Tamil Nadu Government Increasing Access to Early Intervention Therapy for Children with Special Needs with an aim to implement a State Wide Porgramme
· His Excellency, Governor of TN to Inaugurate International Conference on Feb 14, 2020
· “Globally recognized Early Intervention program by Amar Seva
Sangam” Impacts School Enrollment Rate of Children with Special Needs to
85%”
The school enrolment rate of children with special
needs improved from 69% to 85% when they
received early intervention therapy, finds a study by Amar Seva Sangam, Ayikudi
(ASSA), a premier non-profit organization in the field of disability
management.
The study was conducted in association with the
University of Toronto and McGill University, Canada on the outcomes of ASSA’s
Village-Based Early Intervention & Rehabilitation Programme that covered
1152 children with special needs. The programme was funded and supported by
Grand Challenges Canada, Handi-Care Intl., Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiative
and the Harvard Centre for the Developing Child. The program has been awarded
the prestigious MIT Solver Award, Vodafone Mobile for Goods Award, World
Cerebral Palsy Day Major Award in Medical / Therapeutics and the Zero Project
Inclusive Education Award to be presented at the United Nations in Vienna in
Feb 2020.
The programme uses a digital application to connect
community rehabilitation workers with rehabilitation specialists in order to
provide early intervention therapy to children with delayed development. This
has improved their development and increased their participation and
integration in schools and society. The programme began in Oct. 2014 and has
benefited 1152 children with special needs in the district of Tirunelveli,
Tamil Nadu and will continue to enrol new children and expand to new districts
in Tamil Nadu.
The programme trained 2771 Anganwadi workers, village
health nurses and community rehabilitation workers in screening for delayed
development and screened 52,036 children under the age of 6 in this district.
They found a 2.1% prevalence rate of developmental disabilities. In addition,
more than 35,000 people in the surrounding community showed improved knowledge
about child development, early intervention therapy and reduced stigma as a
result of awareness camps conducted by ASSA. The program showed improved
engagement over time with rates of therapy attendance by children improving
from 60% in 2017 to 95% in 2019.
ASSA’s study found that the severity of disability and
the lack of early intervention were the two primary reasons that prevent the
children with special needs from attending schools. The lowest enrolment was
seen with children with cerebral palsy (CP), particularly those with more motor
severity and cognitive impairment.
Children with higher early intervention program attendance levels had
higher rates of achieving school enrolment.
Mr. S.
Sankara Raman, Secretary, ASSA, said,
“Disability is a major barrier to access to education in India. According to a 2016
study published in the Lancet, there are more than 52.9 million children under
the age of 5 in the world living with a disability, with 12 million in India
and 100,000 in Tamil Nadu. There is an urgent need to address this issue with
quality early intervention to support children in the development of physical,
cognitive, emotional, sensory, behavioural, social and communication
capabilities and skills. This would increase inclusion and participation of
those children in schools and society.”
Commenting about the study, and the programme, Padma Shi S. Ramakrishnan, Founder
President, Amar Seva Sangam , said, "this program is an excellent model
for adoption by other NGOs and governments both in India and abroad."
Dr.Dinesh Krishna, the Director of Early Intervention
programme for Amar Seva Sangam stated, that Children in the high programme
attendance groups had greater
improvement in “Functional Independence Measure for Children” (WeeFim) and
Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM). Over time, their gross motor function,
cognitive scores, and their self-care abilities improved. Receptive and
expressive speech improved among all children in the programme. This
family-centred programme used validated scales to measure family empowerment
and caregiver strain and found that parents with medium and high programme
participation had a statistically significant reduction in caregiver burden and
improved family empowerment compared to those with low programme participation.
In total, 74% of families had decreased strain, 73% had improved family
empowerment and 62% had improved child interaction.”
With a view to sharing its experiences in early
intervention, and to highlight other successful early intervention models and
interventions from across the world, ASSA is organizing an International
conference on ‘Early intervention for children with special needs’, in Chennai.
The two-day conference (Feb 14th and 15th) is scheduled
to be inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Governor His Excellency, Banwarilal Purohit on
February 14, 2020 in Chennai.
There will also be two pre-conference workshops on 13
February, 2020 on the topics of: 1) Designing, implementing, monitoring and
scaling-up early intervention programs for children with disabilities, and 2)
Home-based early intervention for children with developmental disabilities and
cerebral palsy: A family-centred interdisciplinary approach.
The International conference will have presentations
from more than 50 experts on a wide range of themes such as early
identification, early stimulation, intervention through play, assistive and
adaptive technology, inclusive education, and social security schemes, among
others.
About 500 participants, including the executives of
non-governmental organisations, physiotherapists, occupational therapists,
special educators, paediatricians, doctors including neurologists and
orthopaedic surgeons, research scholars, students, professors, early childhood
educators, psychologists, speech
trainers, speech pathologists, family counsellors, funders and senior
government officials from different parts of the country and the world are
expected to attend the workshops and the international conference.
The conference aims to offer a platform for the
exchange and adoption of a significant number of diverse experiences, and best
practices in the field of early intervention that would maximize children's
potential towards inclusion. The conference will also explore sustainable
social development models for overall economic growth through rehabilitation
and inclusion of children with developmental delays in society.
The research findings and the significant positive
outcome of this programme has initiated the State Government of Tamil Nadu to
scale up the program by funding Amar Seva Sangam to expand the programme to
cover 3 full districts - Tenkasi, Tirunelveli and Tuticoirn starting in April
2020. The Govt aims to make the programme available state wide which will
benefit 100,000 children with childhood disabilities.
ASSA is founded and run by professionals in
wheelchairs. It empowers children, youth and adults with special needs through
early intervention, rehabilitation, education, skill development and livelihood
solutions in the southern parts of India. For more details, visit
www.amarseva.org
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