‘Hear ‘N’ Say Clinic’ hosts workshop to make child with special needs self-reliant
Hyderabad: Hear ‘N’ Say Clinic – a specialized centre for people with Hearing, speech and language disorders; hosted a unique one-day workshop, How independent is your child with special needs?, to empower kids with special needs and educate their parents on ways to make such kids self-reliant, today at Hear ‘N’ Say Clinic, Secunderabad. These children are often dependant on others for their daily needs like wearing clothes, eating on their own, preparing food etc., while some need lot more assistance.
Special needs children with autism spectrum, sensory issues and hearing loss wearing cochlear implants and hearing aids; face immense challenges in performing their daily routine and in becoming self-reliant. Therefore they are compelled to be dependent on others for various needs and this becomes a necessity for their lifetime. Such dependence can often be traumatic to themselves and distressing to those on whom they rely. As these special needs persons grow old, the burden of taking care of them shifts from parents to the spouse and children. The concern and care parents rendered to special needs child may not be replicated by the family at later stages when he becomes an adult. This can be more perturbing to the special needs person as well as the family, leading to emotional stress to both.
Raising a child with special needs involves enormous effort, energy and time. Also parents of such kids become little over protective out of concern and try their best to make life easy for them. This only leads to the kids becoming over dependent and not developing essential life skills and healthy habits. Such lack of right grooming at the right age can be a lifetime bane for the persons with special needs, says Dr Garima Vegivada, Clinical Director – Speech Language Pathology, Hear ‘N’ Say Clinic.
This workshop encouraged and enabled special needs children to learn various techniques and skills like donning and doffing of clothes, following instructions step wise, non-fire cooking with little prompting, turn taking, waiting time, asking for help etc., to become self-reliant and lead an independent life to the extent possible. The parents were sensitised on the extent to which the special children need to be supported and how gradually such assistance need to be weaned off. The parents were imparted training in aspects like letting the special child make mistakes and learn from it and not rushing them to do things,. These are critical because, doing independently is more important than completing it, which enables them to gain confidence in their ability. The workshop involved practice of various physical activities by the special kids and training the parents on the extent to which they need to help the special children perform their daily routine.
The objective of the workshop was not to bring perfection in special children, but make them independent to the extent possible. Handholding the child is more appropriate for their growth, than spoon feeding. Therefore self-reliance begins when parents of such children abstain from expressing pity and enable them to learn life skills and be independent, says Dr Sai Krishna Vegivada, Clinical Director – Audiology, Hear ‘N’ Say Clinic.
