Author: Andre Velho | August 5th, 2021
Back in 2016, Kashmira brought her 5-year-old son, Kabir (names changed) to be assessed at the Sethu Centre. Kabir was subsequently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Mother and son were immediately referred for autism intervention, which began a few days after Kabir’s diagnosis. As part of his autism intervention, Kabir received speech therapy, occupational therapy and special education. Sethu’s therapists worked on different aspects of Kabir’s development – his language, motor skills, self-help and academics.
After a few months, Kashmira started cancelling Kabir’s sessions, a few at the beginning but more and more as time passed. Eventually, they stopped coming to Sethu. Kashmira and Kabir seemed to have slipped through the cracks. It was only 6 months later that the paediatrician that diagnosed Kabir, brought this to the attention of the autism team. Contact was made and they came back to Sethu. Kashmira mentioned that the reason she stopped coming was that so many different therapists were teaching her so many different techniques, with so many different home programs and she was struggling to implement all of them at home.
She was totally overwhelmed.
Therefore, when they returned, only one autism therapist worked with Kashmira and Kabir at a time. They concentrated on focusing on very specific goals that were chosen by Kashmira herself. Kashmira was much happier, she felt Kabir’s intervention was more focused and family-centred. She could learn a few techniques quickly and implement them easily at home. Kashmira now knows that after one type of intervention has finished, she can easily move onto another area of Kabir’s development, working with a different therapist. Kashmira and Kabir’s story led to a drastic shift in Sethu’s protocol for children with autism. Because of this incident, Sethu adopted a ‘Single Service Provider’ policy – where one therapist works with a family at a time. Inputs from other professionals may be taken if required, but only one Sethu professional would support a parent and child most of the time in our care.
As a parent or professional, does this hit home? If you would like to know more about trans-disciplinary intervention, we encourage you to get in touch with Sethu!
ANDRE VELHO
Head – Autism Programme