Early intervention for special needs kids in India

As we waved goodbye to the academic year 2018-19 this March and looked back to the year gone by, we realize that we are growing as rapidly as our children! Until recent years, we have always focussed solely on the children and families, making sure we do everything we can for them.

In the past two years, we have come to understand that the organization and program need equal nourishment, independent of the beneficiaries they cater to. This came as a result of our staff going through multiple capacity building and training programs, including the exhaustive range of sessions provided by GlobalGiving. That put our growth in last 2 years in perspective - while it is always desirable to expand, reach more children across regions and spread what we know, such expansion can only happen on a strong foundation at the core, one that has a robust system, processes, and management. Without this, even the most well-intended, well-designed programs can fail.

With that in mind, we have decided to take a strategic pause this year. After 2 exciting years of training other organizations in our methodology of Early Intervention, we will now be taking a break from training others this year and focus on creating our own knowledge repositories, something we lack right now. This means a LOT of research, study, experimentation and most importantly, documentation! Our focus this year for EI would be to write down our pedagogy, analyze our historical data to glean insights about the program and the methodology and once we are ready with it, share it with the world! This will also help us create more rigorous training modules and make knowledge sharing easier in the future. 

While the organization was abuzz with all this, our beautiful children continue to flourish and progress. Here is the story of one of our kids(name withheld for privacy) in the EI program and we are immensely proud of how far he and his mother have come!  

This child came to Tamahar in February 2018 at the age of 4.5 years. His assessment using the Carolina Curriculum revealed his developmental age to be all over the chart! His cognition and communication was that of a 3-month-old infant, while his motor skills and self-help skills were that of a year old baby.

He wasn’t comfortable with people or peers being around him. To get him ready for being around others, we initiated him into our EI prep program, which involves one-on-one sessions with the child until the child is open to adapting to situations and peers. Within 2 months, he was ready for joining the Early Intervention group class!

As of March 2018, he was a non-verbal child. He didn’t participate in any activity and was barely independent in any activities of daily living. His attention was low, wouldn’t respond to commands and would not do simple things like imitating gestures or sounds.

Today, with consistent intervention, therapies and efforts of his mother, the child has opened up to other kids his age and expresses himself loud and clear! He is getting more independent and is always trying to do better. He responds to greetings and salutations and engages with adults well. He is catching up fast with his age and we have high hopes in the coming year for him.

Part of this success has to be attributed to the personal growth the child's mother has shown. Through our mental health services like a support group, skill development, etc, she found a much-needed support system. She is an active participant in all activities planned for mothers and very excited to be learning embroidery at Tamahar! Our training has helped her understand her child better and deal with him better, and we believe, that has made all the difference for her son. His is an example that shows how a 360 service that caters to the entire family at all levels can work wonders at an amazing pace!