Providing lifespan services to individuals with special needs...
Early Intervention
The Need for Early Intervention
Early Intervention programs offered by V-Excel are focused on children between 0 - 7 years of age and aim to understand their developmental challenges and provide appropriate intervention. The intent of this timely intervention is to enable mainstreaming early in life.
Significant changes take place in the early years - development of the child’s perceptual skills, sensory skills, motor skills, conceptual skills and cognitive skills. In the first seven years, the four lower human senses like touch, movement, balance, and physical well-being, are particularly important for the development of every child. These bodily senses are their primary means for a child to understand themselves and in most children with disabilities, these senses are impaired.
In our experience, late referral of children to intervention has been a key challenge to addressing these issues.
At our EI center, 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 includes a Comprehensive Sensory Assessment, Designing the development plan, Implementation of the customized plan and ongoing monitoring (re-designing of the program if needed) of the child's progress.
Our uniqueness lies in the fact that we have an excellent multi-disciplinary approach that includes a panel of experts such as sensory integration therapists, occupational therapists, speech and communication facilitators, counselors, special educators, etc. and this team create a unique program based the individual child's needs.
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 the inclusion of motor, cognitive, social skills.
- We do not confine ourselves to Center-based work. Parental support and home programs ensure consistency.
- Child-focus coupled with parent counseling advocates a 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.
- Understanding the need for Systematic and scientifically done Early Intervention services, we have invested huge capital for these equipments and materials.
- 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.
Our primary focus areas include neuro-sensory development, functional independence, school readiness and social skills, which are extremely important for a child’s holistic growth.
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.
Senior Staff :
Lakshmi Sudhakaran,
Lakshmi Sudhakaran
Program Director
Lakshmi Sudhakaran is an accomplished physiotherapist with 20+ years of rich experience in the field of paediatrics. She holds a M. Phil in Psychology and a Bachelor of Physical Therapies (B.Ph.T). She is also certified by the Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social Development, Dornach, Switzerland.
She is currently the Program Director in V-Excel Educational Trust, Chennai. Her past professional experiences include:
· Group Principal for 7 years at Arvind Foundation, Chennai, where she headed a group of 6 schools and a vocational center.
· Principal in Michael Center for Healing (special school) – 3 years
· Chief Physiotherapist in Vidhyanjali Therapy Center, Chennai – 5 years
Lakshmi learnt Sensory Integration and Neuro Developmental Therapy (SINDT) from Dr. Asha Chitnis, the well-renowned physiotherapist. Lakshmi is a dedicated practitioner of anthroposophy. In this realm, she has completed several professional courses such as:
· Foundation course on Curative Education and Social Therapy - certified by General Anthroposophical Society, Dornach, Switzerland
· Higher level workshop on humanizing education and healing through Art, Movement and Rhythm (2013),
· The role of art and education (2013)
In her work, Lakshmi blends pragmatic amounts of traditional therapies with the best of anthroposophical practices to provide empathetic and comprehensive therapeutic care for those in her care. She keeps herself updated on current research and upgrades her skills often.
Lakshmi prides herself on her sense of organization who values and practices honesty and sincerity in every walk of her life. She attributes her success in her life to her leadership qualities, organization skills and administration abilities.
Lekshmi Ramesh
Lekshmi Ramesh
Coordinator - Early Intervention & Remedial Services
Lekshmi Ramesh started her career as a teacher, she commenced her journey as a special educator after completed her Intensive Training Programme in Dyslexia by from Madras Dyslexia Association (MDA) and from the transactional Analyst, Ms. Sashi Chandran in 1996. She worked with children with special needs for more than 18 years and a qualified facilitator for children with learning disabilities.
She worked in Vivekalaya Matriculation School , Coimbatore as a special educator for 9 years. She then joined Trivandrum International School as the Learning Support Co-ordinator where she set up a resource centre . She also was part of the Resource centre in Muscat during her stay for a year. She worked as the Resource person in Global Public School, Cochin for two years.
It was when she moved to Mumbai, got an opportunity to work with the famous developmental pediatrician Dr. Samir Dalwai and his team of therapists. She was involved in assessments, formulation of therapy plans, meeting parents and also curriculum planning. Her team got the best scientific paper award for the IR paper on the relationship between therapy and performance of children with special needs.
A B.Com. graduate with a B.Ed., she is currently pursuing an M.A. in Psychology.
Her ambition is to bring about positive change in the lives of children with special needs through innovative methods of remediation.
Lavanya Ashok
Lavanya Ashok
Coordinator - Early Intervention
Lavanya Ashok is an academician and HR professional. Her experience in the corporate sector includes resource planning, counseling, training, strategizing and spearheading HR related activities. She has worked in various educational institutions in teaching, training, administration and coordination. She is a team player, assertive, proactive and result-oriented who also possesses excellent relationship building and interpersonal skills. She has twice been awarded the "Star Academic Deputy Leader" and has been recognized for implementing various projects. She has conducted several "Train the Teachers" programs and has been instrumental in the automation of CCE (Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation) formats across 35 branches of Orchids Group of Schools. She specializes in administration-related activities like organizing events and camps, CSR Campaigns, BLAs, Vendor Management and recruitment. She has hands-on experience in Human Resource Management and Administrative related roles in zonal companies like Polaris, SITEL, and Procter & Gamble. She volunteers her time at Arana Foundation an NGO catering to the educational needs of underprivileged students.