Tremaine So­ca Warn­er

For the par­ent of a child with spe­cial needs in T&T, the ques­tions are end­less and sup­port ser­vices are no­tably ab­sent. Af­ter a child is di­ag­nosed with a dis­abil­i­ty, the over­whelm­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and the con­fu­sion which ac­com­pa­ny them cre­ate a stress­ful time for a par­ent.

This is why the Caribbean Kids and Ther­a­py Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CK­FTO) re­gards the ser­vices it of­fers as in­valu­able.

The CK­FTO is a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion found­ed in 2008 and aimed at pro­vid­ing sup­port and ther­a­peu­tic ser­vices to chil­dren with spe­cial needs from birth to the age of 21. It pro­vides pe­di­atric as­sess­ment and treat­ment for chil­dren with de­vel­op­men­tal, phys­i­cal, com­mu­ni­ca­tion­al and cog­ni­tive chal­lenges and of­fers sub­si­dies to fam­i­lies that meet its cri­te­ria.

Among the ser­vices of­fered are oc­cu­pa­tion­al, mu­sic and aqua ther­a­py, con­sul­ta­tions, parental coach­ing and sup­port for sib­lings of chil­dren with spe­cial needs.

Talk­ing to the T&T Guardian at the CK­FTO of­fice on Vi­dale St in St James, chair­man Eliz­a­beth Ale­ong said the ser­vices it of­fers are des­per­ate­ly need­ed–es­pe­cial­ly in a coun­try where ig­no­rance and in­dif­fer­ence about the dis­abled is very much com­mon­place.

In May of this year, the CK­FTO in part­ner­ship with Rep­sol and the Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties, launched its So­cial In­te­gra­tion of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties Cam­paign. The year-long cam­paign is aimed at in­creas­ing dis­abil­i­ty aware­ness among all cit­i­zens–from the pe­di­atric pop­u­la­tion to adults. Ale­ong said one of the ob­jec­tives of the cam­paign has been to chal­lenge peo­ple's per­cep­tion of what a per­son with spe­cial needs looks like.

"We all have stereo­typ­i­cal im­ages of what we think a dis­abil­i­ty looks like–some­one in a wheel­chair, some­one who is blind. But I could have dis­abil­i­ty and you wouldn't know. This cam­paign re­al­ly asks you to open your mind and to dis­cov­er the abil­i­ty in dis­abil­i­ty."

She said the CK­FTO hopes to help cre­ate a T&T in which peo­ple with spe­cial needs are ful­ly in­te­grat­ed in­to the work­place and schools and are al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate ful­ly in all that is of­fered so­cial­ly.

As­sess­ment an­dOc­cu­pa­tion­al Ther­a­py

The CK­FTO of­fers one-on-one oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py to chil­dren with spe­cial needs. This in­volves spe­cif­ic ac­tiv­i­ties geared to­wards help­ing them to achieve a max­i­mum lev­el of in­de­pen­dence and in­clu­sion in every­day ac­tiv­i­ties. Oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pist Christo­pher Ris­tic said when a child comes in­to the CK­FTO, he eval­u­ates his or her body move­ments, co­or­di­na­tion and aware­ness as com­pared to what is de­vel­op­men­tal­ly ap­pro­pri­ate for that age. Fine mo­tor skills are as­sessed by ob­serv­ing how the child plays with small ob­jects like but­tons, play­dough, build­ing blocks, pen­cil grips and puz­zle pieces. Fine mo­tor skills gen­er­al­ly re­fer to the small mus­cle move­ments of the hands, wrists and fin­gers. He then takes clients to the gym area where he as­sess­es the gross mo­tor skills that en­able whole-body move­ment like walk­ing or jump­ing. Ris­tic's clients in­clude chil­dren with cere­bral pal­sy, down syn­drome, learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties and oth­er de­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­ders. Af­ter as­sess­ment, he pre­pares a re­port for the child's par­ent out­lin­ing the de­tails of the eval­u­a­tion and the ob­jec­tives of the ther­a­py ses­sions.

Mu­sic ther­a­py

The CK­FTO de­fines mu­sic ther­a­py as a holis­tic tech­nique that us­es mu­sic as a tool to re­store, main­tain and im­prove a chid's phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, so­cial, cog­ni­tive and psy­cho­log­i­cal well-be­ing. The T&T Guardian sat down in the mu­sic ther­a­py room with clin­i­cal su­per­vi­sor and mu­sic ther­a­pist Maya Chriqui who ex­plained some of what goes in­to her ses­sions. She said mu­sic ther­a­py helped chil­dren with spe­cial needs to work on their com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, fo­cus, phys­i­cal strength and self-es­teem in a way that doesn't feel te­dious.

"For kids with poor hand move­ments or weak fin­gers, play­ing the gui­tar al­lows them to work on in­di­vid­ual fin­gers so in that way they strength­en their fin­gers while mak­ing mu­sic. So they're not re­al­ly think­ing that it is work. They're play­ing and have a good time."

Mu­sic ther­a­py al­so helps chil­dren aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. While she doesn't teach them how to write, Chriqui said kids are much more mo­ti­vat­ed to hold a pen, pen­cil or cray­on when they are writ­ing their own songs. By play­ing the pi­ano, the sus­pen­sion of the el­bows helps them to build the shoul­der strength they need to write for longer pe­ri­ods.

She works with chil­dren with autism, learn­ing dis­or­ders and cere­bral pal­sy and teach­es them com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills through song.

She said: "Mu­sic is the pre-cur­sor to lan­guage and it stim­u­lates all their sens­es at the same time. Kids will learn melodies and rhythms and this helps them to co­or­di­nate their oral-mo­tor plan­ning so their mouth can pro­duce the sounds they need to make words."

Mu­sic al­so helps to stim­u­late cog­ni­tive de­vel­op­ment and im­prove mem­o­ry skills through rep­e­ti­tion and se­quenc­ing so Chriqui us­es songs to help chil­dren re­mem­ber their ad­dress, tele­phone num­ber, or how to dress them­selves. Each mu­sic ther­a­py ses­sion starts with a "hel­lo song" in which Chriqui and the child take turns singing hel­lo to each oth­er. The ses­sion clos­es with a "good­bye song". In this way, kids learn ba­sic so­cial skills as well as the con­cepts of call and re­sponse and tak­ing turns. She said for chil­dren who are still de­vel­op­ing their lan­guage, mu­sic is some­times the on­ly way of com­mu­ni­cat­ing their wants and needs.

"So if a child is play­ing some­thing on the pi­ano," she said, "some­times I'll match the rhythm or the melody that he's play­ing and sup­port him mu­si­cal­ly. Now he feels val­i­dat­ed, he feels he is be­ing heard and un­der­stood. They have in­stant grat­i­fi­ca­tion through play­ing in­stru­ments be­cause now we can have an en­tire con­ver­sa­tion through mu­sic."

Her ther­a­py ses­sions last up to 50 min­utes dur­ing which she says a child's hy­per­ac­tiv­i­ty is con­vert­ed to re­lax­ation and fo­cus. Chriqui then talks to the child's par­ents and of­fers feed­back be­fore doc­u­ment­ing her work.

Count Me In Pup­pet Show

The Count Me In pup­pet show is a CK­FTO pro­gramme which fea­tures sev­en child-size pup­pets that por­tray chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties. It is de­signed to clear up some of the myths and mis­con­cep­tions about peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. The CK­FTO bought the patent to the pup­pet show from the Par­ent Ad­vo­ca­cy Coali­tion for Ed­u­ca­tion­al Rights (PAC­ER) Cen­ter in the US which of­fers in­for­ma­tion and train­ing to fam­i­lies with dis­abled chil­dren.

Pup­pet co-or­di­na­tor for the pro­gramme Natasha Bab­wah said the CK­FTO has sep­a­rate scripts for pre-schools pri­ma­ry schools. The pre-school script, which is 30 min­utes long, fea­tures Asha who is blind, Mark who is deaf and An­na who has cere­bral pal­sy as well as the main char­ac­ters Shel­don who has a learn­ing dis­abil­i­ty and Preeya who has epilep­sy. The pri­ma­ry school script is 50 min­utes long and fea­tures two ad­di­tion­al pup­pets–Shane who has down syn­drome and David who has autism.

The CK­FTO has al­ready be­gun tak­ing the pup­pet show to pre-schools and pri­ma­ry schools around the coun­try and Bab­wah says the re­sponse from stu­dents has been heart­en­ing.

"The teach­ers are al­ways sur­prised that the pre-school chil­dren ac­tu­al­ly sit cap­ti­vat­ed for that length of time. It's so dif­fi­cult to keep so many chil­dren qui­et for half an hour. The first school we went to, there was just a burst of en­er­gy. They were so in­to the show and they were ask­ing so many ques­tions in be­tween."

She said CK­FTO had dis­cov­ered that the pup­pets were an ef­fec­tive way of com­mu­ni­cat­ing ideas of in­clu­sion and ac­cep­tance to young chil­dren. The Count Me In pup­pet show will be fea­tured at many of the free camps host­ed by the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T this Ju­ly and Au­gust.

For more in­for­ma­tion on the CK­FTO, call 628-3268 or vis­it its web­site at www.ck­fto.org