by on 28/07/2020 2083
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Kids Inspire Child Development Centre, Kulai, is a one-stop centre for special needs services such as occupational therapy (OT), speech therapy, early intervention programs and special needs education classes.
The services offered are targeted towards children from age 2 onwards, who are struggling with psychiatric, learning, or developmental issues.
Founder and qualified occupational therapist, Siti Nadiah, started Kids Inspire in 2018, after receiving high demand for her services from parents in Johor.
Nadiah used to work as a freelancer, providing services at patients’ homes, schools and non-governmental organisations. Prior to opening Kids Inspire, she was providing her services at a kindergarten. There she was exposed to a large variety of special needs cases, but was limited by the specialist equipment and facilities available to her.
Parents kept asking if she would want to open her own centre to meet the needs of children with special needs in Kulai, and thus she decided to open Kids Inspire Child Development Centre.
In Johor, it’s difficult to find centres that provide a variety of specialist therapies and services for special needs.
Other centres might have occupational and speech therapy, but they don’t have special needs education or early intervention programs. In our centre, we have all these services, - explains Nadiah.
As mentioned, Kids Inspire offers an early intervention program for kids ages 4 to 6.
“Mostly kids who have behavioural issues will join this program. We’ll combine behaviour modification and sensory integration to tackle root causes, so kids can generalize what they learn in the classroom to other environments,” says Nadiah.
Under this program, the team also helps kids develop areas like fine motor skills, and early academic skills such as reading and numeracy.
As for their special needs education classes (for children age 7 onwards), Kids Inspire deals mostly with cases of learning difficulties like dyslexia.
Parents and mainstream teachers normally don’t know the issues kids with dyslexia have, such as visual perception. They would use normal teaching methods with these children, but what they actually need is specific teaching techniques catered for their difficulties.
Kids Inspire houses a well-furnished sensory integration room, also known as a ‘gym room’. Occupational therapy (OT) is conducted here.
In the room, one will find equipment for hanging and climbing, a swing, and a trampoline. Therapists can create obstacle races here to help kids with their therapeutic objectives.
The centre also has two classrooms for educational and academic purposes. There one will find tools such as baskets for kids’ work stations and visual schedules to help kids know what their daily tasks are.
At Kids Inspire, speech and occupational therapists are certified, and teachers come from backgrounds such as special needs education and psychology.
When it comes to choosing their experts, Nadiah says, “I will look at how neat and active they are, because handling special needs will require a very active person.
“I will also check their health history, to see if they are prone to pain or illnesses, or unable to do heavy lifting. Our work can be very physically demanding.”
She adds that the team members here must have a lot of patience when it comes to child development and progress. This is part and parcel of working with special needs students or patients.
Staff at Kids Inspire will personally bring kids down to their parents (as the centre is located on the second floor), and ensure they are safely received. Floors here are also carpeted for children’s safety.
Besides this, kids are given temperature and body checks (for any possible injuries) daily.
Hygiene is also a priority here, where equipment and toys are cleaned and wiped with alcohol swabs and disinfectants after every session.
To keep parents informed on their children’s progress, a written report is provided after every therapy session.
For the early intervention program, parents will be updated via verbal feedback either daily or once every 3 days. There are also written reports and parent-teacher meetings every 3 months—so parents can keep track of any developments.
After OT sessions, therapists will also get feedback from parents, regarding kids’ progress at home. Children at Kids Inspire are given homework, to support their learning or therapeutic goals.
Now, when parents sign up for an assessment in relation to occupational therapy, they’ll get a starter pack consisting of tools to help kids work on home-based OT activities.
“Parents normally ask us where to buy these tools, but since we now know what parents want, we can just provide them with this pack,” Nadiah shares.
