Author: Dr Nandita De Souza | January 20th, 2022
One of my first ‘clinic’ days of the new year at Sethu and what a joyful start it was. It was after 14 long months, that I met Aman (name changed) an energetic and bright 4 year old on the autism spectrum. He was diagnosed in October 2020 and had received social communication therapy under the Sanvaadh program at Sethu. His family worked with him relentlessly, right through the gruelling months of the pandemic. Aman has shown great strides in his communication and behaviour.
I was seeing him to review his developmental progress. During the session, Dr Chaitanya Varma, our current IAP Fellow in Developmental Paediatrics, conducted the developmental assessment which Aman cooperated with beautifully. It was clear that Aman loved shapes and blocks and he repeated some parts of the assessment on his own! He then decided to explore the room. Dr Chaitanya was busy compiling his notes, while Aman’s mother and I were discussing the use of visual supports. We were engrossed in our respective tasks while Aman was ‘playing’. In the background, I could hear him saying something but did not pay attention to it.
What happened next was pure serendipity – on his own, Aman pulled off the photo of the ‘blocks’ from the visual schedule, used for the developmental assessment, and presented it to Dr Chaitanya clearly saying, “Blocks!” He has never used visual supports to communicate before. However, when he experienced them being used during the assessment, he realised the power of pictures and then used it for himself.
Through this one action, he achieved 3 things –
1) He captured the attention of 3 adults in the room, who were busy with their own agendas
2) He communicated very clearly what he wanted and
3) His request was fulfilled. What a super smart little boy!
He showed us all yet again that a picture is worth a thousand words and are a surefire way of getting noticed!