Every child is born special to their parents and becomes dear as the child keeps growing and adds joy and happiness to them day by day. But for few parents this joy would not stand long as they would find out some normal actions missing as days pass. Over a period of time it becomes a point of worry and concern when parents identify that their child’s growth and developments are not adequate as per the milestones. Some parents would take the situation as growth anomaly and think that all will be fine as the child would grow. As time passes, the child’s growth becomes a cause of worry to the parents as they find the child’s actions and activities are not developing as per mental and physical age. Once they come to know that their child is born with mental and physical disorders, it becomes a shock of life to the parents, their dreams are shattered. 

Such kinds of children are born worldwide and reasons may be many. There are approximately 2.68 Crores of people in India with various disorders and disabilities in various age groups. This forms a large number of populations who are surviving around along with us in our societies. This number is alarming as this population if put in one single state will be bigger than the population of Chhattisgarh and 20 other states & UT’s across India. Majority of this population go unnoticed and unattended and given timely required support. 

Reasons 

1. Lack of Early identification at younger age 

2. Alarming fact is that we do not have qualified and trained manpower available at all health centre’s to identify this anomaly 

3. Finding professional in speech therapy and occupational therapy for special children is difficult and expensive to hire due to non availability 

4. Especially we do not have occupational therapy professionals in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and no institutions offer such programs and create trained man power 

5. Government initiatives are minimal to diagnose and identify at early stages and especially support parents from semi urban, rural and financially weaker sections. 

6. Mass drive to create public awareness on a regular basis is missing 

7. Lack of knowledge and understanding about this kind of cases and parents do not know whom to approach and where 

8. Parents are distressed and feel humiliated by seeing their child’s condition and they do not reach out and speak about their child’s condition 

9. Many parents confine their child to isolation, aggravating the condition of their child leading to severity 

10. This happens mostly because of unavailability of support centre’s and institutions at their respective places 

11. Many parents are misguided in understanding their child’s special condition delaying them to reach out right care and rehabilitation in time 

12. Though there are some institutions involved in this noble cause, there are many centre’s who are not fully equipped with qualified manpower, professional support, infrastructure and financial resources.