Session I: Genetics and Prevention | Session II: Information Communication Technology Enabled Services | Session III: Types of Disabilities | Session IV: Therapeutics | Session V: Policies and Programme
Session IV: Therapeutics
The session was chaired by Dr. Rita Mary, Director, Guidance Home for Adult Deaf Girls and Mr. A.K. Mittal, Regional Director, NIVH, Chennai.
Dr. Sheila Wirz, Professor of Disability Studies, University College, London, spoke on the management of disability as a joint effort of parents and teachers. She said the role of professionals in assuming partnership with parents necessitates engaging the parents in mutual decision making and to keep the parents updated. A true parent professional partnership needs time, trust and negotiation and becomes an essential feature in training a child with disability. She said that the factors that should be looked into before implementing the plan are human structural functions, activities, environment and personal barriers.
Dr. Amarjyothi Persha, Head, Department of Medical Sciences, NIMH, Secunderabad spoke about the training programmes in the development of human resources in India. She said that the objective of HRD was to increase the number of personnel and equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge, encouraging improvement and sustaining effectiveness with continuous enrichment. She spoke of the availability of short term, long term, certificate, refreshment and in-service training courses ware formulated at NIMH, for professionals and grass root level workers for necessary qualification and knowledge enrichment.
Dr. Tessa Hamblin, Director, Rehabilitation, Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy, Kolkata, spoke on the integrated therapeutic approach for children with cerebral palsy. She said that analysis of daily routine activities, with a focus on the difficulties of the family and choosing of a skill for daily routine in consultation with the family is an effective way to address the child’s needs synchronizing with the family needs. She said it was important to decide on realistic goals, with emphasis on the quality of improvement rather than quantity, of skills achieved.
Prof. Peter. T. Farrell, Department of Psychology, University of Manchester, UK, discussed the impact of the behavioural approaches for teaching children with learning difficulty. He said that the behavioural methods have made an impact on IEP, classroom management, in curriculum development and in helping people to deal with challenging behaviours. Concerns about behavioural approaches include over use of extrinsic rewards, developing programmes out of context, teaching resulting in learning without understanding. A major concern in using a behavioural approach is to transfer the learning and generalize it in all situations appropriately.
Mr. T. K. V. Desikachar, Founder-Director, Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, spoke on “Yoga – Healing through Prana”. He said yoga is a state of mind and modulation of mind is possible by modulation of breath. For special children, modulation of the sound helps in modulation of the breath resulting in a better frame of mind. The length, pitch and combination of sound constitute breath modulations. Yoga offers the benefits of enhanced confidence, calm mind and improved concentration in learning.
Mr. Sushil Joseph, Managing Trustee, Pranic Healing Foundation of Tamil Nadu, Chennai, spoke on pranic healing for exceptional children. He spoke of various cases of pranic healing on special children. He said pranic healing can be included as a treatment procedure supplementing other forms of therapy and can be carried out as a part of school curriculum.
Prof. George S Baroff, Professor of Psychology (Retd), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, spoke on the significance of early educational intervention in the lives of children with developmental disability and their families. Early childhood programme is embedded in the service system or continuum of care for persons with Mental Retardation. Special schools develop individualized educational plans involving parents and also include vocational preparation in the adolescent years. He also said that the jobs for persons with intellectual disability should be well defined, highly routinized and fairly constantly paced. He emphasized the child experiencing ‘success’ in the training process and the instructional goals should be in congruence with the interest of the child.
Mr. Dinesh Victor, Director, SIP Academy, Chennai, spoke of the Brain Gym experience with the children of Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children. The underlying principle of brain gym is that movement enhances learning. Brain Gym involves simple movements to stimulate brain functions, such as movements of the eye, head, hand and feet across the midline and movements to energize the body. Brain Gym reduces hyperactivity, hypersensitivity and regulates sleep and it is recommended for practicing it more than once a day.
