An early intervention program for children with autism and other communication disorders. Affiliate partners with Com DEALL Trust, Bangalore
Parikrama is a group early intervention program, running at VIMHANS Hospital, New Delhi, in partnership with Communication DEALL Trust, Bangalore. Among various individual and group child services, VIMHANS Youth Services (VYS), the department for child and adolescent services at VIMHANS Hospital, conducts this intensive group early intervention program ‘Parikrama’ for children with autistic spectrum disorders, mild developmental delay and expressive speech delay. Children with autistic spectrum disorder benefit most with an intensive and interdisciplinary approach to intervention. The Communication DEALL Trust, an organisation and early intervention centre in Bangalore, has been working in this area for the last 12 years, with a long term goal of preparing children diagnosed with autism, speech delay and mild developmental delays for mainstreaming into integrated schools. The program involves 10 months of structured and intensive inputs in the form of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and social-cognitive-behavioral therapy. This is a group based program in which interdisciplinary inputs is delivered in large and small groups. The interventions are delivered by qualified child professionals (Speech and language therapist, occupational therapist and developmental psychologist/educators) trained in the Com DEALL model of early intervention. The goal is to teach the child age appropriate skills and addressing sensory and behavioral issues which interfere in the child’s capacity to learn these skills. Inputs in a group format facilitate the generalization of learnt skills even outside the therapy such as at home, school and other social situations.
