Pune (TIP): Autistic children are intelligent and early medical intervention can help them be a part of mainstream society, veteran playback singer Asha Bhosle said on Sunday. She was speaking at the inauguration of Morris Autism and Child Development Centre at Deenanath Mangeshkar hospital. “Every child has the right to live a normal life.
I would like more and more children with autism to benefit from this centre,” Bhosle said. The autism centre headed by development paediatrician Suneel Godbole has been set up with the financial help of Indian-American paediatrician and philanthropist Anjali Morris.”This is a collaborative effort between the hospital and the school to help these children become part of mainstream society,” Morris said.
The centre caters to the needs of various challenges in child development like attention deficit, hyperactive disorder, learning deficiency, spasticity, communication disorder and autism. “This centre has been established to provide early diagnosis of autism and related developmental disorder in children. It will develop a personalised education plan for the specific needs of each autistic child, providing multi-disciplinary service of developmental paeditrician, psychologist, physiotherapist, speech therapist and special educator to educate the autistic children to such an extent that they can be included in a regular school,” said surgeon Dhananjay Kelkar, medical director of Deenanath Mangeshkar hospital.