BANGALORE, INDIA – Siddhart Roy, from Bangalore, a city in southwestern India, says his son Dev, 4, is autistic. At first, he says the family assumed Dev was just late to start speaking.
“The pediatricians diagnosed that Dev was autistic at a very late stage, as there was a notion that male child speak late,” he says.
But he says that although diagnosis is strong here, care is lacking.
“After my son was diagnosed, I and my wife had to do a lot of running around searching for the right place for his treatment,” he says.
But they found few trained professionals who were qualified to work with Dev, he says. His voice changes as he becomes emotional about finding a school for Dev, which he says generated significant turmoil. He says he was scared because he had heard from other parents that many schools treat students with different needs as cattle.
After an extensive search, they were finally able to find a school for Dev with professionally trained teachers. He says he is happy that his son’s abilities have been developing through the therapy sessions the teachers provide.
“My son has shown improvements after the therapy sessions,” he says.
But it is difficult to afford such care.
“These therapy sessions are very expensive, and I feel that people of less economic status will find it difficult to afford them,” he says.
Roy says that autism is growing at an alarming rate in India. As such, there should be more awareness programs to educate parents about signs of autism and ample programs to provide care for autistic children. He says that he knows of many schools that do not have trained professionals to take care of autistic kids, which he says is unfair.
A major challenge that parents of children with special needs face is finding programs and schools qualified to provide their children with the care and education they deserve. Because of a lack of available and affordable options, various citizens have taken it upon themselves to volunteer in or even start their own schools and centers. The government is implementing a strategy to train more teachers to work with children with special needs.
Quantitative information on autism in most countries in Southeast Asia is limited, according to a 2010 World Health Organization report.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is a government program that aims to universalize elementary education by ensuring basic education to all children. Still, there are many children with special needs who don’t receive the care they need or who never go to school at all.
Anjali, 34, who declined to give her full name to protect the privacy of her family, is a working mother in Mumbai. She says her younger sister is autistic, and her son, 8, is mentally disabled. She says she is afraid to have another child because of the increased chances that he or she would have a disability or disorder as well.
“I think it is hereditary,” she says.
She says that her son’s problems aren’t acute, but his disability causes him to struggle in school.
“He is having difficulty in picking up things in his normal school,” she says. “But I and my husband have decided to allow him to study in the normal school. We are yet to decide on how far he can pull in such normal school.”
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