In the US and the UK, special games have been developed for kids with developmental and learning disabilities.
Akash Bhatia sits in front of a TV, arms swinging freely, eyes flitting from the screen to his mother. On screen, an animated rabbit bangs on colourful drums and cymbals. Sometimes, a congratulatory message flashes on screen, celebrating a successful combination of moves. Akash doesn’t notice most of them, but when he does, his eyes light up with joy.
The three-year-old is developmentally delayed. He can’t walk without support and speaks only haltingly. Even his arms are being swung by Dr Saif Bijliwala, who runs the Jumpstart Therapy Centre in Mumbai, where, among other things, he treats children with special needs through video game therapy.
“The problem that a lot of these kids face is that their five senses don’t work as a unit. Through video games, we can teach them to use their visual, auditory and tactile senses as a unit,” says Dr Bijliwala.
Akash’s mother says there has been a remarkable improvement in him since the therapy began. “Akash’s way of rebelling is to ignore me. He used to just completely stop listening. Now, I find him a lot more responsive.”
The therapy, quite popular in the West, is almost unheard of in India. In the US and the UK, special games have been developed for kids with developmental and learning disabilities. A host of special applications have been developed for the iPad to help children with special needs develop motor, socialising and communication skills. Dr Bijliwala’s clinic in one of the very few to adopt this treatment in India.
The high price and lack of trained therapists dogs this development here. Dr Bijliwala says it takes 800 daily repetitions of a particular action, assisted by a therapist or parent, over weeks to get a child with special needs to master it. “We just don’t have the number of trained therapists to be able to do that.”
Ditto the scenario at the SRCC Centre for Child Development, there are only four therapists in the physical rehabilitation division for 30-odd children.
Dr Bijliwala says the lack of professionally trained therapists slows down the process of treatment. “The individual attention that each child needs comes mainly from the parents and family who aren’t trained in the therapy process. So it’s not ideal.”
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