Author: Prakruthi Shetty | Feb 26, 2015
As a speech & language therapist I often wondered about how to train parents of children with autism. When I started working in Sethu, I realized I struck gold only because I found exactly what I needed in terms of satisfaction with the work. Waiting in the wings, I was offered to be a part of the ‘Asha Program’ which aims to train mothers to help children with autism in their language and socialization, focusing on the areas of eye contact, pointing, sitting in place, following instructions, mixing with other children and following the order of activities with the help of visual schedules.
Asha is a Mother-Toddler program which runs twice a week for 3 months. At every first session of Asha I see a bundle of nerves in every parent and the children quite upset! As a therapist, I try to understand every child and mother to find the best way to work with them. Every session starts with ‘GOOD MORNING TIME & CIRCLE TIME’ which encourages the children to sit in place and greet others. Next comes ‘SINGING TIME’, a time for the joys of music. This takes me back to my childhood days. Through different rhymes and action songs we help children to improve their listening and compliance. The third activity on the schedule is ‘EXERCISE TIME’. I enjoy every moment taking charge of handling the children on the trampoline, swing & therapy ball. Many children who resist jumping on the trampoline on the first day are bouncing off the walls at the end of the training, as their sensory systems adjust to movement! The next activity ‘WORK TIME’, is one of the most important, as it focuses on mothers as they work with their children in the presence of the therapist. They learn how to build basic communication skills like eye contact, pointing and gestures. After all this hard work, ‘SNACK & TOILET TIME’ provides a much-needed break. One can see parents chatting to each other about their children’s likes and dislikes, strengths and challenges. This sharing is so vital in building human connections and learning. The final activity for the day is the ‘GROSS MOTOR TIME’. Here the children are expected to imitate actions such as passing a ball or banging a drum. Children eventually learn to share, wait for their turn and interact with each other. The delight of seeing a child who threw tantrums on the first day of the program now share his toys without hesitation at the end of the training is indescribable. After all these activities its time to wind up with ‘GOOD BYE TIME’ and the ‘Bye Bye’ song, where children learn conventional gestures like waving ‘bye’.
Asha is all about growing communicative and social competence in children with autism and their families. The determination of the mothers and the ebullience of the children are a huge inspiration to me. By the end of the program, we are all one big family learning together.
