to make a variety of speech sounds, tuning in helps to initiate a reciprocal (back and forth) communication with them. For example, tune in to the sounds your baby makes, imitate them and they will in turn try to imitate the sounds you make. By tuning in to your child’s eye contact, facial expressions, sounds and gestures, you are enhancing non-verbal communication which makes up for about 80% of communication. Tuning in can help your child concentrate better, you get an opportunity to copy his/her actions and add more to it. With toddlers, you can simply add an extra word to what they say and help them expand their language. This way you are enriching their listening and understanding of actions and words. Sign-in- Signing to babies strengthens motor pathways in the brain, enhances visual development and reduces frustration. Using baby signs and using a lot of gestures while talking to your baby can strengthen your bond, encourage communication and make your interaction fun! Best of all, it enhances the bond between you and your baby. There are many books and videos on ‘baby signs’. Learning to sign is really easy because most of the signs are natural gestures. If babies have to understand signs, it must always be accompanied with eye contact, being close to their face, facial expressions and most importantly you should say the word you sign. If you take to baby signing gradually, you will be amazed at your baby’s sign vocabulary and communication skills. Generally, even if you are not using baby signs, simply using a lot of facial expressions and gestures/actions help them understand and remember the newly learnt words. Kindle your child’s interest – Get chatty and help your child in learning new words by talking or commenting about what you are doing with them. Turn feeding, bathing and changing times into talking times. It does not always require you to set aside some special time to talk to your babies, toddlers and young children. There is an immense amount of learning opportunity for kids when they are involved in their daily routines. It is in fact in the context of daily routines that children understand and associate the words they hear in relation to their function in their daily routines. You can talk about what you are seeing, hearing, doing and even thinking. If you are cooking, tell them about it, “Mummy is kneeding the dough’, “I am rolling the dough into small circles”, “I am now going to make small rotis” and so on. This is called ‘self-talk’, an important strategy to enhance learning and communication. Likewise, you can also take the role of a ‘commentator’ by commenting on what your baby is doing, seeing or feeling. So, when your baby is building a tower with blocks, you can say, “Oh! That is a tall tower! I can see red, blue and white blocks”. This strategy of commenting is called ‘parallel talk’. LinkedIn- Help your child to link or string words together. Add more words to what your child says, this way your child will learn new words. Also, repeat the words you use in different routines, it will help them remember. Linking more words is a way of re-wording a child’s utterance which may seem short or incomplete. For example, when your child says, “cat drinking milk”, you can link more words to what your child already said by saying “The fat cat is drinking milk” or “The hungry cat is drinking milk”. Which one of the above is your favourite technology buzzword? Get real-time techie, get chatty!! #childdevelopment #Languagedevelopment #speechlanguagedevelopment #Talkingtobabies

Neha Tiwari – Wall of Fame – Feb 2018: Neha Tiwari, Speech Language Pathologist cum Audiologist In a vast country like India where more than 21 million people have some or the other form of disability, spreading awareness about various disorders and the probable help available is a gargantuan task! Meet Mrs Neha Tiwari, a trained Speech Langauge pathologist cum Audiologist who hails from an Army background and is shouldering this mammoth responsibility to create awareness and acceptance of disability and disorders. 1SpecialPlace is proud to recognize Mrs Tiwari’s selfless efforts. We mutually share her vision of reaching out to the masses in order to build a more aware nation! “I am Ms Neha Tiwari and I have been working in the field of speech-language and hearing from last 16 years. While doing graduation in the field of Speech and Hearing, I realized the lack of awareness about this field in India. I started raising awareness about this field during vacation. Since teachers play an important role in the early identification, I started with schools near my house. I completed Post Graduation in Speech and hearing in 2002. I have also completed PG Diploma in Counselling and Family Therapy, PG Diploma in NGO Mgt and PG Diploma in School Leadership and Mgt. Currently, I am a visiting professor at Institute of Health Sciences, Bhubaneswar,  an online consultant and also Principal of a pre-primary school. I spread awareness among people esp teachers of both private and govt schools regarding speech, language and hearing disorders in school going, children. Neha am inclined towards social work and my speciality is in phonological awareness skills and misarticulation. I run a facebook page “Sachetataa” through which I spread awareness about various communication disorders. ” What is your typical day at work? I believe in planning my day well in advance. Every morning, I write down a few pointers for my reference. Since, I am working as a head of an institution which has children with and without special educational requirements and also with speech, language and/or hearing disorders, I work closely with teachers as I am involved not only as a head but also as a  Speech Language Therapist. Counselling the parents and other team members is an integral part of my routine. I attend to online patients in evening. What has been your most memorable experience while working in the field of Speech-Language Pathology? Working and Spreading awareness about the field in remote areas, getting to know the ground level difficulties of professionals working in remote areas and how they cope with the limitations has been an enriching experience. You are from a military background, how do you cope with the challenges life has brought your way? I have always accepted and adjusted with the twists and turns life has taken. For me, getting transferred every two years was an opportunity as I could spread awareness, work in different states and could understand and cope with the real challenges while working in remote areas. Army gave me immense opportunities of social work. In fact, the job satisfaction that I have is only because of the opportunities I had been a part of this fraternity. Tell us about your journey to starting Sachetataa. I believed in working for the society and never thought of highlighting the work that I have been doing. One of my friends who was very much impressed by my work asked me to create a page through which I could not only reach more people but also spread awareness.That’s how it started. I am happy and contented with the response. Who is your biggest inspiration? Mother Teresa is my biggest inspiration. What according to you are the growth prospects of being an SLP in India? The scope of working for SLP in India has been widening.  Budding SLPs need to realize that their role is not restricted to Clinics, Hospitals, or NGOs but they could also work in schools, early intervention clinics and as online consultants. With the growing number of people graduating in this field and increasing awareness, SLPs are receiving their due credit and the picture looks very promising both for professional development and economic satisfaction. Your advice for young people pursuing Speech-Language Pathology/Audiology as a career. My advice is that “not only think economic but social also.” 1SpecialPlace aims to inspire budding Speech Langauge Therapists and Audiologists through this feature of Wall of Fame. We congratulate Mrs Neha on her success and wish her sunny skies ahead! Subscribe to her Youtube Channel by clicking here. If you wish to know more about Speech Therapy, kindly contact us at info@1specialplace.com Book a session now For more ideas check out our other blogs #creatingawareness #disability #nehatiwari #SpeechLangaugeTherapists

Shereen Idiculla on a Roll with Oral Placement Therapy Shereen Idiculla 14 years of practice, India’s First Speech Language Therapist to complete Level 3 Oral Placement Therapy, Hanen Certified, Director of Clinical Services at PlayStreet Specially Abled Educare Trust, Co-founder and Director of KidsStreet, a keen learner and a compassionate personality, Shereen Idiculla with all this and more is a power package! She is on our ‘Wall of Fame‘ for this month. Hi. I’m Shereen Idiculla and I am a Speech and Language Therapist. I finished my Master’s program at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing or AIISH in 2004. Experience over 14 years has helped me become the person I am today with the children I work with, be it to stimulate language naturally using Hanen strategies or build the oral Sensory and motor skills using Oral Placement Therapy. I am a Hanen Certified Therapist for both the “More Than Words” and the “It Takes Two To Talk” programs. I am also a Level 3 Oral Placement Therapist and currently the only level 3 therapist in India. I am the Director of Clinical Services at PlayStreet Specially Abled Educare Trust, as well as the Co-founder and Director of an inclusive preschool called KidStreet in Bangalore. I run many online programs to help parents across the world who don’t have access to good guidance, on different aspects related to their child’s development like their language, their cognitive development, feeding issues, poor chewing skills, food sensitivities, poor speech production or speech clarity, the need for AAC (Alternative and Augmentative Communication) etc. What is your typical day at work? Instead of talking about my day, I think it would be better to talk about my week. I travel between the 2 centres, PlayStreet and KidStreet as well as see some clients privately at home. Being at the centres would involve guiding or mentoring the other therapists who work with me, having discussions about the children in the school or clinical programs or addressing concerns therapists or parents may have regarding the many programs we run. Being at home would involve educational webinars for my clients’ parents, analysing videos sent in by them and online meetings to discuss the program. That would be a typical week! What has been your most memorable experience while working in the field of Speech-Language Pathology? Having a child connect with you after rejecting any kind of interaction with you or other people, seeing the improvement week by week, having parents come back to you excitedly after something worked for them when working with their child at home…. the list is endless. But, as cliche as it may sound, it is these moments that make me feel happy about my profession and my passion when working with children, and what motivates me like nothing else can. Shereen Idiculla You are the first SLP in India to get certified on Oral Placement Therapy. Tell us about your experience on doing these courses. Are they useful? My OPT journey started more than a decade ago in Singapore when I was still a newbie at work. I had heard of Sara’s technique and had an opportunity to talk to one of my colleagues about the program that she had attended and how it had benefited her as a speech therapist. When I finally got an opportunity to learn more about this program in 2010, it was an eye-opener and there was no looking back after that! I had been certified for Hanen’s It Takes Two To Talk Program, but making a child verbal when their speech was unclear was something I wasn’t having much success with. It was when I started my journey with Oral Placement Therapy that I realized that there was a chunk of information that was missing from my therapy approach. It took me a while to put the information I learned from the courses conducted by Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson, Lori Overland and Renee Roy Hill into perspective and gradually make it a part of my regular speech therapy sessions. Even when I completed my Level 3 certification, I realised there was still so much to learn. However, now when children come to me, I can figure out why ‘speech’ hasn’t developed or why the child is facing feeding issues, and convince parents that working on feeding issues will help the child develop speech and work towards speech in a non-traditional but effective way. Tell us about your journey with PlayStreet – My journey with PlayStreet started before PlayStreet actually started 🙂 I got introduced to the Founder, Mini Dwivedi Gopinathan, through her wonderful son, Dyutit. It was because of him that PlayStreet took off and we were able to help so many families. He is our inspiration and teacher when it comes to anything related to Autism. PlayStreet started 6 years ago all because a parent wanted to help more parents get the services they needed under one roof, without travelling to a million places! It started with a vision to empower parents so that they could learn to be their child’s advocate and believe in their children so that their children could find their true voice. We have developed our own AAC software called “PlayTalk” which is a free software that has been developed for the Android platform. Instead of just using this as just any AAC software, we created a structured program that goes with it that helps a child develop his language and communication in a naturalistic manner. It has been an amazing journey – a journey that helped us discover our children’s voices and helped them gain confidence in the classrooms and in their everyday environments. The children learnt to become more spontaneous and happier communicators. Who is your biggest inspiration It might sound cliched, but that would be the children and the parents I have had the pleasure to work with over 13 years. They face so many challenges from the people and environment around them, and yet they keep moving ahead. Inspiration to try out new activities, techniques, approaches, etc… it all stems from wanting to solve a problem.. a problem the child or the parent might be facing. What according to you are the growth prospects of being an SLP in India? SLPs are in great demand wherever we go. The prospects are endless as now we have access to more information, more workshops, international certifications, etc. But SLPs also need to understand that they need to keep upgrading their knowledge constantly and that they cannot continue to only do traditional methods of therapy. With Google at our fingertips, parents have access to a lot of information before starting a speech therapy session. Therapists need to keep up so that they grow professionally and improve their own prospects. Your advice for young people pursuing Speech-Language Pathology/Audiology as a career Keep learning, never stop. Rationalize your approaches, don’t blindly follow. Learn how to break things down for the clients you work with. Don’t be boring, educate yourself, try out new things and keep your interactions with your clients fun. Enjoy your work! 1SpecialPlace aims to inspire budding Speech Langauge Therapists and Audiologists through this feature of Wall of Fame. We congratulate Mrs Shereen on her success and wish her good luck in her future endeavours!  You can connect with Shereen here. Shereen Idiculla If you wish to know more about Speech Therapy, kindly contact us at info@1specialplace.com Book a session now For more ideas check out our other blogs https://1specialplace.com/news/ #kidstreet #oralplacementtherapy #playstreet

“Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day” -Winston Churchill Sometimes for some of us or perhaps for all of us, life pushes us beyond our comfort zones. Let’s pause here and think about why we feel pushed beyond our comfort zones? Often times, we feel so when people or circumstances are not conforming or compliant with the social norms. In psychological terms, conformity means compliance with rules, standards, and laws. It is the likelihood of converging to a group norm. In the context of parenting, parents who have a child born with or who develops a condition which deviates from the majority of the so-called normal is certainly pushed out of their comfort zones. Imagine a day in the life of these parents who are pushed to think, understand, feel and communicate with their child in ways that are beyond the so-called normal! Speaking for myself, I deeply believe these children who are diverse (not disabled) are here to teach us something and they are here for a reason. Most parents have created a ‘new normal’ space in their minds and in their life with the experiences they have with these children. I believe, we have an obligation to acknowledge, accommodate and value their presence in our society. Like musical tones, each one of us has an individual signature and when we come together we create a symphony. Let’s become one by uplifting and empowering each other as we are already one from the realms of higher consciousness. Society needs a paradigm shift A paradigm shift means an important change is brought about progressively when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new or a different way. The theory of Ptolemaic system (the earth at the center of the universe) to the Copernican system (the sun at the center of the universe) was an example of a major paradigm shift. Moving from Newtonian physics to relativity to Quantum Physics is a progressive paradigm shift. Presume Competence Do you think the society has to make this paradigm shift from the older ‘disabled or disordered’ view to the ‘new normal’ paradigm by presuming competence in persons who are differently wired? Mr.Sanjaya Ganesh, parent of Appu , a 7-year-old child who is on the Autism Spectrum says, “Firstly, it is important to understand that most skills are functions of the brain. Skills are as diverse and numerous as the possibilities that brain can generate. Any specialized wiring of the brain creates lot more possibilities for interesting skills. Our learning is that presuming competence is key to understanding special needs kids. When you presume competence and approach with the idea of how to extract that competence – rather presuming incompetence – a whole new world of possibilities emerges! This is the fundamental shift needed – presume competence and find ways to extract it rather than presume incompetence which is what the world is doing now. Secondly, accepting special needs kids is nothing more than basic humanity. Any difference from the norm is as simple as a difference in gender, caste, colour, creed, and class. Hence it becomes as important a part of basic humanity as accepting the differences in caste, colour, and gender to also accept special needs individuals”, he writes. Here is an example from his experience on how a paradigm shift worked in favour of his son. “We have had an interesting journey. Our son had a special educator who presumed incompetence in special needs kids. Our son hated going to school at those times. We knew he had extremely exceptional alphanumeric skills including the ability to write spelling of any word and do even quadratic equations at as young as 7 years of age. However, a teacher in the school was adamant about making him write. It is obviously a skill which he can never achieve even if he tries for years. As we progressed things changed favourably wherein the specific special educator was replaced by a far more skilled senior educator at school. She figured out his skills in less than a week. She started questioning him using computers, multiple choice questions, and many interesting new ways. All she did differently was presuming competence and starting from that premise. Within a matter of a couple of months – he was solving complex math problems and English problems with her. She stopped making him write and switched to newer ways. Results were unbelievably amazing!” Creating a New Normal A ‘New Normal’ arises when parents and professionals see neuro-divergent children or persons as not flawed. “New normal is always when something is looked upon from outside world. When you see the world holistically you realize that everyone struggles with something or other – money, power, position, basic needs. Everyone struggles to fulfill desires. Even a 100-billion-dollar company owner struggles to fulfill his desires daily. There is no movement that happens in the world without desires. And everyone leaves the world with nothing in hand. Once you understand this, a new normal automatically will fall in place” says Mr. Sanjaya. In response to how he has created a ‘new normal’ life with his child on the spectrum, he writes, “We try to collaborate more with like-minded parents. Nothing much changes – you still have your fun, your travels, your special occasions with a lot more bonded community than a community that just struggles to compete against each other on the scale of achievements. Getting a like-minded special needs parent community together can be far more enriching than a very boring rustic world which just runs on achievements and exhibition of those achievements. It touches you far deeply within and gives you immense satisfaction and great friendships which move beyond what one’s material achievements are”. Self-Reflection: To every parent who has a neuro-divergent child, in what ways has your child influenced you and your insights about life in general? “First and foremost, our child helped us see the world holistically, see the struggle in every quarter driven by desires and see happiness in quarters where you least expect. He helped us see the same source of all beings in every species as you see in yourself. You shift your focus to making his life a better one today than what it was yesterday. You start seeing every moment as the only moment you have and start enjoying and working on it. Once you learn that, we started living in the present moment more and more. It certainly was not a one day, month or year shift. Years of practice helps to reach that very easily. We owe to our kid for all these. Secondly, our entire lifestyle, food, and diet habits shifted to very healthy levels. With absolute no junk foods, no packed items, no sugar, no processed salt and food, no milk or gluten. With focus on specific nutrition has helped us gain a lot of our health back – and feel more energetic than what it was a decade ago” says Appu’s father. Neuro-divergent children are not a misfortune ! Appu’s father makes concluding remarks by saying, “Everything happens for a reason in the world whether we like it or not. Why does the sun rise? For a reason. Why does universe function? For a reason. Why do ants and humans exist? For a reason. We know the reasons for some and don’t know the reasons for others. Classifying something as fortune or misfortune is purely from a mindset of achieving material desires of individual egos. It has no meaning for the world. What is a fortune for one may be a misfortune for another? We all have situations that we deal with. Classifying them as fortune or misfortune does not help in any way. Special kids certainly are here to teach humans a special lesson beyond material world”. We would love to hear your views on this! If you have liked the article, please share it with others! #autismspectrum #neurodivergentchildren #SpectrumofHope #Autism #specialneedskids