This past summer, I was fortunate enough to work with the children
at the Sneha Kiran of Mysore Spastic Society, a holistic NGO/school that
provide all-inclusive care and education under one roof for individuals with
CP. Their services include occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech
therapy, educational services, vocational training, and parental/family
education, among others. This experience was particularly unique, standing as
one of the few Global Health opportunities in Mysore while integrating service
and our requisite project work, seamlessly.
Having worked with children and disabled people separately, but
not disabled children, I was apprehensive about what to expect upon my arrival
and how would I be able to work with them. What I found was I felt even more
invested and driven in my work because of the visible, almost daily progress I
saw in the students I worked with. It also helped that after they got something
right, the children would break out into a big smile and sometimes even give me
a hug.
My project looked specifically at children and their assistive
technology, particularly computer assistive technology. Assistive technology
(AT) is any device that aims to increase the quality of life for a patient
with an impairment or disability. This technology is usually subdivided into
mobility enabling and communication enabling, with computers falling in the
latter category.
This project was designed to quantify the impact of computer
assistive technology on children with CP. This was done by examining two
groups:
A: have received training once a week for 5+ years (long-term)
B: haven’t been exposed to a computer before (short-term)
Group A students continued with weekly exercises while Group B
performed daily exercises. These groups were examined for six weeks for
physical, cognitive, psychological, and academic abilities, along with typing
speed and accuracy. This was accomplished through observation of the children
during various typing exercises and games. We found through this study that,
despite having 5 or more years of experience of learning with computers, the
group A children experienced nearly the same level of growth as the group B
children who received daily reinforcement.
While I expected to have learned something from my time with the
children, I did not expect how difficult they made it to say good-bye. I had
really grown quite fond of the children, having grown accustomed to and charmed
by their idiosyncrasies and always inspired by their drive to learn, never
letting their disability hinder them. Furthermore, they have made me
re-evaluate my own future and made me consider continue this sort of work with
children in my future.
