Living in denial can be extremely dangerous when dealing with developmental disorders. But unfortunately, society is flooded with too many of such people who shun realities on the basis of spiritual belief.
This has inspired a change in awareness creation strategy for autism(a brain disorder) and related developmental disorders, and leading this initiative is Puresouls Learning Foundation, the non-profit arm of Patrick Speech & Languages Centre, PSLC, Nigeria’s premiere school for children living with autism.
According to Mrs Dotun Akande, Executive Director, Puresouls Learning Foundation cum Founder of PSLC, the erroneous labelling of children on the autism spectrum as witchcraft and consequent neglect of such children, leaves them forever redundant and dependent on family members, as well as society, for everything.
“While hoping on your faith for miraculous healing, you should understand that children on the autism spectrum are not bewitched, can learn and can become better people. They have cognitive abilities and I tell you this because my son is a testimony; he is now in a university studying Mathematics,” Akande said as she addressed a crowd at her first port-of-call, the Redeemed Christian Church of God Revelation Assembly parish, in Lagos recently.
She went on: “Even if you cannot afford therapy or private centres for your child, there abound several “do-it-yourself” strategies you can employ so that they do not remain overly dependent in future.
“You have to love them and take responsibility for their outcome. Learn to use facial expressions and not cane. Key into their cognitive abilities and teach them to do things for themselves. Stopping feeding them after serving them food and when they become very hungry, they will feed themselves. These were part of what I did for my son that helped him progress into mainstream society and even school.”
Chiding government for failing in its responsibility to support private special schools to enrol more indigent children on scholarship basis so as to help them overcome autism and lead normal lives in future, Akande said: “In the past, the State Universal Basic Education Board used to give grants to special schools for infrastructure purposes but we haven’t seen that for five consecutive years.
“Even at that, these grants are not for us to be able to help indigent families at little or no cost. They are strictly for for infrastructure development. There is very little we can do about this because we also have to pay teachers and again, it is one pupil to a teacher. Meanwhile, most indigent children living with autism are wasting in public special schools where they are put together with children who have other disabilities.
“Government can, at least, give us land and if possible, build for us so that children of the poor with autism can also access good care and become better,” she added passionately.
However, affirming that there is always spiritual connotations to illnesses such as autism spectrum disorder, Pastor(Mrs)Adewunmi Onafanwokan, a seasoned educationist and wife to the parish pastor at the RCCG Revelation Assembly, said: “For this, the only spiritual side is that God wants to use this situation to glorify His name and that can only happen if it is well managed.”
The day-long seminar featured a wide range of lectures, including nutrition for children living with autism by Belgium-trained Food & Science Technologist, Mrs Ijeoma Ugwu.
She said: “In feeding children living with autism, you have to go as natural as possible because most processed foods contain a lot of chemicals that cannot be easily detoxified due to their genetic predisposition.
“These chemicals lodge in their systems, move to their brains and make them behave like they are under the influence of alcohol.”
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