Parents Shouldn’t See Autism As A Curse: Rashmi Das On Building A School That Helps Autistic Kids Thrive

For Rashmi Das, providing her autistic son with the right therapies and education proved to be a task. She had to set up a domestic facility of teachers for several years. She realised that without a good institute dedicated to the education of autistic children, the community would continue being excluded. This led to her setting up the Higashi Autism School.

Higashi is a Japanese term, which means East, or the eastern part of the world. There are three schools, in Tokyo, Boston and New Delhi, which follow this methodology of teaching.

Recognising Autism

Autism is a neurological condition that’s visible in children from 18 months onwards, based on their development. According to a report, about 18 million people in India are diagnosed with autism. This also means that about 1 to 1.5% of children between two to nine years are diagnosed with ASD. Autism is the third most common developmental disorder in the world.

“If a kid misses their developmental milestone, like not speaking on time or delay in crawling, that means they are missing a motor milestone or a speech milestone,” explained Rashmi. “If they don’t have a back and forth communication of language, or no eye contact or lacking in social awareness, and there is self-play, there’s a lack of interest in other children or their own surroundings - these are all alarm signals.”

One characteristic of autistic children is challenging behaviours. “A lot of kids have socially maladaptive behaviours,” said Rashmi. “Like, shouting too loud or becoming aggressive, pinching, biting, hitting. All of these behaviours are communication methods of theirs because they don't have speech or language.”

Higashi Autism School, the First of Its Kind in India

The Higashi Autism School, which enrolled its first batch of students in 2023, was made for children with autism who cannot cope with mainstream school syllabus, and need a specially developed curriculum that focuses on individual needs. They presently have 15 autistic children studying in the day boarding school.

Through the school’s teachings, Rashmi and the faculty aim to reduce and eliminate challenging behaviours. They then put the kids on a learning trajectory.

“In the learning trajectory, there are core academics as well as niche clinical therapies. Occupational therapists basically help train the kids on their motor skills, how they are walking, eating, and self-care skills,” said Rashmi. “The basic foundations of these aren’t possible for kids without occupational therapies, these are fundamental needs of autistic kids.”

Recognising Unique Special Talents of Autistic Kids

Rashmi believes that with the right guidance, autistic kids can even surprise parents with their skills.

In the faculty’s experience, they’ve found children to shine in different ways, like fine arts, culinary skills and sports. The school especially trains kids in these fields to help them achieve a level of independence and quality-of-life goals.

“By the child is 10 or 12, we know whether a child can do academics or need vocational training,” said Rashmi. From training kids to become commercial artists to preparing them with the Special Olympics in mind, the school does it all.

“Stop Comparing Autistic Children With Neurotypical Kids”

When Rashmi talks to the parental community, one challenge, which parents keep bringing up is “what will happen after us to our kids? Who will take care of them?”

“My answer is that these morbid questions shouldn’t be where you waste your energy,” said Rashmi. “Instead we should focus on how capable we can make the child, what level we can take them to, and all our energies should be in that direction. But how much the child can learn, and grow depends on your life motivation and mental strength.”

She adds that the home enviroment and the school have to work on guiding the child simultaneously, and parents need to stop comparing their children to other neurotypical kids.

“Life is to showcase work and skills, to put in effort,” adds Rashmi. “If you do this, you are bound to receive it’s benefits see progress, both in your life and your child’s life.”