Autism is not a tragedy, but ignorance about it is! One in 68 children in the United States is diagnosed with autism — a condition that impairs social and communication development, social skills and is marked by repetitive behaviours.
It occurs four times more in boys than girls, according to 2014 report of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Also, about 50,000 children with autism become adults and lose school-based autism services each year. It has a significant presence in India too. Though the number of children with autism is growing, the reasons for the condition remain largely unknown.
Adding to the problem is low awareness level among parents and lack of intervention programmes in the government sector, say those working in the field. By the time parents take their own time in recognising the delayed milestones of normal development in their child and find an appropriate intervention programme, the disorder may have been set in deeply requiring longer duration for the child to show improvement.
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Earlier the intervention, lesser will be the impact of the condition and greater will be their integration into mainstream schools, they assert. Amid this gloomy scenario, organisations like Sparsh Foundation and its founder Panchamukhi have been offering some hope.
A postgraduate in psychology and early childhood special education, he realised it is crucial to open special schools to help such children and then integrate them with normal children once their coping skills improve. “Some are good at maths, but they face difficulty in application of knowledge. But they can still be good at handling repetitive jobs in an organisation and not a burden on the family,” he says. The first Sparsh school started in Secunderabad with three students has now expanded into seven centres, including one each in Visakhapatnam and Kakinada, serving more than 500 students.
Cities like Bengaluru have various centres offering therapies for several problems, but there is no integrated centre here, rues Bindu, mother of a child with autism. She is, however, happy after she admitted her six-year-old son in Sparsh school after several mainstream schools refused to give admission to her child on some pretext or the other.
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Another parent, Vaidehi, says the family was in Helsinki (Finland) when her three-year-old son was found to be lacking in normal responses like other children. After four days of observation, he was diagnosed with mild autism. Her son now attends Sparsh multi-service school.
Psychologist Vivek says early intervention is helpful in minimising the impact. By three years, 60 %of brain cells would be activated and it would be time to use it or lose it. The child also develops 90 % of personality traits by then. If observant, a child can be identified of the condition when he/she is three to four months old.
Multi-service school
A unique feature of Sparsh is its comprehensive multi-service school providing education, therapeutic and recreational services for children with autism and other special needs. This fosters their physical, educational, emotional and social development and enable them play, learn, live and function in real world, Mr. Panchamukhi explains. The school recently won the Best Institution Award from the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
It also started a ‘Reverse Integration Programme’ where regular school environment is created in the special school considering mainstream schools’ reluctance to take them in. Here, children with autism learn side by side with their peers who are typically developing. This has boosted the development in social and language development of children with autism, says the founder.
Mr. Panchamukhi points out that close to 40 children move to mainstream schools every year from Sparsh and one such boy would be taking his 12th class Board exam soon.