Why the Angels Foundation?
The primary concern of parents is the well-being of their children. When choosing amongst institutions for children with special needs, this concern takes centre stage for parents. Therefore, wouldn’t it be prudent for parents to opt for a place that puts their child’s well-being above all?
At the Angels Foundation, a child’s growth is of paramount importance. We realise how essential it is that a child realises their maximum potential in school work and other milestones of growth. In pursuit of that goal, we practice a process termed Frontloading. Frontloading involves teaching a conventional school curriculum topic via special-education methods before that topic appears in school. The special needs child is then already familiar with the academic topic when they encounter it in school. Consequently, frontloading enables better coping and sometimes even at-par performance in mainstream schooling.
In most fresh cases of neurodivergence, however, the child is initially unreceptive to academics, making special education premature. At Angels Foundation we strive to first build the child’s ability to be receptive via Occupational therapy. In disorders like Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), hyperactivity and hyperreactivity respectively hamper the child’s ability to be receptive. Sensory Integration (SI) is the component of OT aimed at calibrating these maladaptive behaviours. Only when the child is stabilised with SI, do we then build on that foundation to create higher-order functioning such as reasoning and planning. These skills in turn enable problem solving.
Angels Foundation offers the most intricate occupational therapy (OT) in Gurgaon to build your child’s motor skills and higher-order functioning. To illustrate just how intricate the OT is, I often like to describe one coordination exercise. An illustrative image is also presented below.
In this exercise, a child is swinging on a hammock swing. To the child’s right is a narrow ramp with a hockey puck at the top. The ramp’s lower end empties into a bucket down. The ramp is about as wide as the puck. To perform this exercise correctly, a child must swing on the hammock with a hockey stick, and when the swing approaches the ramp, the child must hit the puck at the top of the ramp. The strike must be so precise that it slides down into the bucket, without falling off the narrow ramp. When I first observed this exercise, I knew it would be challenging for neurotypical children as well. In addition to nurturing planning skills and precise hand-eye coordination, the exercise also desensitizes hyperreactive children by acclimatising them to the added disruption of a swinging movement during a challenging task. This intricate training makes the competitive advantage of the Foundation’s specialised equipment readily apparent. Without this equipment, such intricate and multifaceted therapies would not be possible.
If the child has not developed spoken language capabilities, OT alone will not make the child receptive to curriculum education. We have a speech therapy department that offers rigorous training to build the basic prerequisite for education: spoken language. Speech pathology is a common comorbidity with ASD and Angels Foundation offers thorough yet nuanced speech therapy. A distinction is made between non-verbal and non-speaking children by the speech therapist. Children considered non-speaking but verbal utter no or limited words. However, their facial expressions and body language in response to other’s words indicate a receptive¬ understanding of words despite being unable to articulate them. Non-verbal children, on the other hand, have issues with receptive understanding as well. Nevertheless, our speech therapists have curated targeted lessons for this contingency as well. Non-verbal and non-speaking conditions are distinguished from mutism in which no sounds used in language are articulated. Even for mutism, the therapists have high input interventions, which involve engaging the tactile senses of the child by placing their hands on the therapist’s throat vibrations and those even more involved such as guiding the child’s tongue. With such tailored interventions we have seen results in several cases of mutism as well.
In child development, like in medicine, a diagnosis is required for a cure. The psychologists at Angel’s Foundation, assess the child, provide a diagnosis, and then coordinate the best holistic improvement for the child. Each psychologist’s diagnosis of primary disorders and comorbidities implies a different treatment plan by the other child development professionals. Consequently, the psychologist’s initial screening is of vital importance to the foundation. In addition to providing a diagnosis, provide counselling for any emotional problems the child may need intervention for.
To ensure our services across several disciplines of developmental aid meet the benchmark of global excellence, the in-house progress measurement techniques have been based on global metrics of neurodivergence such as CARS (Childhood Autism Rating Scale). Furthermore, to ensure our staff is at par with the world’s best, the Angels Foundation solicits frequent visitations from international experts. All the high-quality work done at the foundation described above, often, needs to be a long-term effort to create lasting improvement. For many of our clients, we have provided longitudinal support from kindergarten to 12th grade.
The Angels Foundation’s guiding principle is to always give primacy to the growth of the child. As evident from all that is stated above, our students are at the heart of every decision we make. So much so, that we prioritize them over business concerns. Telling parents what they want to hear is an easy shortcut to customer satisfaction. However, sometimes, what is best for the child is not what the parent may want to hear. In such instances, we stick to our principles and hold steadfast in our professional recommendations for the sake of the child. Nevertheless, we remain aware of the fact that we are on the same team as the parents. We jointly hope for the best outcome for the child. If you hope to provide your child with high-quality skill-building, superior equipment, and long-term commitment, the Angels Foundation is second to none.
Author:
Kanishk Chaturvedi,
Bachelors in Physics, Reed College, USA (2019)
Artificial Intelligence Engineer, Delhivery Pvt Limited (2020-2023)
Volunteer at the Angels Foundation (April 2024)
Masters Union MBA (Class of 2025)
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