Partnering with Nayi Disha

Nayi Disha, a Hyderabad based resource centre is in the process of creating a country wide Resource Library, city by city, and we at Scan became partners to help this process. 

Neuroplasticity by Dr Rajarajeshwari

Dr Rajarajeshwari

Mental Health Programs

Ongoing workshops/ interaction sessions at Mitr on Mental well being and regaining sense of peace and direction in life, two Special Moms- Bindu and Beena have been conducting wonderful programs at Mitr.

Bindu Haridas has been doing a program called 'Self Discovery' which is loosely based on Louise Hay's 'Mirror Work' plus Beena's own discoveries in healing.

Beena Prithviraj has been doing 'Open Up' -Conversations in Mental Health, with small groups of people.

Both programs are ongoing.

Workshop By Lalitha Sridhar

Lalitha Sridhar is conducting a series of workshops on sensory related disorders in children. It would be best to check the following blog out on the content of these series- thoroughly documented by Karthikeyan-

whatautismtaughtus.com/2019/08/14/sensory-integration-in-adlactivities-of-daily-living-activities-by-scan/

Lalitha Sridhar, a rehabilitation professional trained from Madras Medical College, who has worked in the field of special needs for three decades, came to Mitr to share a vast knowledge on Sensory Integration (SI) for Activities of Daily Living (ADL).

A few points from her talk:-

• Senses help in performing our ADLs.
• For any development or learning to happen SI has to happen.
• All senses have to work together for complete information.
• There three types of senses-
•  Exterior- such as visual, olfactory, auditory and tactile
• Interior- Receptors in our body that tell us information for eg- are we hungry or full, do we need to go to the toilet, is our bladder full and so on.
• Proprioceptive-information that our joints and muscles give us  and Vestibular- information connected to balance and stability.

Mostly we all do understand what is meant by Exterior and Interior senses, but Proprioceptive and Vestibular are not properly understood.

• Proprioceptive  sense can be further elaborated as-
• Maintaining alignment of body parts- for eg to pick p a fallen object we need or eyes, head, arms and back to work together in alignment. If we cannot control this alignment we cannot pick up the object. This sense is proprioceptive.
•  Control of movement- for eg in picking up this fallen object we need to control how far our arm moves.
• Precision
• State of Alertness.
• In short, Proprioceptive deals with how much control and sense we have of our joints and muscles.

• Vestibular sense can be further elaborated as-
  
• Emotional Security via gravity- feeling like one is floating. Some children jump a lot, perhaps this helps them overcome this 'floating' feeling. 
• Feeling of Unsteadiness.
• Fear of Falling, lack of control.
• Balance and protective reaction.
• Stable Visual fields.
• Understanding space.
• In short Vestibular deals with how we perceive ourselves in space.

Regulating Sensory inputs is a life long activity. If our senses are acting well, and giving us accurate input, we function normally. If we hear something too loud, or find lights too bright or are feeling unstable while standing, or finding that a t shirt we wear is feeling too rough on our skin, all of which are sensory inputs gone out of whack, we will find it hard to do our activities of daily living.

Hence getting accurate sensory information, processed properly thru our body is  a must for normalisation.

Every ADL has three components-

1. Motor
2. Sensory
3. Emotional

Lets take the ADL of eating for example-

-the Motor component would be the ability to move one's hand and take it to the mouth.

- the Sensory component would be the proprioceptive sense of adjusting one's arms in the appropriate angle to reach the food,  the adequate movement of the mouth/jaw muscles to chew the food, and the throat to swallow.

-the emotional component would be the desire to eat the food as a comfort, as a comforting group activity.

Children crave certain textures like crunchy because they enjoy the sensory input given by their jaws to the body, perhaps it makes them feel more grounded, so maybe eating chips is not just a joy for the taste buds but is also giving the child a vestibular stability in space. Some children do not like to touch sticky food items like rice- why is that? they enjoy chewy foods, perhaps these are the reasons. 

So food can give us many clues on what is going on in other senses.

In conclusion it would be safe to say Lalitha Sridhar has a lot more to teach us and share with us and in the  weeks to come, we hope she continues to shed more light on this baffling subject. Obviously so far we have put a lot these things in the category of 'behaviour' or 'stimming' but they all have real reasons why the child acts in a certain way. In order to really help a child progress in learning and development, understanding SI is crucial.

Swaras and More

Magical, melodious evening at Mitr Cafe yesterday, July 21, as Akshara and Kripa enthralled us with a variety of swaras and bhajans.

What was remarkable was that these two young ladies both have vision challenges and therefore had committed their entire repertoire to memory, being proficient "auditory learners".

It was a full house, and the appreciative audience was quick to applaud each part of their performance.

And, as always, there was plenty of food and fun after the concert!

Thanks, Akshara and Kripa for such a heartwarming performance! Many thanks also to their teacher Monali for coaching them so beautifully and organizing the performance.

Last, but never least, heartfelt gratitude to all the friends of Mitr and SCAN who showed up in such large numbers and participated with such enthusiasm.

Pix credits: Anush Gopinath

Santoor Recital

 Karthik Subhash had us spellbound with his santoor recital, a rare treat for Chennaites. Persons with autism usually enjoy music and our kids had a pleasant summer evening.

Sporty Day

We had two demo sessions by renowned football coach Kalpana Dass and Arshad for the technique of Aikido on 7th july.

 Arshad, his son Awadh and the first student Subhashini give a fabulous show of what Aikido can do for being centered and self defence in adverse situations.

 We play games with the football.

Such a large number of people, but we manage to keep the children together and focused.

Thank you Coach Kalpana!

And someone wanted a group picture!

OPOS Cooking Workshop

Mr. Rama Krishnan (Ramki) - founder of Pizza Republic, prominent food blogger and proponent of a simple cooking approach called OPOS (One Pot One Shot). He has employed CP kids from SPASTN in his pizza outlet at Taramani earlier, arranged an OPOS demo at Mitr.

Talk by Latha

In April 2017, Latha Venkatesan started a self help group called Tarang, at the Mitr premises with three other parents, Ganapathi, Preetha and Kamala and their adult wards. Tarang makes various food products like Atta, Dosa Mixes, podis, pickles and vadams. It also takes catering orders from 15 to 300 plates at modest rates. Tamboolam gifts is another of their capabilities. Latha may be contacted at +91 98413 66419.

Jinan's Workshop

This was for the second time we had KB Jinan speak to us in a two day workshop, regarding what is  real learning. His ideas and talks are available on you tube for more info on unschooling.

A Father's Perspective

It is rather rare in India at least, to come across a father fully involved in parenting that too, a special child. Vetri is the rare exception and he shared his ideas, experiments and advice at Mitr.

Woman's Day 2019

Seetha Ravi arranged a wonderful day of games and fun at Mitr for around 30 Scan mothers. Tarang lived up to its reputation and provided us a delicious lunch. 

Drums Circle once again!

Drummer's Nite at Mitr

Dr Padmini Vasudevan's session on How to Stay Healthy.

Dr Padmini gave us a wonderful talk on Health. She started with the three mantras of aiming to be thin, eating healthy and excercising. She said we need to completely convert to an animal free diet, without even milk products as that is what nature meant us humans to consume. She advised to have a green spinach variety daily, cut back on oil but not on carbohydrates. She said a gram of sugar and starch had 4 kcals but a gram of fat had 9 kcals. She recommended eating all  colors of food. She also recommended watching YouTube lectures of Dr Calwell Esselstyn and Dr Neal Barnard and her 7 min workout schedule- also available online. 

She said weight&lifting helps add calcium to the bones, on the area of the body worked on. 

She said the reason menopause problems occurs is primarily due to poor diet and exercise. Most menopause issues are in the mind and due the current station of life. 

Dr Padmini has been on her own diet for decades and the fact that she operates till date at age 70, does bee-keeping, is a terrace gardener, likes to see and paint, apart from running a consultancy, speaks volumes of the efficasy of advice.