With the World Autism Awareness Day around the corner (On April 2), Deepa Malini, Founder, Autism and Beyond Centre, Coimbatore addressed the members of the press at the Coimbatore Press Club and conveyed the effective ways to groom children with autism.
Deepa was so empathetic when she spoke for these children and said these children can shine like other kids, if the special care and grooming they require is given. Autism can be diagnosed well from the child’s 2nd year and the children will find it hard to talk like other kids of their age. She wanted the parents to be more attentive. We learned from her that male babies are affected mostly by autism.
She touched upon the Greenspan’s Floortime Strategies in Practice. Deepa wanted the parents with autism affected kids to understand that putting their kids in a normal school thinking that they will start to behave like other kids is actually not the right thing to do, nor is it feasible if they think special schools would compensate.
Deepa stressed that with proper development intervention technique, through a respectful, playful, joyful and engaging process, the children could be made to get a firm grip of coherence and their cognitive senses will increase when their areas of interests are observed and strong interaction is built over it.
Putting children with Autism in academic schools directly would go well till they touch 3rd Grade but post that they will find it really hard to cope-up with the syllabus of higher grades. Deepa said she has seen many parents come with such issues. She suggested that children with autism first need to strengthen their communication, comprehension and cognitive skills and if they achieve that, they can succeed.
When asked wouldn’t it take a while for those children to reach higher studies and employment opportunities like others, Deepa confidently said “Being successful is all that matters and there are people who have become successful despite autism”
She said parents are very pivotal in shaping the future of their autism affected children and educating them on the ways to handle children with such special needs is a must and it will make the process of bringing up their children to standard behavior a lot easier. Her speech ended with the a small video presentation of her centre.