Care4autism

 Mrs.Sridevi Prasad is a Special Educator with over 35 years of experience.  She earned her post graduate degree in psychology from Osmania University. Her areas of expertise involve working with diverse students with special needs, including intellectual challenges, autism, emotional disturbances, and learning disabilities. As a special educator, s he has guided parents and staff in determining an appropriate education for each student both in regular or special school settings.  She has also assisted students in finding support services in order to obtain educational qualifications and gain employment in the community.  Mrs. Sridevi Prasad loves to follow-up with her students when they become adults and accentuate their skills in education, vocational careers and prepare them for independent living. Mrs.Prasad has authored many educational programs with the aim of mainstreaming children at different levels of education and skills. She is  the founder of Shankar Foundation, enabling 2

The Interview with Dr. Gayathri Narasimhan, founder-director of Prakramika Institiute. 1.   How did INVAS happen? And why did you think a curriculum was necessary?          A journalist and a software professional, I transitioned into special education space. An incident that occurred during the covid period was the catalyst for the birth of INVAS. It was during this challenging time, one of my friends moved from Muscat to India. She had two children, one neurotypical and the other neurodivergent. The neurotypical could get admission in a school fairly easily, but the neurodivergent had to face many challenges because he had nothing to show on his progress report, like the skills developed or the vocations learnt. Even though he was highly capable, he struggled to get admission. The same happened to another student, too. This incident sowed the idea of the necessity of curriculums and yardsticks.                Covid period gave me the space to work on building the skills of neur

Starting a new series on curriculums.  Curriculums for special needs may include specific learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment methods that are tailored to the unique needs of each student. They may also incorporate specialized materials, technologies, and teaching approaches that are designed to support students with various disabilities or learning challenges. The need to have a structured approach, and a universal design that sets a benchmark to adhere to got me thinking to begin this series. What factors help in enabling employabilty? Kick starting this series is Dr. Gayatri Narasimhan. Dr. Gayatri Narasimhan is the Founder Director of Prakramika Institute. A crusader for Inclusive Education, She is the author of INVAS.   A recipient of IAF woman of Excellence, AKS Global Principals, Golden Book awards, she is also a certified POSH–IC professional. INVAS is a structured curiculum for people with special need

  Concluding this series on #NurturingSkills which spoke about 1.Building mindset skills 2.Theatre 3.Story telling. Sharing the links to the individual posts: Alisha Mills : https://care4autism.blogspot.com/.../empowering-through... Prof. Dasaratha Rama : https://care4autism.blogspot.com/.../2-in-conversation... Padma Ramani: https://care4autism.blogspot.com/2023/02/storytelling.html Mini Dwivedi Gopinathan: https://care4autism.blogspot.com/2023/03/1.html

  1.      What exactly is the RDI philosophy? RDI stands for Relationship Development Intervention. We shall briefly dwell into the child development process to understand RDI. Even after a painful labour, a mother falls in love with her child. In a close relationship, our brain releases a feel-good chemical called Oxytocin due to which a bond of deep love is formed. It's the same with other family members, father, grandparents… we then welcome the new member into the family. And the child reciprocates as well, as changes happen in the child’s brain as well. That is the foundation of what we call a bonding or connection.                       In RDI, we are not talking about this bond; it is already there. When you accept the child as mine. Your love is unconditional. When we talk about relationships, it is about love, caring, and bonding. When we talk about relationships in autism, it is about secured attachment. It is about safety here, and again, we are not talking about