CDEIRC celebrates its first birthday

 

Child Developmental Evaluation , Intervention & Research Centre (CDEIRC) of Adarsh , set up on 3rd December 2007, celebrated its first anniversary on 3rd December 2008. A programme was arranged at the Changampuzha Park, Edappally  in the evening. Dr. Abraham Paul, a well known paediatrician of Ernakulam and currently President ,IMA Cochin  chapter, was the chief guest. Dr. Neena Shilen, Developmental Paediatrician, Sunrise Hospital , Ernakulam was also present and spoke. She ,along with Ms.  Prabha Ranganathan chaired the interactive session with parents. It was heart warming to hear some of the parents come forward and express their satisfaction at the progress of their children – children of Autism and LD sections. The Chairman of Adarsh announced that soon , Adarsh would be starting a programme of home visits to homes of Autism children by teachers . He explained that the scheme had been thought of keeping in view the fact that the full participation of parents was required for achieving the best results and therefore a scientific study of the home environment and appropriate modifications were essential. A programme of a few items of dance, fancy dress and speech by children was also put up. The audience enjoyed these. In fact, we feel that many of them, particularly total outsiders, normal visitors  to the Park, left with a feeling of surprise that children , normally considered “disabled”, could be trained to do so much.

In one year of its life,   CDEIRC could

Evaluate:

v     44 children with Autism Spectrum of Disorders

v     64 children affected by Cerebral Palsy

v     44 children affected by Learning disorders

v     10 children with Down Syndrome

Provide Intervention to:

v     12 children with Learning Disability are being trained since February 2008

v     3-5 children with Autism are being given one-to-one need based training since February 2008

v     10-15 children are being trained at the down syndrome school inaugurated in July 2008

So far we could not undertake any specific research programme, but with the help of Dr.Neena, Consultant Developmental Pediatrician, we hope to soon start a research programme on Autism Spectrum Disorders. It has been  decided to initiate such a research programme on Down syndrome too, mainly about Physiotherapy for children with Down syndrome