Hyderabad woman gets certified by world renowned Hanen Center

The world renowned Hanen Center, Canada; has certified Dr Garima Vegivada, Clinical Director, speech-language Pathology, Hear 'N' Say Clinic; a reputed city based audiologist and speech therapist, in its globally acknowledged program, 'Hanen-More than words' is for parents of children with Autism. Dr Garima is one among the few in India, trained in this program to help parents and the kids with autism.

'Hanen -More than words' program, equips parents and care givers of children with Autism, with the knowledge and training to help the child develop the best possible language, social and literacy skills. Extensive research has indicated that children learn to communicate and have meaningful interactions with their parents, when the parents become more responsive and sensitive to their child's communication. Parents trained in responsiveness were able to become more responsive, this change resulted in improvement in their child's abilities.

Studies revealed that such children had better attention, persistence, initiation of communication and joint attention.

The program helps better to evaluate the child's deficiencies and design a customised program for the parents. Also some children with autism tend to have hearing loss, most autism therapists miss out on this, resulting in compromised therapy. With a background in audiology we can spot the hearing deficiency and ensure a fool proof rehabilitation, says Dr Garima Vegivada. Hearing evaluation should be made a part of autism diagnosis protocol, she adds. 'Hanen-More than words' program, is built on the premise that such responsiveness and sensitivity improves the autistic child's communication skills.

The program emphasises on three elements to be responsive effectively, Responding promptly, Responding positively and Sticking with what the child is talking about and interested in without side-tracking the subject. Parents are trained to identify and practice such responsiveness.

The program was coupled with the audiology and speech therapy expertise enables to train parents of children with autism, more meticulously. The program enables parents to discover their child's behaviour and thus help the child develop its communicative and social skills through various strategies in a more scientific manner, says Dr Sai Krishna Vegivada, Clinical Director Audiology, Hear 'N' Say Clinic.