Centre of Special Education for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Overview:

Cerebral Palsy (CP) refers to a group of neurological disorders that appear in infancy or early childhood and permanently affect body movement and muscle coordination. More than 17 million people are living with Cerebral Palsy (CP) in the world. In India, the estimated incidence is around 3/1000 live births. CP primarily affects movement, but people with CP may also have visual, learning, hearing, speech, epilepsy, and intellectual impairments, and the impact can range from a weakness in muscles to almost a complete lack of voluntary movement. Rehabilitation of the children with CP aims to reach and maintain optimal physical, sensory, intellectual, psychological, and social function.

OLS Centre for Special Education for Children with Cerebral Palsy has been providing a pathway for the all-around development of the children in special need by guiding them to stand on their own feet. The CP wing adopts an eclectic approach for special education, capacity building, specific individual interventions, group sessions, extension activities, and ability valorization to enable the children to lead life meaningfully with greater efficacy. The CP wing believes in working towards a teamwork approach with the professionals, parents, and the community at large. This has catered to the development of appropriate services for the children with cerebral palsy, and their parents/caregivers and has helped them achieve higher realms of meaningful survival, self-confidence, self-reliance, skill acquisition, all-around development, and grooming themselves as efficient national and global citizens. The CP Wing has worked towards achieving its mission and vision through various activities:

Diagnosis and Intervention Centre

Appropriate assessment and diagnostic measures are imperative for the development of intervention techniques, management, and rehabilitation apt for children with cerebral palsy. The CP Wing of OLS comprises a team of well-experienced professionals, viz. doctors, therapists, psychologists, and special educators who contribute by extending their expertise and services to work with children and their families. New entrants to the wing are duly assessed with professional precision and after proper intake orientation as well as counselling; they are imparted suitable services based on their functional abilities.

An aggregate of 80 children received therapeutic interventions and special education through the Centre of Special Education for the children with cerebral palsy from 2021 – to 2022. Now we are providing therapies and special Education to residential and non-residential children. Our special educators and therapists are visiting the children at their residence as a part of the home visit program.

Baby Clinic

Early identification and intervention play a vital role in improving the medical and psychosocial prognosis of the neurodevelopment condition. If left unattended during the early developmental years, cerebral palsy and its concomitant complications may prove to be fatal for the life of an innocent child. Owing to this, the CP Wing takes extensive measures to impart early intervention and care. The baby clinic provides early detection, screening, diagnosis, and intervention services for new-borns and babies up to three years of age. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, eye-hand coordination, and fine motor and gross motor skill development are some of the core services provided by the baby clinic in addition to services by the pediatric specialist and parents’ training/psychoeducation. A total of 55 children including 35 males and 20 females benefitted from the baby clinic services during the year 2021-22.

Physiotherapy Unit

OLS physiotherapy treatment is based on a number of hand techniques, exercises, and interventions to address functional impairments including muscle tone, strength, coordination balance and posture, mobility, and achieving an optimal range of motion. The neurodevelopment conditions and concomitant symptoms of Cerebral Palsy require the usage of Physiotherapeutic interventions. The Physiotherapy Unit of Open Learning Systems imparts extensive physiotherapy services to improve motor level functioning, postural regulations, and maintenance as well as muscle toning exercises to foster optimal physical functioning for children with cerebral palsy. Newer methods of physiotherapy like electrotherapy and radiation therapy are used to provide new technological therapies for the wellness of children. The physiotherapy unit aims to help the children regulate their body/physical functioning with greater efficacy to capacitate them for daily life functioning. More so, OLS trains the children to maintain normal posture and provides training on the use of gaiters and other external mobility aids. Activities are provided to improve fine motor function to improtooordination and normalize tone and strengthen the weaker group of muscles. The physiotherapy Unit of OLS has worked with 55 children including 30 males and 25 females from 2021-to 22.

Occupational Therapy

Children with special needs often benefit through the various interventions of occupational therapy. In particular, the sensory integration technique proves to be helpful for children with multiple disabilities. The occupational therapy unit of OLS imparts comprehensive therapy techniques to cater to the therapy needs of children with cerebral palsy and multiple disabilities. Therapies are planned after an in-depth functional profile of the children.

The OT unit provides inputs for sensory development and integration, fine motor skills, ADL skills, and other functional abilities of the children. Regular monitoring and evaluation of the condition/progress of the child are done to improve the functioning of the child and overall services. The provision of adaptive and assistive devices is also made for the children who are on the severe side of the spectrum of disability and for the children with the symptomatic need for such adaptive/assistive devices. The OT unit works in collaboration with the special educators to have appropriate discretion in the functional assessment and therapy goals of the child. During the current year 2021-22, a total of 11 children received therapeutic intervention services through the occupational therapy unit.

Speech Therapy

Speech, language, and communication serve as the major foundations of daily life living and other important aspects of life. The speech therapy unit of OLS works with children who face difficulties with speech, language, and communication. Following an appropriate screening of the functional speech modalities, speech therapy is provided to the children regularly. Our speech therapist works with a child one-on-one, in a small group, or a classroom. She guides therapeutic exercises and activities to help the child overcome their issues. The activities include language intervention activities, articulation therapy; oral motor therapy, etc. Alternative Augmentative Communication tools are used for children who are non-verbal. Electronic equipment and new tools/improvised techniques are utilized for effective speech stimulation and communication. In the current year, 17 children were imparted speech therapy by the speech therapy unit of Open Learning Systems.

Home Based Management Program

Parent-teacher collaboration along with bridging the paths between the organization and the parents/families is the main aim of a home-based management program. Children who stay far away from the organization and cannot come to the school regularly are greatly benefitted from the home-based management program. Psychoeducation of the parents and the immediate significant other/caregivers on the different dimensions of cerebral palsy, training parents and caregivers on the different techniques to understand and manage the challenges faced, prevention, and making the home environment child-friendly are some of the core features of the home-based management program. Parents can take training during the home-based Training Programme from the Physiotherapist at home. A total of 26 students were provided services through the home-based management program in the year 2021-22.

Special Care Unit

Special care and attention are imperative for children with cerebral palsy and multiple disabilities. The special care unit of OLS looks into the intensive care and management of the children in the school environment. Training for carrying out Activities of Daily Living (ADL) is imparted with far greater care and special attention is given to those children to overcome their severe physical problems. Functional therapy and early stimulation are provided to these children. During the year 2021-22, 14 children including 10 males and 4 females benefited from this program.

Counseling Unit

The physical and psychosocial aftermath of disability tends to exert a negative impact on the life of the child with special needs and his/her parents/caregivers. In this scenario, counseling plays a vital role in enabling and empowering the children and their families to cross-cut through different challenges related to disability. The counseling unit utilizes the OLS-Utkal Approach to counseling developed by Dr. Pratap Kumar Rath. This approach to counseling is based on the foundations of psychological perspectives, the constitutional mandate, and the socio-legal aspects. Ensuring the Right to Life with Dignity of the individuals and imparting sensitized counseling sessions have been the major thematic approach of the counseling unit. During 2021-22, children with special needs and their parents have benefitted from 1 to 3 individual, group, and family counseling sessions.

Pre vocational Unit

Vocational skills are an integral part of the sustainable development and meaningful survival of an individual. Challenges and special needs should not be a limitation in the abilities and prospects available for persons with disabilities. The prevocational unit of OLS works towards developing the vocational abilities of the students with cerebral palsy, required for pursuing a specific vocation. Prevocational training includes the skills and activities such as weight and measurement, functional mathematics, functional reading and writing, occupational skills, self-help skills, family life education, recreational activities, drawing, painting, group dance, music, and playing indoor and outdoor games. Vocational training focuses on grooming one’s self and social behavior. Total 7 numbers of students including 4 male and 3 female benefitted from the prevocational training program during 2021-22.

Family Life Education

Prevention of sexual abuse, bodily autonomy, coping with maturational challenges, and self-regulation across the lifespan is important for the safety and integrity of children with special needs. The sensitized and sensible staff of OLS impart family life education and sex education to the students. Utmost care and efforts are made to ensure the confidentiality, dignity, and integrity of the students. OLS has been a zeroFunctional academic Self-advocacy time classroom activities Sorting the grains as a skill Classroom activities Classroom activities 13 tolerance organization toward child sexual abuse. It trains its staff and students to be alert, sensible and sensitized toward care, protection, and prevention of abuse and its various forms.

Extra-Curricular Activities

Recreation and sports are equally important as education and skill development. To foster the spirit of recreation, positivity, sportsmanship, teamwork and creative abilities, the special education wing of OLS takes active initiatives in helping children explore, develop, participate and express their extra-curricular activities. The students are exposed to dance and movement sessions, music, art, hydrotherapy, and many more exciting recreational activities regularly. Our students have successfully participated in a different state and national level special sports activities as well during the current year. The sense of cheer and self-confidence that are reflected in them through the extra-curricular activities is something worth cherishing.

Home Visits

The children’s homes are regularly visited by our special educators. This results in the special educator getting the real picture of the home environment of the special child and getting acquainted with the family members and assessing their competencies to deal with the special child. This helps in prescribing any aids and appliances or toilet specifications, access to accommodations, ramps, and disabled-friendly innovations that can be used or developed at home. The involvement of the family members in the progress of the child is tracked by the Open Learning Systems team which gives them a strong foothold in times of crisis to help the parents.

Urban Slum outreach program

At Saliasahi Slum children with different kinds of disabilities have been identified through identification camps. After a thorough assessment and sensitization program, we have started the intervention program for 30 children with Cerebral Palsy during 2021-22. The children have since been coming to Open Learning Systems along with their Group dance session Recreation time Parents training by the Physiotherapist 14 Parents/Guardians for Therapeutic (Physic, Speech) and Special Education Intervention.