Dear Parents,

You are special!

I don’t know you personally but I know you through your child. I know that you have a hidden source of strength and optimism that keeps you going. While I can always move to more comfortable turfs, you do not have that choice; you are a parent- to a special child and you are doing a great job at that. Please read this through because I owe this to you.

I am a Resident with EduSports and I specialize in providing Physical Education training to school children. I will not get into the discussion of the role of Physical Education in children’s lives in developing their health and wellness. Several research studies and our 7 years’ of efforts towards holistic education through Physical Education have already established the role. Here, I want to speak up for the special children and the impact physical activity can have in their lives.

Three years back, EduSports took the onus of making a difference to special children and therefore, partnered with Lalaji Memorial Omega International School (LMOIS), Chennai. LMOIS, with over 100 special children, is keen on creating sports interventions, specially crafted for them and thus EduSports created a program called Adapted Physical Activity (APA) for students with special education needs, studying in LMOIS. And it is from here that this special journey began…

As per LMOIS’ categorization, the special children enrolled with the school, faced difficulties like Attention Deficit Hyperactive Deficit (ADHD), weak muscle tone, poor hand-eye coordination and feeble spatial awareness. EduSports’ APA program is designed to address these difficulties. Through this program, children were introduced to innovative physical activities at the beginning of each day and we monitored their progress over a period of time. We started using specialized props in these special activities which aided in reducing the children’s difficulties across many areas like attention span, slow learning, crossing the midline, spatial sense, hand- eye coordination etc.

Some of my personal favorite activities, which most of the children enjoyed practicing, are:

“Egg roll” over the gym mat- improving muscle tone “Ball/ bean bag juggling”- enhancing hand- eye coordination “Color sequence” activity- improving sequential memory by reproducing the sequence of colors observed. “Structured walking/ running”- improving locomotor and balancing skills. Please have a look at the smiling and giggling faces when we play.