Lakshmi Mohan, the founder of R. A. Puram based Sowmanasya Trust, is a music therapist who works with persons who have autism. Through Whatsapp she has not only been sending recordings of music to her students but to more than 200 persons who need it.
She says, “Every summer, though they are at home during the holidays they go out with their parents to malls or parks. So it is very difficult for persons who have autism to understand what a lockdown is. They need physical activities to channelize their energy so that they can sleep at night. The lockdown reduces their outdoor time to a great extent and that can stress them”.
She continues, “To reduce their stress, I have been sending them four or five bhajans everyday. Listening to music keeps them calm and helps them sleep. They can also help out at home with activities like cutting vegetables, cooking, watering plants and drying and folding clothes. All these activities have to be done under adult supervision”.
Screen time she says has to be strictly monitored too. “Many a time they do not know how to draw boundaries. If they like looking at videos online they may do it for long periods of time and there is a possibility of it becoming an obsession. That has to be avoided by having short schedules of screen time”.
