Early treatment can help late developers: Expert

Erwida Maulia ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 09/08/2008 10:56 AM  |  National

Early recognition of signs of developmental delays in children and quick responses by parents to seek help from therapists would help children who are slow developers, says an expert.

Prakalathan Kelaver, a Singaporean expert in education for children with special needs, told a seminar here Saturday that although denial was normal, parents of slow developers and children with special needs should cope with their feelings and then investigate the types of disabilities that their children might be developing.

"The sooner you get a diagnosis, the sooner you can begin appropriate treatment and the better the progress your child can make," Kelaver addressed over 200 people attending a "Your Child is Special" seminar -- jointly organized by the Linguistic Council of Indonesia and Hope Indonesia Foundation.

He cited an example of an 18-month-old child identified to have autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who, due his parents' quick response in bringing him to therapists, could finally "talk, walk, read, understand people's gestures and read faces" before the age of six.

"The possibility of this child with good intervention going to mainstream schools will be higher. But if you fail to do this, you've actually stopped the child making progress and are responsible for that," Kelaver said.

Children with special needs can be identified through a number of signs.

Kelaver said if a child did not develop speech in the first 12 months, he could be a slow developer. If a kid between the ages of four and six started looking at letters in a different way, it could be dyslexia. If he started behaving in an odd way, like being obsessed with his own ritual behavior -- such as staring at the alphabet or playing with a spinner -- these could be signs of ASD.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia and ASD are among the most common types of special problems affecting today's children, said Kelaver.

ADHD -- which is characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity as well as forgetfulness, poor impulse control or impulsivity and distractibility -- is reportedly affecting 3 to 5 percent of the world's population.

ASD, characterized by widespread abnormalities in social interactions and communication, as well as severely restricted interests and highly repetitive behavior, has an estimated prevalence of 6.0 to 6.5 per 1,000 people.

There is no global figure for dyslexia, but some reports in the United States say the prevalence there ranges from 5 to 9 percent of school-aged children, though others have put the figure as high as 17 percent.

In Indonesia, children with special needs still receive poor attention from the government. No survey has ever been conducted to estimate the number of children affected.

Kelaver said disabilities could be caused by genetic factors, certain medicines taken without doctors' prescriptions, water with lead poisoning or the negative effects of female smokers on their unborn babies. A lot of causes, however, remain unidentified.

Counselor and lecturer at the Linguistic Council, Alice Arianto, said parental denial of children's disabilities was still high in Indonesia, resulting in poor treatment.

"Parents here still like to hide their slow developers, which is so unfortunate. The kids may be partly disabled in some respects, but they can be very good in others," she said.

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