Physician: Dr. Praful Barvalia | Occupational Therapist: Khyati
DIAGNOSIS: Moderate, Mild Mental retardation
Achievements: In 3 years his core autistic features reduced by 90% he has achieved brilliance awards & certificates from the mainstream school. CARS score reduced to 19 from 34 I.Q. jumped to 111 from 60 in 5 years He has cleared the S S C exam. Excerpts from Father’s Interview(video): “When he was 2½ years old, he was diagnosed as Autistic. He was hyperactive. He would not look nor respond when spoken to. I met Dr. Barvalia and spoke to him about this problem. He said that he would have to be diagnosed in the Foundation. A Psychologist diagnosed his problem as Pronounced Autistic. In fifteen days of starting the medication his hyperactivity went down and he started reacting, addressing, reacting to certain commands/inputs. That was a very crucial time, a very happy moment as he was reacting now. Medicines were working on him. His eye contact also improved as the medication started. As far as we are concerned, Dr. Barvalia is God for us. He was able to diagnose him properly. In fact, his mother went to J. J. Hospital for IQ test, where he was found to be pronounced mentally retarded. That was the shocking moment at that time for me. Over a period of two years, he has improved like anything. I can!t say that he was the same child as he was two years back. Earlier, a famous paediatrician of big Hospital, in the report said the child is Autistic. Then we went to the same doctor in January, this year and she could not believe her eyes nor her ears. She was absolutely stunned to see the improvement and remarked that Suraj was the first child with so many changes, with so much improvement and I believe Dr. Praful Barvalia has had a very major part to play in this improvement which S has made. We are thankful for the cooperation and the sensibility the Foundation has shown for Suraj. Also Suraj had many fears. He had fear of height and darkness. He was hypersensitive. All these things have reduced to almost NIL. Now he is not afraid of heights. Now, if he goes to the Park, he can play with all kinds of ladders and behaves as normal. In school, his teachers are telling him that he is almost normal. He has almost lost his autism and here also, Dr. Vijaya has told the same thing. We are quite happy about it. Once upon a time, Suraj used to speak one or two words and he used to show by gestures, whatever he wanted. Now, we are able to speak to him and understand everything. 95% of the time, he can answer. He has become humorous. He can play games, even naughty games. Verbally, he can communicate things and now he can almost communicate everything, whatever his feelings are, whatever he is thinking, whatever his actions are. All these things he can communicate. At home, tremendous changes have taken place. Interacting with me, his mother, his grandparents, his cousin sisters. He loves people. He wants everybody to be in his house. Now he can feel these emotional things which were not there before. If his cousin’s sister comes home, he does not go away. He wants her to stay so that he can play with her. He hugs and kisses her. This interaction he never had before. There was a time when he was aloof. If the person says “Hi”, he would not look at him. Now, he talks to everybody. He will go and say “Hi, how are you?” and his name, which school he is going to. He started going to normal school in Junior K.G., last year. During that period, what happened, he had a training session (swimming lesson). They used to tie him and push him in the pool. He was happy to go to the school and used to love it. After that, when they pushed him to the pool, he started getting scared of it. He took a very long time to get out of that fear. We spoke to the School Administration and we told them that he is refusing to go to school because of the swimming lesson. So they gave permission not to go to Swimming Pool. Now he is promoted to Sr. K. G. and happily goes to school. Now he has lots of friends. He is very happy. There are certain small things which are lacking and I believe that it will become normal. Grandfather and he are very good friends now.”