Nurturing children with special needs

It was in 1997, during her first lecture in child psychology, Surabhi Verma realised what she wanted to do in life. Though she didn’t know how she would reach her goal because the class highlighted the invisible life and struggles of children with special needs. Till then, she hadn’t even heard about autism, but something inside her told her to choose this as a career path. “At that time there weren’t many therapy centres or educational institutions for these children. And during college while we had to do a project, a friend of mine, who was working on autism, told me how she couldn’t find a single organisation that works for them,” recollects Verma.

The situation was equally weary a decade ago, as 36-year-old says while she was working she saw how parents of these children, especially autism, would run helter-skelter for different therapies. The harrowing time they had running around aimlessly gave Verma the idea to open Sparsh for Children in 2005. This multidisciplinary therapy centre caters to different needs of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), learning difficulty (Dyslexia), attention difficulties, speech and language difficulties, intellectual disability and social and emotional difficulties.

“Each child needs attention and the earlier parents bring in their children, better chances of them improving. If parents bring them say when they are 2-year-old, it is easier to cover up by 4 years. Incorrect behaviour takes a lot of time to be corrected,” she tells Metrolife.

The centre follows open-door policy and Verma is available to council parents. She feels parents should be given feedback constantly for the betterment of children. “Mothers are the first persons to know that her child is autistic. These signs shouldn’t be ignored, as one in 57 children across the globe is diagnosed with autism,” she says.

Emphasising on different treatments, she says many children don’t understand the language so they have to find ways to help them learn, or some children struggle to open eyes even in a dim litroom, so the therapists have to patiently deal with each one of them.
While in metropolitan cities, parents are aware and take necessary steps to ensure early detection, but Verma feels outside urban facade “education and awareness” is less.

The centre has 15 special educationists and two child psychologists who take care of around 100 children. Verma feels when she sees a parent smile after what they thought would be impossible to achieve, motivates her to dedicate herself completely towards this cause. “Their eyes shine and you see how happy they are to witness their child’s development. This keeps me going.”