Academy of Learning and Development

Hello everyone! Hope you all are staying cool and hydrated this summer. We are continuing with the Know Our ALD series and we’ve reached an often underrated but very crucial area of Sensory Integration. Sensory play involves many senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. It also includes the movement senses, proprioceptive and vestibular, and the “internal” or interoceptive sense. Sensory play stimulates neural connections in the brain that integrate with the sensory system. Learning through touch and other senses is a great way for children to learn how their bodies work and how they can interact with the world around them. It is extremely beneficial for children with sensory processing disorders to walk barefoot through different textured items. This allows them to explore through their feet by experiencing different textures. This also helps promote awareness of surroundings and different senses that a child may be experiencing. A sensory walk or track is a fun or colourful pathway for children to explore new or different sensory experiences. Sensory paths can be used to support children with sensory processing issues or to help children to develop motor skills, balance, hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness.
Sensory integration play includes any activity that stimulates a child’s sense of touch, smell, taste, sight, movement, and hearing. It helps create connections in the brain that allow for more complex thoughts and tasks. Sensory activities also help young brains better process and respond to sensory information. Sensory Integration helps improve language development, cognitive growth, motor skills, and problem-solving skills.
At ALD, we have sensory integration activities everyday. Some days its stimulating the olfactory, gustatory, tactile, auditory or visual sense and some days it’s sensory walk where students walk on different textured mats, balance boards, stools and steps, creeping through tunnels and under tables. It’s a fun activity that helps the students learn so many skills.
Here is an activity involving the tactile sense, where the students play and manipulate a block of ice with blocks, beads and other small toys frozen in it. This is a perfect activity for the hot summer months and can keep the students engaged for hours. Our students love this activity.

Hello everyone, hope you all are doing well. Continuing with the Know Our ALD series next is the Physical Training exercises. There are many advantages of physical activities for children with special needs like reduced level of anxiety and stress, improved social interaction. Physical activities are beneficial for children with special needs because such activities improve psychological and emotional health. PT exercises improve muscle strength, coordination and flexibility. It is also improves balance, motor skills, body awareness and students also learn to follow instructions. Research has shown that physical education program can do a great deal to improve self-esteem and social skills. Physical activity improves general mood and self-confidence.
The PT exercise session at ALD is done towards the end of the day. It is a fun and enjoyable activity that everyone looks forward to.

Hey everyone! We’re back with the next group activity in our Know Our ALD series and that is Art and Craft. Engaging in arts and crafts is a good way to foster and promote self-esteem and confidence. Creative art activities provide an outlet for expression and creativity that enhances learning. Art and craft activities are a good way to hold attention as well as to provide children with acceptable, enjoyable ways to express their feelings. This is particularly beneficial for individuals with special needs who struggle to express themselves.
Drawing, colouring, painting and exploring with different art materials have huge benefits to children's physical, emotional and mental wellbeing as it helps with:
• Building fine motor and problem solving skills
• Enhancing communication and expression
• Promoting self-esteem and motivation to succeed

At ALD, the art and craft sessions are scheduled twice a week and the whole group sits together for these sessions. Students learn so many skills during these sessions. They improved their fine motor skills, they learn to share and also appreciate each other’s art/ craft work. The also learn to wait for their turn.

Hello everyone, continuing with the Know Our ALD series, next is Arts based therapy, in which all the students are together. Arts Based Therapy is a therapeutic and a healing technique that aims to improve the physical, emotional, and social skills of the child.

Artistic tools such as visual art, dance and movement, music, drumming, story-telling and puppet shows, games and rhymes are employed to keep the children engaged during therapy. This technique improves the focus and attention span, cognition, communication, expressive and receptive language. It enhances motor planning, co-ordination and mood regulation response time and also aids in appropriate social response and engagement.

Arts Based Therapy is an experiential form of therapy that involves the whole body, mind and senses. Rather than focusing on the specific impairment of the individual, it views the individual as a whole.

In school, the children are assessed and based on the assessment the therapeutic goals are defined and the ABT activities are structured and designed to achieve the goals through fun activities and sessions. ABT is done twice a week and care is taken to ensure that the children explore all the different artistic methods to make the sessions interesting, effective and fun.
There are a number of social emotional goals that are worked upon during the sessions.

&storytelling

Hello Everyone! Here we are, continuing with the Know Our ALD Series and after the students are done with self-care and personal hygiene activities it’s Worksheet time, where the students sit down to do worksheets. These worksheets are a follow up of the academic and/ or other cognitive concepts that have been done with the student earlier in the day. This session is extremely important as it helps us to know if the student has understood the concept that was taught to him/her.
It also reinforces what was taught and helps the student revise the concept. These sessions are done in small groups of 4 to 5 students, each one doing their own work with support from the teacher, if required.

Hello everyone, we have an important announcement to make, We Are Hiring!! We are looking for dedicated, sincere and dynamic teachers, both male and female, to join our team in the next academic year. Please share this post with educators looking for a job. Freshers are also welcome.
Last date for sending applications is 19th of April'24.

Hey everyone, next in our Know Our ALD series is the Activities of daily living- Self-care skills. These skills refer to a wide range of personal self-care activities across home, school, work etc. Personal hygiene, dressing un******ng are just a few of the skills that come under this category. For students with special needs, it is essential to provide them with opportunities to develop these essential skills to foster an awareness of self-care, become more independent, productive, and confident.
Self-help skills allow children to fulfil their own needs daily while also engaging in activities and behavior that eventually lead to independence.
They are also one of the earliest ways that children learn to plan and sequence tasks, identify and arrange resources, and develop the bodily control required to carry out everyday activities.

Hello everyone, we are back with our Know Our ALD series and it's time for the Activities of daily living skills of grooming and self-care. Learning how to do daily living skills helps promote independent living and enhances the quality of life. Personal hygiene and grooming are just a few of the skills that come under activities of daily living.
Today we talk of Grooming skills like combing hair, applying face cream, body lotion, using a deodorant etc. It is essential to provide children with opportunities to develop these essential skills to foster an awareness of self-care, become more independent, productive, and confident.

At ALD we work on the daily living goals based on the student’s age and areas of strength and need. Our young adults, both boys and girls are taught grooming and selfcare and they all enjoy the activity and do it with concentration.

#

Hello everyone, we interrupt our on going series of Know Our ALD for an important announcement. Admissions for the next academic year, June 2024- 25 are open now.
For more details and information please call on 9820065876 or write to us at [email protected]

Hello everyone! Next in our Know Our ALD series we’re talking about fine motor skills in Physical Development.
Fine motor skills involve the use of the smaller muscles of the hands used in activities like holding pencils, playing with blocks, doing up buttons and opening boxes and bags, eating food etc. Fine motor skill activities involve manual dexterity and often require coordinating movements of the hands and fingers with the eyes, which is known as hand-eye coordination.
Fine motor skill efficiency significantly influences the quality of the task outcome as well as the speed of task performance. Fine motor skills are essential for performing everyday skills as well as academic skills. Without the ability to complete these everyday tasks, a child’s self-esteem can suffer, their academic performance is compromised and their play options are very limited. They are also unable to develop appropriate independence in ‘life’ skills such as getting dressed and feeding themselves which in turn has social implications not only within the family but also within peer relationships.

At ALD activities that enhance and improve Gross and fine Motor skills are woven into the daily schedule of the children and goals are achieved through fun and games throughout the day. They work in small groups of 4-5 students and our young students do beading, sorting, tearing paper etc. to improve fine motor skills. Our young adults, on the other hand, do more age appropriate activities like cleaning vegetables like spinach, green peas, cluster beans, French beans etc. Art and craft activities in school also improve Gross and Fine Motor skills.