Therapies that worked for Adi

This gives me an opportunity to thank various therapists who made a world of difference to us. I would like to first outline the therapies we underwent which helped us.

Sensory integration/Occupation therapy

This worked for Adi. I am yet to meet a kid on the spectrum without any sensory issues. When he was just above two my wife used to go down to Santosh Medical Hospital, Ghaziabad (we were staying in Mayur Vihar). The HOD of the physiotherapy department would welcome kids with multiple disabilities (mainly Mother Teresa’s missionaries of charity orphanage kids used to come there). The HOD would then make the interns and students of OT work on the kids. This helped my wife in getting first-hand knowledge about how to do OT herself.

OT is one of the best things for our kids, but the catch is it yields the best results only till the kid has a supple enough body (say 8 or so). In my view, it makes the kid aware of his body in space. We were lucky to get a nice young OT- Malik (who immigrated to the US later) who worked on all the sensory issues including vestibular, pro-perceptive, and touch (brushing with various surfaces from velvet to sandpaper). We consulted Amarapali only on the odd occasion due to distance logistics and also the fact that she was in the family way. The trampoline and the Gym ball also helped and were worthwhile investments. Later on, we were lucky that in the School Ravindra Thakur worked (and still is ) on him as well. Ravindra is a real wizard who made a low body tone slouchy kid (with childhood asthma as well) fit enough to catch the ball and play a bit of cricket, badminton, football, albeit without any degree of expertise. But the very fact that he is able to play a bit of these in the park with us is solely due to Ravindra. The Out of Sync child and its sequel the Out of Sync Child has fun helped us understand SI/OT further. Every evening used to be a park and swings for him. The best part is that it can’t harm much and is non-invasive non-medical.

Bumblebee Videos and Fun Videos

In the pre-i-pad era, I used to buy any CD right from nursery rhymes to flashcard types to KG education ones (some great like smart cookies and some gross). A thoughtful gift of Bumblebee videos was a game-changer. It is a set of videos with the words/objects being presented in different modes (like say a cow of various colors and breeds) with the backdrop of Beethoven. The later versions had action words etc. This to my knowledge was instrumental in his cognitive development. I have shared it with scores of parents, though ironically can’t find my original set right now (It is quite expensive)

Flashcards

It does work, probably one of the few foolproof things that work. As in the pre-i-pad era, these were very expensive, we just got the copy/paste charts (it is used for school kid projects and ranges from Rs 1 per chart onwards). We got wedding card blanks from Old Delhi (to save on cost) and prepared our own flashcards. We tried to cover every single aspect like vegetables/fruits/flowers/animals/body parts etc. Later on, we got some very fancy ones from our extended family abroad including stories, sequences, etc. Trust me flashcards work if you are persistent enough. Luckily we did not have to move to PECS (flashcards work wonderfully there, as speech developed due to flashcards we feel). We got a lovely tip from Divya Prasad of VIMHANS. She suggested that rather than hippo and rhino, we make flashcards of mug and Balti, i.e. daily living objects. Simplicity is genius.

DMG/TMG, Multivitamin

Based on well-meaning advice from Dr Bernard Rimland and ARI articles (RIP), we tried it from Kirkman. It did not help my kid. We did not try any other Bio-Med or alternate therapy.

Speech and Language Therapy

We had originally consulted Girish Sardana without any results. We and my son were lucky to meet Rajiv Mishra HOD of Scottish High, who has 30 odd years’ experience with special needs kids. Rajiv was instrumental in his admission to SH and the owners (Sainis) and the entire school team have supported Adi and boosted his self-esteem, perhaps the most important thing any human wants. Rajiv is a phenomenal person and he was an angel God-sent for my kid. He took him under his wings and works with him in the school till today. We both will die in peace as Rajiv and Sainis are there for Adi in a worst-case scenario. His speech is now fully developed at 14, though the language is still an issue. Apart from this “Teach me language” done at home was also helpful. Lingui systems books helped, more so in the cognitive part.