"If I am slow, I simply have to start earlier"- Robert La Fon

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Setu offers the following therapies in its Developmental Intervention Unit to children with special needs:

Neuro-developmental therapy: The therapy follows Bobath principles to train children with cerebral palsy to attain gross motor milestones.

Physiotherapy: For other children with poor gross motor development, regular physiotherapy is given to encourage attainment of milestones.

Occupational therapy: This is aimed at attainment of proficiency in fine motor skills. Training includes facilitating development of various grasps, improving grip and improving eye-hand coordination.

Communication training: Children who have problems of speech and/or language are given intensive training to overcome the hurdles in communication. Activities to facilitate production of sound, correction of mis- articulation, oro-motor stimulation, comprehension of regular commands, recognition of familiar things are a few of the tasks under this therapy. Auditory training is also an integral part of this training.

Cognitive training: The focus of this training is the attainment of concepts appropriate to the age of the child. It also deals with readying a child with pre-academic skills where applicable.

Behaviour modification: This training attempts to decrease any maladaptive behaviours a child may have. It encourages learning of a positive behaviour in place of the deviant one. The approach follows principles of reward and non-reward situations to correct a maladaptive behaviour and encourage a positive one in its place.

Activities of daily life: The focus of this training is development of skills needed in a child's day to day functioning. Parents are counseled for training children in feeding, eating, drinking, dressing and toilet training.

Sensori-motor Integration Training: This aims at helping the children to integrate the 5 main senses; vision, auditory, tactile, gustatory, olfactory with motor movements to learn about their environment.

Group play: Once in a week, children, in groups of 4, play simple games like ball throw, catch-catch, etc., to learn sharing, taking turns and playing with others.

Computer Training: Once in a week, children learn to use computers by revising activities done in special education. The purpose of computer training for such a young group is to create an alternative to formal school learning in future.

Our Children

Developmental Intervention Unit offers services for children between 0 to 6 years who have Mental Retardation, Cerebral Palsy, Autism, Behaviour Problems, Hearing Impairment, Visual Impairment, Learning Disabilities, ADHD/ ADD and Delayed Development. We have till date assessed 360 children in the age group of 0-12 years and a total of 200 have joined the centre at one time or the other. Today, we have a total of 20 children falling into the above mentioned categories.

Session Plans

Each session at the centre is 40 minutes in duration. At a time, 4 children with their mothers are attended by one therapist. The therapist goes and works with each child in a 1:1 situation for 10 minutes and for the remaining 30 minutes, the mothers work with their children under the guidance of the therapist. In this way, we are able to provide 1.25:1 adult: child ratio all the time.

Each child has a monthly lesson plan and it is shared with the mother and the family. These plans are followed very strictly at the centre and preferably at home, too. At the end of the month, a follow up of the plan is done and changes are made accordingly.

Mothers' Role

All of us know that mothers play a very important role in the early years of a child's life. No one else understands the child better. The attachment between the two is also at its maximum. Keeping these facts in mind, Setu has made mothers' participation in her child's intervention mandatory. Mothers come to the centre with children for 5 days in a week and work with the children under the therapists' guidance. This helps the mothers to see new skills, however minor, that her child is learning. It confirms her belief in her child's capacity and helps her to change the family members' perception of the child. This arrangement also empowers the mothers to take care of their children at home and makes them more participatory in their child's learning.

Setu also encourages fathers' participation but keeping in mind the responsibilities of earning, not many fathers take active part in the sessions.