Early Intervention

Our aim is to provide timely intervention to young children (0-7 years) so that they mainstream early in life, and do not face challenging situations later due to their initial developmental lags.

Our primary focus areas include neuro-sensory development, functional independence, school readiness and social skills, all extremely important for a child’s holistic growth.

Our mantra is holistic development towards independence and inclusion. We recognize that underdeveloped senses result in a weak foundation for growth and act as a hindrance in physical, mental, emotional, academic and social progress. V-Excel Educational Trust has a discrete Unit dedicated to Early Intervention. Our services range from early identification and screening, referral services, diagnostic services, direct intervention programs and even preventing their occurrence, wherever possible.

The beneficiaries of this project are children who have already developed, or at risk of developing, either a handicapping condition or some other special need that may affect their overall development. This includes children with Autism, Mental Retardation, Attention Deficit Disorders, Delayed Milestones, Learning Disabilities like Dyslexia etc.

We essentially work on time bound programs, geared towards early social inclusion of children. We deeply appreciate the importance of timely action as a means to cure developmental delays and disabilities. We can attempt this through one-on-one remedial intervention, sensory integration therapy* and a well-planned sensory diet**. We have had reasonable success with cases of -

Behavioral Regulatory Problems – Arousal, Attention, Affect, Attachment, Mood, Regulation of Sleep and Eating, Consolability
Musculo Skeletal Impairments - Deformities, Strength, Endurance
Neuro Muscular Impairments – Tone, Coordination, Gross and Fine Control, Motor Planning, Balance
Sensory Processing Difficulties – Tactile, Proprioception, Vestibular, Visual, Auditory, Olfactory Gustatory – Hyper and Hypo Reactivity
Functional Impairments – Feeding, Mobility, Self Care, Occupational
Cognitive Impairments – Attachment, Interaction, Communication, Visual Perception, Memory, Sequencing, Safety Awareness, Executive Function
Self-help skills: Eating, dressing, grooming, writing, social skills and areas of daily living

Our Staff at EI

Ms. U. Revathi
Ms. S. Thamizh Selvi
Ms. S. Pooguzhali
Ms. N. Deepa
Ms. V. Vanathy
Ms. S. Sivagami
Ms. Nissi Rajan
Ms. A. Alphonse Mary
Ms. N. Nandhini
Ms. K. Suganya
Ms. Mallika Swaminathan
Ms. V. Latha

The Need for Early Intervention

Significant changes take place in the early years developing the child’s perceptual skills, sensory skills, motor skills, conceptual skills and cognitive skills. In the first seven years, the four lower human senses touch, movement, balance, and physical well-being, are particularly important for the development of every child. These bodily senses are their prime means to understand themselves and in most children with disabilities these senses are impaired.

For most children, sense organs work in a unified manner to carry stimuli to the brain. But in case of children with impairments, there is a lack of sensory integration which interferes with their normal functioning with varying intensity. This is known as dysfunction in sensory integration (D.S.I.). It is manifested through physical clumsiness and poor body awareness; hyper or hypo sensitivity of neuro-sensory functioning, delays in speech, language and/or motor skills; inappropriate response to touch, movements, sights or sounds; poor self care skills; activity level unusually high or low, very limited attention span; social and/or emotional difficulties, issues of self-esteem. When the process is disordered a number of problems in learning, motor skills and behavior may be evident.

Further, child development research has established that the rate of human learning and development is most rapid in the preschool years. Timing of intervention becomes particularly important when a child runs the risk of missing an opportunity to learn during a state of maximum readiness. Parents have to be vigilant, especially in case of infants, toddlers, and very young children (i.e. children between 3-7 years of age), about various milestones in all aspects of their child’s holistic development.

We find that majority of the children are either referred late or that parents try out all other options before bringing over the child to us. Also, Pediatricians more often referred children, who were more than 3 years of age or children with more severe disabilities, for special services. We also have children who are closer to school-going age when parents realize the child’s handicaps in school-readiness and special education inputs become necessary.

While there are organizations catering to school going children with special needs, the assessment and intervention required for 0-7 year olds centers more around their sensory development. It requires a thorough understanding of medically appropriate milestones in a child’s developmental lifecycle, while also having knowledge of formal assessments and remediation suitable for early integration into the mainstream society. Further, in order to be really effective, the Center has to investment in equipment and trained manpower that is capable of addressing multiple areas such as sensory integration, gross motor, fine motor, communication, cognitive, social, self-help and play skills. This need for expertise, coupled with capital, acts as a barrier to mushrooming of Early Intervention Centers, despite the high demand for this service.

Step-wise Program Plan

We design therapeutic programs for early intervention to prevent disorders that may arise from genetic condition, adverse circumstances and developmental delays. Evaluation of the child’s sensory and developmental needs, along with inputs from the doctor’s report, consultation with parents and observations from house visits forms the basis of the child’s sensory integration and diet program. The process followed for each child is presented below:

Comprehensive Sensory Assessment:
This crucial first step permits the professional to appreciate the underlying problem and judge whether the child has special needs with regards to sensory integration. Formal assessment techniques are deployed to understand the child’s development lags. Family dynamics play an important role in supporting such a child and hence consultation, which is a one-time intake, is done to gain significant insights.
Designing the development plan:
It is important that the plan is time-bound and very specific. The biggest challenge lies in the fact that every child has unique problems and needs; hence the goals have to be very clearly set. Emphasis is laid on looking at holistic development and ensuring appropriate treatment at the Center and at home. Counseling of parents therefore forms a critical component of the treatment.
Implementation process:
The therapists and teachers strictly follow the essential steps to meet these goals and track outcomes. Sensory integration monitoring is done by checking eye-hand coordination, pincer grip, visual discrimination, auditory discrimination, auditory-visual figure ground perception, kinesthetics, proprioceptive and vestibular development etc. An all-round training helps enhance these skills, besides boosting their confidence.
Concerted team efforts:
Without a multi-disciplinary team approach, no effort with special children can be fruitful. If parents, sensory integration therapists and occupational therapists, speech and communication facilitators, counselors, special educators, etc. work independently in their own way, the child will not show an effective improvement that stems from team working for the child. Hence our work includes educating the parents too.
Monitoring progress:
We have a periodic review meeting with parents in-built into our Early Intervention Program as we acknowledge its role in understanding the extent of improvement and provides direction for further planning.

Early intervention has been shown to result in the child:

needing fewer special education and other rehabilitative services later in life
being retained in grade less often and
in some cases being indistinguishable from other classmates, years after intervention.

What Makes Our Program Unique

Our Early Intervention service is unique in many ways

Sensory Integration is only a part of the development process. Sensory Diet makes it comprehensive with inclusion of the required skill set (motor, cognitive, social etc.).
We do not confine ourselves to Center-based work. Parent support and home programs ensure consistency.
Child-focus coupled with parent counseling to make them advocates of child’s progress.
With many school related pressures and increased emphasis on writing in early years, we have introduced special education in writing skills and have school readiness program.
We work with regular teachers and play schools closely for inclusion.
Systematic, scientifically done early intervention services are few, especially with suitable equipment and material. We recognize its criticality and hence done capital investment.
We are also considering more information dissemination work with neonatologists, pediatricians and neurologists as their ignorance is a high price paid by the children and their parents. Awareness generation workshops for teachers and parents are also a natural and necessary extension of our work for the Early Intervention Program.