Comm DEALL – Special Education, Bangalore, India
Project Summary
Voice Of a Child established a partnership with Communication DEALL in December 2012. This project, based in Bangalore, India, is an indigenous early intervention program for children with Autism that is geared to the particular socio-economic context of India. The individualized program provides motor, social, cognitive and communication training to children with pervasive developmental disorders.
Our needs:
- There are many children in the program who are from low-income families. We welcome donations to support the fees of such children.
- The number of families that come to seek care is way beyond the capacity of the current building where the program is operating. Comm DEALL is working on expanding the infrastructure and services to meet the growing need.
Contributions and Impact
The Comm DEALL program started in 2001 in Bangalore as an experimental program with 12 children, in the age group of 2 to 5 years, diagnosed as being within Autism spectrum disorders (ASD). It aimed at integrating children with these disorders in regular school with intensive preschool intervention.
By 2003, Comm DEALL spread to six units in three cities. During the next ten years, the Comm DEALL program made a difference in the lives of thousands of children and families. The individualized program provided motor, social, cognitive, and communication training. The program provided intensive stimulation (3 hours/day, 5 days/week, over an academic year) by a team of speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and teachers with 1:3 staff-to-children ratio.
how can you help
Please visit our donation page to make your tax-deductible donation to support Comm-DEALL’s early intervention program.
Detailed Project Description
The growing number of families who are looking for help, coupled with the results of a survey on intervention facilities available for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in Bangalore city in 1999 -2000, indicated that while behavioral, communication, and special education services were the most sought after by families, all these services were not available at any one center, necessitating that the families travel miles together with their little child daily to avail these services.
Dr. Prathibha Karanth’s four-decade-long work in the field of speech-language pathology and the steep increase in the number of families with children with ASD that sought her help, coupled with the total lack of concerted services for these children, even in metropolitan cities like Bangalore, eventually led to the setting up of the Communication DEALL program.
It was concluded that multidisciplinary intervention through a team approach under one roof was urgently needed to support children with Autism. This was the immediate catalyst for the setting up of the program in November 2000, as a tentative trial project. Given the progress seen in the first batch of children by April 2001, the program was continued subsequently. During the next 10 years, the Communication DEALL program was tried with hundreds of children, with constant updates to further enhance its efficacy.
To learn more about this project, visit Comm-DEALL’s website.
