Workshop update

Day:-18^th.Oct.2008

Location:-Sutradar, Indiranagar

People attended:- Poonam Shetty and Professionals from various other centers

• Had such an eventful day today! I was invited to this get together at Sutradar.Sutradar is an NGO that works on creating work materials for children with special needs.
• It goes without saying that good work materials are such an important aspect while working with children. It gets even more important to have some innovative materials while working with children with special needs that would keep their specific difficulties in mind.
• There were several professionals from the field of special education present. There were professionals who specifically work with children with Autism as well as visual impairment.
• The reason for this get together was to put all our heads together to come up with new educational materials. Materials that we have used and have worked well and materials we would like to see around. Our target age group was 0-4 years.
• We were divided into 2 groups. One group was asked to come up with various speech & hearing, language and oromotor materials and the other group was asked to come up with sensory and motor(fine and gross) materials. Then we would jointly come up with materials for the cognitive area.
• We were aware that even though it was segregated into these various areas, inevitably materials can always overlap. For instance, materials for motor activities can also be used for language and speech.
• I was in the speech, hearing, language, oromotor group. Like I mentioned the age group that we were targeting was only 0-4 years. We were asked to think of materials that are readymade (readily available), homemade materials, activities (non-material activities) and finally materials for deficits (including those bought, refined/with adaptations, created) Eg.for non-verbal and communication problems.
• A lot of ideas came up during this brainstorming session. Ideas not only for toys but also tips on how to teach various concepts.
• This was also a good opportunity for networking and meeting professionals from this field.