Every parent wants, hopes and works towards providing the very best for their children. They care for the health, wellbeing and future of their offspring, and, thankfully, in the vast majority of cases that is what transpires. For the few, life is not quite so straight forward. Some parents face challenges in caring for their child’s wellbeing, education and development.
Commonly, these children are grouped into what is referred to as ‘special needs children’. Although the term is apt, it is nothing more than an umbrella term that covers a vast area of health, educational and development challenges faced by parents and children across the world.
In 2021 UNICEF compiled a report detailing globally gathered data on children with special needs. The report showed that there are around 240 million children across the world with special needs. The report also emphasized the degree to which many of these children are disadvantaged, very often due to the inadequate availability of special needs care for young people.
International facilities catering for these children are thinly spread. However, one such facility exists in Bangkok. Samitivej Hospital created their Special Needs Child Center specifically to reach out to all parents of children with special needs, not just those of the indigenous population. Clients from across the world gravitate to the Special Needs Child Center to take advantage of their world class facilities and care.
What are Special Needs?
The spectrum of special needs is complex and vast, but they can be categorized into groups. But it must emphasized that a child’s special needs very often bridge multiple groups, leading to complex issues which can only be best served by highly trained professionals.
Specific Learning Disability or SLD, is when a child struggles to meet expected levels of development in the areas of speaking, listening comprehension, reading writing, basic math and logical reasoning. The three main areas into which these will fall are dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia.
Autism Spectrum Disorder referred to as ASD, or simply, autism affects, to varying degrees, around 1% of all children across the globe. This condition impairs a child’s ability to develop normal social skills and the ability to communicate effectively. This particular condition is very often not diagnosed as early as it could be, much to the detriment of the child’s development.
Emotional disorders affect many of those children with special needs. Children with issues such as anxiety and depression are on the increase and are being more commonly addressed by the practitioners at the Special Needs Child Center. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorders are two other examples of conditions which are successfully treated by the center’s team.
Language and speaking impairment issues, such as pronunciation problems and stammers can be overcome with expert guidance from skilled therapists. As can the difficulties that some special needs children have in being able to adequately express themselves in what may be considered the normal manner.
Visual impairment is challenging for anyone, particularly for young people. The National Library of Medicine states that, every year around half a million children go blind following some form of visual impairment. In most cases the eyesight of these young people could have been saved if professional diagnosis and treatment had been sought.
Fortunately, The Special Needs Child Center has a skilled team of eye specialists highly trained in being able to identify the early signs and causes of visual impairment. They are able to address, cure or abate visual impairment problems that can often lead to blindness in later life.
Hearing impairment is more common than many people think. The World Health Organization estimate that 34 million young people have some level of hearing impairment. In many cases this can lead to total deafness in later life. And, just as with visual impairment, many cases of total deafness are entirely avoidable.
High-tech diagnosis and treatment by skilled physicians for hearing impairment can cure or ebb and draw back on the degeneration of hearing loss. The Special Needs Child Center uses state-of-the-art facilities, and with the of skills of their world class team successfully treat hearing impairment with results that are enviable within this field.
Orthopedic Impairment affects many young people, meaning the sufferer experiences skeletal, muscular, or neuromuscular issues that negatively impair their normal, day to day life. These issues can be due to physical trauma or disease leading to paralysis, abnormal gait, a lack of muscle control or even the loss of a limb.
Orthopedists are key members of the medical team at The Special Needs Child Center. These world class physicians have an intricate level of knowledge of the skeletal frame, muscular make up and the neuromuscular drivers that keep the body functioning. Through their diagnostic and treatment skills they are able to help teenagers lead normal fulfilling lives.
Some teenagers experience below-average intellectual ability, through no fault of their own. Being intellectually impaired can lead teenagers to experience problems with integration, social and self-care skills. Additionally, communication with other people is often difficult, and at times misunderstood.
Tackling intellectual impairment requires therapists with varying skills that can work together to provide customized treatment plans to help young people overcome their disabilities, which people so often misunderstand. However, The Special Needs Child Center has enabled many teenagers with an intellectual impairment to live, not only fulfilling lives, but also to be worthwhile contributors to society.
Another area becoming more common in teenagers is the diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. This is an executive disorder that causes the sufferer to experience problems with cognitive organizational processes which seem to be outside the considered norm.
Teenagers with ADHD may experience problems with knowing how, or when, to start or stop what might be seen as a simple activity, often jumping from one to another repeatedly. Prioritizing and planning everyday activities can be a challenge for these teenagers, as is being able to assess and understand their own behavioral traits. The teenage years are the doorstep to full adulthood. If these formative years are allowed to go awry due to the non-diagnosis and treatment of some form of impairment, then adulthood and the individual’s quality of life will, in itself, always be impaired. The Samitivej Hospital Special Needs Child Center in Bangkok is the one place that can ensure an exemplary level of care for teenagers with any manner of difficulty within the spectrum of special needs.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
