Dehradun, Jun 8 (PTI) Six-year-old Mohd Akdas was born with impaired hearing that affected his speech. Two years of treatment and therapy, and a cochlear implant later, he left his mother emotionally overwhelmed when he called her ‘ammi’ for the first time.
Akdas is among the 531 children with special needs who are preparing for the real world at the Early Intervention Centre of the National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities here which is devoted to helping children overcome challenges faced due to disability.
“He is still getting used to it,” said Akdas’ mother Nikhat Parveen as the boy kept touching his ear repeatedly to feel the newly implanted device that helps him hear.
Akdas had the surgery recently and has begun hearing sounds in the last one month. Right now, he is undergoing counselling and training.
“When he called me ammi, I broke down. This was the first time he said the word,” Parveen said, fighting back tears.
Parveen said she struggled for two years and went against her family members and relatives so that her son could hear and speak.
“I was told by my relatives that this is how he (Akdas) is born and I should accept it. But I wanted to give him a chance at life,” she said.
Parveen vowed to spare no effort in seeking treatment for her son and left her village in Uttar Pradesh to move to Dehradun two years ago.
After two difficult years, Akdas can finally hear, she said.
Gayatri S, special educator and trainer at NIEPVD said two types of training are offered at the institute — an individualised educational programme and a group therapy.
“In group therapy, we are training the children to adapt to regular school. So when we sit in a group and we sit in a circle, we follow the same kind of rules like everybody has to sit and everybody has to do the same actions at the same time. So this is a classroom setup,” she told PTI.
As part of the individualised therapy, a specific programme is planned to meet the needs of a child, she said.
The EIC at Dehradun is among 14 pilot cross-disability early intervention centres for children that were launched in 2021, she said.
The centre provides screening and identification, rehabilitation, counselling, and therapeutic services among others for different disabilities under one roof and in a contiguous manner.
Meanwhile, a mother of another child hoped that his child who is autistic and has attention deficit disorder will get cured soon.
“I come here every day for various activities that help him cope and socialise. I am hoping that with proper counselling he would be able to join a regular school,” said the mother who did not wished to be named.
A total of 3085 services have been provided to nearly 1300 children in the age group of zero to six years till now.
Not just India, but parents from countries like Canada have also come to this centre to get their special needs child enrolled at the centre, Sunil Shirpurkar, assistant professor at NIEPVD and in-charge of the early intervention centre said.
He explained how children here are trained using different tools to prepare them for regular schools and education.
“The centre is equipped to provide facilities for screening and early identification of risk cases, rehabilitation/therapeutic services such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy, parental counselling besides school-ready facilities for children,” he said.
Shirpurkar said pre-vocational training is also given to children to prevent delays.
“After 6 years, children have to move towards formal education and that is our endeavour. Till now, after attending the early intervention centre, 70-80 children have already moved towards formal education,” he said. PTI UZM RHL
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