My Artistic Child

A primary key to supporting an autistic child is the endless love and support from parents. Autism Care Nepal Society (ACNS), which was established as a network of parents of autistic children, has been helping them to become more acceptable members of th

Dr. Sunita Maleku Amatya, Chairperson of ACNS, shares her story about her exceptionally talented Little Picasso and how he inspired her to establish ACNS.

Krit was only 28 months old when he was diagnosed with autism. At the age when children were supposed to be playful and attached to their parents, Krit didn't even interact with us properly. For two years, he wouldn't even respond to anything that we said. He didn't play with other children, not even the ones that were of the same age as he was. He was restless and used to run around and misbehave a lot. He didn't care much about his surroundings, and we felt disconnected from our own child. Due to such worrying symptoms we decided to take him to a doctor, and that was when we found out about his ailment. When I first heard about his condition, I panicked and felt helpless. Autism was something new to me, and I have never had any experience with such a condition in my past. Of course, I looked up in the internet and other sources for additional information on autism, but since it was my own child who had been victimized by the mental condition, I was very worried and had no idea what to do about it since there were not many resources available. Even prior to my child’s diagnosis of autism I had felt scared. I was afraid of how we saw our child and how our child saw us. It just felt different and was worrying.

Luckily, we met a family going through a similar situation, and they too were taking care of an autistic child. They recommended us to attend a workshop at New Delhi, India. It was a training program for the parents. We were trained about providing consistent and appropriate interventions to our children. This workshop took place for about three months, and I have to say it was quite effective in terms of Krit's development. It was only after this workshop, that we were able to communicate with him. We no longer became stranger to him. From this workshop, we learned that parents themselves are the primary therapists for their children with such conditions. Hence, with the objective of helping other parents going through similar situation we planned on forming a network of parents. We searched for families and luckily we met around four to five families. We shared the same concerns, and hence formed a parents' network with the aim of creating awareness about autism. So, in 2008 we began our journey for the establishment of what is now known as “Autism Care Nepal Society.” We basically provided the same training model that we learned from the workshop in India. As our network expanded we got motivated and hence we rented out a building at Gairidhara and formally established an organization. Thus, we became fully functional as an official organization from 2009.

Autism Care Nepal Society, also known as ACNS in short, is a non-profit organization where we have a group of passionate and dedicated parents from diverse areas dedicated towards serving children with autism. However, the purpose of this organization is not only to provide different services for children with autism but also to furnish a platform for parents to share a sense of belonging and hope for their children's future. Currently, ACNS has more than four hundred families in network. Thanks to our early intervention programs, we have been able to involve students in the mainstream set up. There are about fifty to sixty children coming in every month for their autism related services at the moment. Also, we have about twenty children who come to our school that was upgraded from a day care center that commenced in 2010. ACNS was a small initiative that we started through our passion and I'm glad we're making such a good progress in terms of uplifting these taciturn gems in our society. Of course we do have a few challenges that we need to take care of in order to run the organization more effectively, but I'm sure we will resolve these issues in the near future.

Parenting itself can be challenging , but having to take care of an autistic child can be more so. First, children with such conditions are totally introverted towards their surroundings. Autism, which is also termed as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), is generally labeled as a term for a group of complex disorders of brain development. People suffering from this condition tend to possess difficulties in social interaction, whether it is verbal or a non-verbal interaction. They also tend to portray a repetitive behavior, but many of those who suffer from this condition have exceptional abilities in terms of visual, audible, and academic skills. Krit himself is a very good artist. He often likes to draw pictures of what he sees and I have to tell you, the level of details in his drawings is exceptional. He especially likes drawing pictures of elevators and toilets. In those drawings, he doesn't leave out a single detail of what he sees. For instance, when he draws an elevator he doesn't leave out any details of it like the number of buttons and the linings present in the box. At the same time, Krit is also very mischievous boy. He doesn't like to stay idle and runs around open spaces, which makes it hard for me to handle him at times. Since, Krit isn't familiar with the social aspects of our society he can be troublesome at times, especially when we are out in the public. He has this urge to explore everything and I don't blame him for that.

My son is my primary source of knowledge autism. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have known so much about autism and its remedies. Autism is a condition that can never be cured. People can recover from this condition, but can never be fully cured. They try to sustain themselves through the support of others. Krit is currently studying in fourth grade at Phoenix International School in Sanepa. Despite his improvement, he still has no friends at school, and he needs constant support from us. This will surely come in his way of being independent in the future, but we're still going strong. Having an autistic child is not a bad thing. You are your child's primary therapist and hence it's important for you to stay strong and not lose hope in your parenting. Since it's all a part of a cognitive growth, early interventions and checkups at an appropriate age can be really helpful in terms of assisting your child to become more acceptable member of the society.