About Akshara Initiative
Born from their tears.
The following is an abridged explanation of what Autism is and what is it that Akshara Initiative does? Do you have time to read all of that? Then go to our complete version at the home page.
Akshara Initiative is a student’s organized team working for betterment of Autism children. We are a team of engineering and medicine students working on a project that helps Autism children to express their thoughts and feelings effectively because Autism is a complex neurological disorder that impairs abilities to communicate, socialize, respond to emotion or express it and characterized by restricted and repetitive behavior found in many children in our country and across the globe now-a-days. With an epidemic outbreak at rate of 1 in 500, in India, there are more than 2 million children with Autism and yet public awareness of this disorder and governmental resources directed towards it are insignificant. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. There is no cure for Autism.
There are no medications or treatments but there are therapies and special treatments to help them live like normal people. But using Technology also will definitely help them. We are working on such a technology which uses working of brain of Autistics to help them express their thoughts and feelings even if rate of deficit is very high.
Impairments in social skills are typically accompanied by emotional disturbances and severe problems in adjustment, making autism one of the most disruptive disabilities for a child's life. Its prevalence is estimated to be at least 1:1000 children. More recent estimates have suggested an incidence as high as 1:500, making autism even more common than Down's syndrome. Given its prevalence and its devastating consequences on the lives of the children affected and, indeed, their families, our general lack of understanding of autism's causes and options for ameliorative interventions, is of grave concern.
They can't even recognize their own parents.
They tend to eat a specific type of food or color of food.
They don't play with other children.
They don't speak with or listen to other people.
They have trouble maintaining eye contact and reading social cues such as facial expression, body posture and gestures.
Major symptoms are
> Lack of social-responsiveness
> Resistance to change or need for sameness
> Lack of eye contact
> Rigid or Stereotyped play activities
> Peculiar speech characteristics
> Language delays
> Repetitive and Restricted Behavior
> Compulsive Behavior
> Self-injury
> Unusual responses
> Under-responsivity
> Thought disorder
> Aggressive behavior
> Unusual mannerisms
> Attention deficits
What we are really up to is NEUCRIN (NEUral-ComputeR INterconnectivity) for Autistics, and our concern revolves over the use of technology, to be precise, NEUCRIN, that uses direct brain interaction with external system.
Our technology can bring out solutions for major deficits of Autism creating a pathway between Autistics and their care-takers. We believe that even better technologies and therapies are not met by normal and poor children suffering from Autism in our country. NEUCRIN sees this problem as a major stone in path of their treatment. NEUCRIN works for expression of thoughts and feelings of Autistics enabling them to save themselves from dangers when no one is around. But, there is a need to know more about Autistics and their behavior to know what to be done more. Technologies and therapies like VisTA (Visual Training and Assessment) and RISE (Random Image Structure Evolution) which are not nearby reachable by poor in our country can also be met. Establishing the basic face-processing deficits associated with autism is important from many perspectives; it is a pre-requisite for diagnostic purposes, for guiding the course of treatment and for constraining the search for causes. All this can be met by poor in our country.
Many children are losing their valuable childhood being considered mentally retarded or thrown into asylums like mentally retarded and their parents, without knowing where to go, running behind many doctors and surgeons without any knowledge.
Giving support to them, not in terms of money or goods, which is a bit difficult and less than required, but in terms of what we have learnt and what we do is essential and you can do it now.
Join hands to give life.
We also refer to Cerebral Palsy.
Cerebral palsy (CP) is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement.
Cerebral refers to the cerebrum, which is the affected area of the brain (although the disorder most likely involves connections between the cortex and other parts of the brain such as the cerebellum), and palsy refers to disorder of movement. Cerebral palsy is caused by damage to the motor control centers of the developing brain and can occur during pregnancy, during childbirth or after birth up to about age three.
Cerebral palsy describes a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, that are attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain. The motor disorders of cerebral palsy are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, perception, cognition, communication, and behavior, by epilepsy, and by secondary musculoskeletal problems.
Visit Akshara Initiative and other works for other works of Akshara Initiative.
Visit About NEUCRIN for about NEUCRIN.