The Early Years
Mihir Alexander Samuel reached all his developmental milestones on time. His mother Aarti Boaz stressed that she wasn’t exaggerating when she said her son could speak clear words with the correct tenses by the time Samuel turned 11-months old.
“It would be like gone, coming, came - you know he had that right,” Boaz attested. “'Papa gone, Papa coming, Mumma came.’ You know, that sort of difference would be there in his speech. And by the time he was 12 months old, full sentences.”
Aarti Boaz and Mihir Alexander Samuel
By his first birthday, Samuel even started trying to spell, and his mother said he’d often argue about how a word should be spelled.
“For example, when I say, 'C for cup,’ he would say, 'K for cup’,” Boaz explained. “And I would say, 'No, it's C,’ so he says, 'K says “kh”, so K is also - can be K for cup.’”
Thus, Samuel demonstrated adequate development in speech and cognitive areas at a very young age.
A child goes through development in five areas: physical and motor, speech, cognitive, emotional and social, according to Sayee Kumar, who has over 30 years of experience as a therapist. If there is any delay in development in these areas, the child is said to have developmental delay.
The eager mother did all sorts of tests on Samuel as a baby, like the raisin test and bead test, to predict his academic potential and development. According to Boaz, there wasn’t any problem with his grip or anything when he was picking up small objects between two fingers.
By the time Samuel started pre-school, he could already spell a number of words. His mother said he'd talk and argue quite a lot. Naturally, people thought he was some sort of genius.
Laughing, Boaz narrated a story about how Samuel was a very mature kid for his age.
“When he was, I think, in preschool or something, about 2 and a half, the principal went and asked him, 'What do you want?’,” Boaz said. “He was fidgeting in class and she said, 'What do you want,’ and he said, 'I want peace of mind,’ or something like that.”
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He was pretty independent too, according to his mother, who said she had no difficulty with his toilet training, eating or getting him dressed because he was already doing all that by himself.
It didn’t seem like Samuel had any trouble with his early development. Until he came to LKG (lower kindergarten) and everyone found out that he couldn’t write.
“He couldn't grip a pen - a pencil,” Boaz said. “And that kind of started this whole thing of looking at him in another way and saying, 'What's wrong with him?’ Because he could do so many things that other kids could not, and the basic stuff that other kids could, he couldn't. He was sociable, he would talk, but he wouldn't be able to write.”
Thus started Boaz’s doctor shopping. She took Samuel to multiple doctors, pediatricians and psychologists to test and find out what was wrong with him. Unfortunately, it was all in vain; the results were inconclusive.
Mihir's early years
Samuel’s parents realized he had some signs of autism, but not all of them. People suggested that it could be Asperger's and not autism, because he was verbal, social, and academically adept, but simply could not write.
Boaz wasn’t exactly thrilled with the result though. In fact, she was so stressed that it affected her during her pregnancy with her second son at the time.
“I was overwhelmed!” Boaz exclaimed. “I was weeping. In fact, I was pregnant with my second child when this diagnosis came, and then I developed high BP in the last week of pregnancy when all this thing was happening. And I had an emergency C-section and I started hemorrhaging and all that stuff. And it was down to a lot of stress I was going through at that time.”
What’s Next?
Samuel has three options for his education path. His mother can send him to occupational therapy, a private school specifically for differently abled children like him, or a regular or “mainstream” school that integrates differently abled children along with neurotypical children.
Special Educators vs Occupational Therapists
Special educators
In a private or mainstream school, Samuel would be taught by special educators, people who specialize in teaching differently abled children.
Sujatha Sriram is a special educator who works at multiple schools for children ages three to 18. She counsels people 10 to 40-years old.
Sriram works with children who have cerebral palsy, low vision, mental retardation, Down syndrome, autism and specific learning disabilities like dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia.
“I also work with children who have ADHD hyperactivity disorder - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - and autism spectrum, Asperger's, Tourette's syndrome,” Sriram listed out.
Sujatha Sriram
She works with differently abled children by using various resources and teaching methods such as using sight words and augmentative alternative communication.
Sriram’s colleague at Montfort Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Sathya Anand, said she became a special educator after her son was diagnosed with autism.
Anand said that back then, there wasn’t anyone available to help her or give advice about raising a son with autism. She faced a lot of challenges on her own, in the dark. But feeling alone led her to be an example and support for other mothers of children with autism.
“So as far as I am concerned, when it comes to me, it's a passion,” Anand said. “What all I went through, I don't want the parents to go through now.”
Occupational Therapists
What Sriram and Anand do is different from what occupational therapist Shibila Anbumani does.
Anbumani works with children who have difficulty reading, struggles with day-to-day activities, bad handwriting, odd sleep routines, and more, as opposed to working solely with a child’s academic areas like special educators do.
“I see the child as a whole,” Anbumani said. “Like in which area, like in cognitive area, like suppose, attention disability, or concentration, or higher functions like problem solving, everything.”
Part of Anbumani’s job is starting interventions with children as early as possible. If a child is born premature or with Erb’s Palsy, they’re at risk of developing a physical disability. So Anbumani calls the parents of the child every month or two to keep track of the child, following up on their developmental milestones.
She even has the ability to make a child smile.
Children need to start smiling by a particular age, Anbumani said, because that’s one of their milestones. If that smiling is delayed, then she can suspect that the child may have autism and start early intervention.
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According to Australian parenting website Raising Children, smiles are the first building blocks of healthy relationships, through which children learn how to think, understand, communicate and show emotions.
She tells the parents to use techniques like getting down to their kid’s eye level when talking and interacting with them in order to make them smile.
“For normal child, we'll stand and say hi, hello, and go side with them,” Anbumani said. “But these children who are not looking at you, or smiling, we used to tell them like, 'Go to the child's level and smile and talk. Whenever you feed them, make them sit face-to-face.’ There are some small strategies we use to teach them from the small age itself.”
Sending a child to occupational therapy is often the first option parents of differently abled children consider, according to Anbumani.
What did Boaz do?
Boaz said she put Samuel in occupational therapy to improve his grip of a pencil, which she said corrected some things. Samuel had some hyperactive behaviors too, when he was younger, but that disappeared as he got older.
She even put him in a special school for two years, but the teachers at the special school told her that there’s no place for Samuel there because he was “normal”.
“So it's kind of he fit in neither here nor there,” Boaz said.
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Special Schools vs Mainstream Schools
When it comes to deciding whether a differently abled child goes to a special school or a mainstream school, there isn’t a lot of choice given to the children. The parents decide for them, Sriram said.
If a child suffers from “profound disabilities”, as Sriram put it, parents prefer to put their child in a special school because they offer a secure environment where the parents can monitor their child .
“But in some cases when a child has a learning disability and when the child has autism but is verbal,” Sriram said, “above 15 years there are few children who would say ‘Can I go to a mainstream school? Why should I study in a learning center?’ So there are few kids, but mostly in India the choice is decided by the parents.”
However, unless a child is severely dysfunctional due to the degree of their disabilities, parents like to put their children in a mainstream school because that’s what’s normal.
According to Jayanthi Kannan, who runs D.K.’s Learning Center out of her home for differently abled children, parents often force their children into mainstream schools when they really belong in a special school.
“So I know a child who was mentally challenged,” Kannan said. “He would not even perform his daily activities. But somehow they have put him in a normal stream. And they also gave him a scribe and got him to pass 10th standard.”
When the parents came to Kannan, he was in his 12th standard. Kannan urged them not to put him back in a mainstream school. She said her advice wasn’t heeded however, and the parents put their son in a mainstream school and got him to pass his 12th standard exams thanks to a scribe who knew all the answers for him.
“So he has passed his 12th,’ she said. “Now they are in a dilemma where to put the child. Because he cannot perform, so how can he go to college? What skills has he acquired? So the parents are in a dilemma now.”
Kannan said that although parents prefer sending their children to a mainstream school so that they can be included among neurotypical children and be taught academics, she feels like parents need to sometimes understand that acquiring skills in order to lead an independent life is more important for the children. For children who can’t cope even with the customized syllabus in a mainstream school, a special school where they can at least acquire life skills while studying subjects under the National Institute of Open Schooling, or NIOS, would seem like the better option.
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Most children who go to D.K.’s Learning Center have gone to a mainstream school, Kannan said, but they don’t always stay there permanently.
“Some parents will understand the child as early as first grade, and they bring the child here,” Kannan said. “So we are able to really show good results with the child. And then put him back in the mainstream also.”
Samuel eventually did go to a mainstream school that integrated differently abled children into the school among neurotypical children. He was able to study with a modified syllabus tailored to his needs and then under the NIOS syllabus later on.
Society, Stigma and Scams
When family and friends found out that Samuel had Asperger’s Syndrome, people gossiped a lot about Boaz and her family. Boaz said she initially had an “immature reaction”, getting angry, mentally cutting them off and choosing to withdraw into her world with her children.
“First is you're disappointed,” Boaz said about those initial days after Samuel was diagnosed with Asperger’s. “You're sad. Then it's like, 'Why me?’ and all that stuff, which is natural. I will not believe it if a parent tells me that they were filled with joy. Because I have heard people say it and I don't believe them. And then you think of the effort that you have to put in.”
The Stigma
Society in India tends to marginalize people with mental disabilities. In fact, there is so much stigma surrounding differently abled children that parents don’t even want to hear that their child has Autism or Down’s syndrome, according to Anbumani.
“Like, even they don't like the diagnosis actually,” she explained. “Once the child is diagnosed, people think that the society will keep them separate or something like that so most parents, even [if] they’re diagnosed, they don't disclose to any other person.”
Anbumani said that parents often come to her saying their child has a delay in development and need her help, but she can clearly tell if a child has Autism.
When I visited Anbumani’s clinic, I witnessed a child learning to write the alphabet with the mother sitting in same room, keeping a close eye on her son. After the child’s session was done and they left, Anbumani told me that she knows that the child has Autism, but whenever she tries to tell the mother, she refuses to hear it.
“At least before accepting they will visit at least 10 doctors,” Anbumani said. “Because all 10 will give different different different opinion.”
Shibila Anbumani
This is exactly what Boaz did too, taking Samuel to multiple places with inconclusive diagnoses before they realized and accepted that it was Asperger’s.
In fact, even if the parents know that their child is differently abled, they sometimes won’t even let their school know, for fear of the school separating their kid from their other classmates, according to Anbumani.
Mihir Alexander Samuel with his brother Zubin
“You don't want to disclose your child's condition to others because you don't want your child to be labeled,” Boaz said. “Right? Because a lot of people readily label your child. And they talk - even within the family, they talk crap about your child.”
Sadly, it appears that Samueal was aware that his father spoke ill of him, and there were family members that looked down on him just because he has Asperger’s. Boaz raised Mihir like a single parent from a very young age.
“People think if differently-abled child is there means something is grossly wrong with the family or something like that,” Anbumani said.
Anbumani started her clinic in Chennai in July 2017. But before that, she worked in Mumbai for 10 years.
During Anbumani’s time in Mumbai, she even came across educated parents who said they have a differently abled child because of a sin they committed in a past life, or the child is like this because of a curse that runs in the family.
One client Anbumani narrated a story of was the superstitious mother of a child with Down’s Syndrome in Mumbai. The woman lived in a flat. According to Anbumani, she and her neighbors were all well-educated. But whenever the lady came out into the corridor with her child, everyone would immediately go into their houses and lock their doors.
“They don't even want to see that lady’s face, she used to tell me,” Anbumani said. “So I used to ask them why is it like that.”
The explanation she got was that the lady and her neighbors belonged to a particular community that considered it a sin to have a child with Down’s Syndrome and other such disabilities.
“They never know this is a gene problem,” Anbumani said. “So these kind of things are still there.”
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Apart from the social segregation and superstitions about the differently abled, there are also the labels.
“Any normal child even with learning disability is also considered as a mental child, mentally challenged child,” Kannan said. “That is very depressing.”
She expressed her dismay about children who are called “mentally challenged” just because they aren’t as adept in academics as their neurotypical peers.
Children who aren’t good at academics are often talented in other things, like singing, dancing, athletics, or even unusual things.
“But still, there is a stigma,” Kannan said. “That these are useless people. But actually they can perform a lot. We do a lot of activities for these children.”
Doctor Shopping: The Search for a “Cure”
With all that stigma, parents like Boaz are afraid of their children being marginalized in society. So they often set off to try to find a “cure”.
People think that Autism and Down’s Syndrome are diseases that can be cured, according to Sriram, and they don’t attribute it to a neurological problem.
“It is trainable, but not curable,” Sriram explained.
People go from doctor to doctor, trying to find a cure, and this leaves room for a lot of scams to con people into giving their money to people who claim to be able to “fix” their child.
So why isn’t there any media attention given to these scams?
One of the reasons Sriram mentioned was money and power playing a role. The other reason is that a lot of these “cures” are alternative therapy.
“Like there is a therapy in some part of remote village in Kerala for autism,” Sriram said. “They'll bury the child inside the mud and only the head is outside for hours together.”
This is the sort of thing you normally see in cartoons.
“Like, it is happening,” she continued. “And believe me, parents go and stay there for 20 days, 30 days. And it's so crude - they'll come and tell me they have a hammer like this, and they insert the child in the mud, and keep the head, and some oil or something they apply, and they just tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak.”
Sriram mimicked the sound of knocking on a person’s head.
Sujatha Sriram
When parents have children on the extreme side of the Autism spectrum, like if they’re nonverbal and have lots of sensory issues, Sriram explained, parents are just looking for a solution. So it’s like shopping for them, trying to find what will work, and they blow lakhs of rupees (the equivalent of thousands of US dollars) on different kinds of treatments like homeopathy and ayurveda.
Another reason these scams don’t garner media attention is that parents feel like fools after realizing that they have wasted chunks of money on treatments that made no improvement on their child. So Sriram said that they don’t put that out in the world because it would be like they are ridiculing themselves.
Parents also don’t want people to know that their child is differently abled, in order to protect their child.
“So lot of parents want to protect the interest of their children,” Sriram said. “Want to protect the interest of their family. Because of which they don't propaganda about it.”
However, these scams are more prevalent in villages than urban areas, according to Sriram, because the doctors in the cities usually prescribe therapy for the children.
Still, it can take a while for parents to accept that their children are differently abled.
Acceptance and Being Real
“We realized, okay, we're not going to try to find out what's wrong and label him,” Boaz said. “And then we as parents decided to just find out his weaknesses, and try to improve on them or work around them. And I think that was a turning point.”
Aarti Boaz on acceptance
Samuel’s parents learned to accept him and work with him through his life. His mother in particular really championed him to feel confident and good about himself, because, as she said, a parent’s attitude affects how a child views themself.
When I asked Boaz if she had any fears about his future, she exclaimed that of course she did. However, her priority was making sure her son grows up able to look after himself. This wasn’t much of a problem though, since Samuel was very independent from the start.
“The problem was with writing, and over the years he became a little socially awkward,” Boaz said, which makes it obvious to people that Samuel has Asperger’s.
But after acceptance, there is one more thing really important for parents raising a differently abled child, according to Boaz: being real.
“As a parent, one thing is you have to accept; second thing, you have to be realistic about what's actually the matter with your child,” Boaz said, “and not hide the condition from him, but be open, be frank and discuss it with him and tell him, 'This is exactly what is your issue. This is why there is a difference between you and such and such person.”
Parents need to let their child know that there are things they can do and things they can’t. This doesn’t mean they can’t try things they can’t do though, Boaz said, because “where there’s a will, there’s a way”.
Boaz makes sure to guide and encourage her son to pursue something he can excel at and makes sure he knows it’s okay if he’s not good at something. She tells Samuel that he doesn’t need to do what everyone else does, but that it’s essential he learns basic life skills in order to live an independent life and earn a living on his own.
“So that's my promise and my advice to most parents who are going through this because, especially with Autism or Asperger's, there's no one-size-fits-all approach,” Boaz said.
Samuel had just graduated from high school when I talked to them and had successfully gotten into one of the most prestigious colleges in Chennai. As confident and excited as he was, Boaz made sure he kept his feet on the ground and had a plan B ready.
“Being an educator, I've seen a lot of mothers of special needs kids who are blind to, or choose to be blind to, their child's condition,” she said. “Or inabilities.”
Children at D.K.'s Learning Centre playing with alphabets
Boaz said she has come across many parents of differently abled children who boast about their children without seeing any results in the child’s performance. She says there are two reasons for the parent and child being out of sync like that.
“One is the parent may not even work with the child,” Boaz said, reinforcing that a parent’s role is extremely important when raising a differently abled child.
The second reason Boaz talked about was that the parents may have high expectations for their child even when the child may not be able to do something. When the parent sees that the child is unable to perform at something, they get angry or frustrated with their kid, Boaz said, without introspecting about the reason the child couldn’t do something.
“So I am always wary of advertising what Mihir can do,” Boaz said. “I'd rather stay quiet and let him do it. So if he does it, great. If he doesn't do it, of course we'll work on something else. You know, that's been my attitude.”
Mihir Alexander Samuel
Samuel has an interesting ability that never fails to amaze people.
You can give him any date between the years 2000 and 2020 or 2025, and he can give you the exact day of the week that date fell on. He doesn’t look at a calendar or anything - he does it all in his head, and in seconds.
His mother calls this special gift of his the “date trick”.
“I always push him a little out of his comfort zone,” Boaz said, as she narrated a story about how she encouraged Samuel to showcase his date trick at a family get together.
Although Samuel was nervous at first and took a while to warm up on stage, he soon blew his family away.
According to Boaz, people went from seeing him as the poor kid and feeling sorry for him to seeing him as a genius.
Mihir's "date trick"
When Samuel wanted to take a course at a university in Chennai, he had to take an entrance test he was not prepared for, because Boaz said they didn’t know there would be one. Even taking that entrance test, while it may not seem like a big deal for most people, was a big step for Samuel, Boaz said. It took Samuel out of his comfort zone, and he found that he excelled at it.
Samuel grew up in a wealthy family who travel frequently. While Boaz said she didn’t realize it at first, Samuel had developed a great interest in travel and tourism over the years. He decided to do a course on this in college, after graduating from high school.
While Samuel isn’t very active on social media or social face-to-face, he is constantly on travel pages and websites like TripAdvisor and JustDial. He said he’s always posting reviews for hotels on his favorite one, TripAdvisor.
Besides travel advice, Samuel has a penchant for western classical music. His favorite composer is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but he also loves other composers like Frédéric Chopin, Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi.
In fact, for his last two birthdays Samuel had famous composers on his birthday cake. In 2017, his birthday cake depicted the German composer Felix Mendelssohn, and in 2018, for his 18th birthday, Vivaldi.
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And this love for music lead him to make an unlikely friend when he was on a train from Rothenberg to Frankfurt in Germany.
Mihir's train story
While Samuel’s interest in classical music isn’t something kids his generation would be very interested in, he often gets into deep conversations about western classical music with older people during his travels.
Boaz also said she’s noticed that he talks a lot more when he doesn’t think he’s being observed by his mother.
Getting into School
Schools often admit differently abled children thinking they just have a delay in their development, according to Sriram. The schools take these children in thinking they’re just overactive because they’re only three or four years old.
“They feel 'okay he will settle down’, but then after a year the school will start feeling that there's something wrong with a child,” she said.
It’s at that point that schools approach Sriram for assessment and they find out that the child either falls on the Autism spectrum or has ADHD.
“But then when that age of 10 arrives, the school also kick them out,” Anand said. “They say that, 'No, it is not possible. We cannot take care,’ and it's genuine problem.”
Anand said that schools kick the children out when they it gets to the point where they are unable to do anything with the child. This is when parents start looking for a good center to put their child in.
Sathya Anand
But the hunt for centers isn’t easy. Anand said that parents often hop from center to center when they realize their child isn’t learning anything.
“Not all the centers are good,” Anand said. “They need to really be lucky. I will say that many have become commercial. They don't give in that 100 percent. It has to come from the heart. That passion is not there.”
According to Anand, the special educators at some centers don’t really listen to the parents. She said that is one of the most important things that special educators like her should do. They also need to positively encourage the parents, rather than saying that the child is not going to improve in any way.
Another option for parents is to enroll their child in a school that integrates differently abled children along with neurotypical kids. Unfortunately, that too appears to be a problem.
Sriram said that schools often aren’t willing to hire a special educator to work with differently abled children. She blames the attitude, saying school managements often think along the lines of, “When they have special schools, why should they come to mainstream school?”
A shadow teacher sitting next to a differently abled student in a classroom at Montfort School in Chennai
“So it's like very very small amount of schools only are mainstream integrated schools,” Anbumani said. “When you go and disclose the diagnosis, most of the time they will not enroll the child only in the first place.”
Anbumani said she knows only about four mainstream schools that take in differently abled children where she lives in Chennai.
Children with speech disabilities or mental retardation are less likely to enroll in schools, according to an article by Indiaspend about why 45 percent of Indians with special needs are illiterate.
However, Sriram said that although that was a difficulty faced about 10 years ago, nowadays thanks to resource rooms in schools and guidance given by professionals, it is possible for children with speech disabilities and mental retardation to enroll in schools and get an education.
What the Government is Doing
Therapy Centers and Insurance Schemes
There are many organizations and resource centers across India that help differently abled children. Aside from this, Anbumani said that the government has started therapy centers and an insurance scheme for the differently abled.
“Earlier there was no insurance for this therapy,” Anbumani said, “and if the kid is physically disabled, then they won't give for the splints and all those special equipments they need. They are not covered under the insurance. So now they have started a special insurance where all this therapy and splints and surgery, all included in this insurance.”
Some of the government insurance schemes are Disha, which is an early intervention and school readiness scheme for children upto the age of 10, and Sambhav, which sets up an additional resource center in each city in India and provides information, assistive devices, appliances, aids and softwares for the disabled and differently abled, according to The National Trust.
There also used to be a scheme called Gyan Prabha, which used to “encourage people with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities for pursuing educational/vocational courses”. However, this scheme was discontinued on January 24, 2018, according to The National Trust website.
Government drops Gyan Prabha scheme for differently abled as many similar ones exist (Newindianexpress)
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Photo is a representational photo taken by Ranjani Venkatakrishnan at Montfort School in Chennai
The RTE Act and Non-Compliance
The government of India also enacted the Right to Education Act in 2009, which, according to Sriram, says that children with disabilities should be taken into mainstream schools and cannot be denied admission. The RTE act says that 25 percent of a school’s population should be children from the marginalized sector, which includes children with disabilities and those from minority groups.
“But in India the law never gets enforced,” Sriram said. “So lot of schools, though RTE says children with disabilities should be taken in the neighborhood schools, because there is no law enforcement of law, they simply say no we can't take in because we don't have the resources.”
Sriram also said that although it is mandatory for schools to have a counselor or a special educator now, most schools aren’t willing to hire one, and differently abled children are denied admission on grounds of lack of resources for them.
“Funds are a problem,” Sriram said. “Second, it is the attitude.”
Sriram said that when schools start taking in differently abled children, they cause a lot of disturbances in class that the other children go talk to their parents about. If an incident happens that affects one of the other children in some way, the parents get angry and complain to the school. Then the admission of neurotypical children in the school drops, Sriram said, citing a school in Tambaram as an example. The school, prioritizing overall admissions over inclusivity, ultimately stops taking in differently abled children.
The problem is with the attitude the adults have, according to Sriram.
“What I have noticed is children don't see differences,” Sriram said. “They are taught to see differences, at least in India, by the parents.”
Sriram described an anecdote where a second grader who had a motor difficulty couldn’t open his own tiffin box (or lunch box) on his own. He also could not open the zip of his pencil pouch, button his shirt, or tie his shoelace on his own. A classmate helped this boy every day.
However, one day, when the classmate was helping the boy, something happened. He went home and told his mother about the incident and how it happened when he was helping his classmate.
“The next day,” Sriram said, “the mother comes to the school and she says, 'How you can tell my son to help him every day? He's not his servant.’”
When Sriram asked the mother if the boy had complained, she said no, he did not complain, but she is complaining on his behalf. She asked Sriram why the school can’t appoint an aaya (one of the cleaning staff of the school) to help the classmate.
So Sriram called the boy and asked him herself if he minds helping his classmate, to which he said, “No, miss, I don't mind. He's my friend.”
“It was very very touching,” Sriram said. “Even now, when I think about it, it is so very touching.”
The attitude of parents like the one in the example illustrated by Sriram is one of the reasons schools don’t take in differently abled children even though it is mandated by the RTE act.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan: Is It Working?
The government of India has also started the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme, under which Sriram said she worked with the inclusion part of the Adapt (formerly the Spastic Society of India). Sriram said her job was to visit schools to supervise the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan special educators, coordinate with government school teachers, and make sure that inclusion was happening in the right way at those schools.
Unfortunately, Sriram left Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan when she found out nothing was really happening in that programme. According to Sriram, the special educators working with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan were more focused on accounting, such as counting how many callipers and hearing aids were given and how much money has been given to schools for buying resources. They also count how many children they have collected from villages for assessments from medical camps that happen at panchayats, or village councils.
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Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
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Ironically, once the schools receive these brand new resources, they don’t allow the differently abled children to actually use them. Sriram said this was because the schools fear that the items will be lost, broken or stolen, so they’re locked away in the resource room, never to be touched by the children they are meant for.
“They're supposed to submit it to the state government saying ‘from this area this many kids were identified, assessed, awareness was given to the parents, calipers were given, all the various aids which you talk about, that has been given,’ that's it,” Sriram said about those working with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
So despite the government of India taking steps toward inclusion on differently abled children in schools, through the RTE act and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, there are still problems with the children getting the education and resources they need.
“Beyond inclusion,” Sriram said, “if you have included, you have to work towards the child, and that doesn't happen.”
School Life: The Experience in Mainstream Schools
There are four criteria children must meet in order to be admitted into a mainstream school, according to Sriram.
The first is that the children must be able to understand what is happening in their environment. The second is that they must be able to read a few basic words and communicate in some way that they understand those words. The third criteria Sriram said is that the child must have at least 15 minutes of sitting tolerance. And lastly, the child must be able to communicate basic needs such as, “I want to use the restroom,” “I want to drink water,” and “Can I get a break?”
The Curriculum
Once they get into the school, the child’s curriculum will be modified to meet their needs. Sriram said this includes two components: a school-based curriculum component, and a remedial component.
The school curriculum component consists of two things, Sriram explained.
“One is curriculum modification, and other is curriculum accommodation,” she said. “When it comes to modification, the curriculum content is made lesser, or for gifted children it is made more. When it comes to accommodation, the content remains the same. The teaching methodology, the presenting as to how the child is being taught, as well as the evaluation methodology of the child, varies.”
The remedial component includes lessons and training the children in whatever area they are lacking in. This includes therapy and social skills training.
Some schools have introduced occupational therapy in their curriculum for differently abled children, according to Anbumani. If a child has a learning difficulty or is unable to sit still in one place, a therapist in the school works with the child.
Previously, this was not there, Anbumani said. Parents had to search outside the school for a therapist to help the child.
“All these things have come out, but the stigma is still there,” Anbumani said.
Shadow Teachers
In a class of about 55 kids, the teacher will not be able to give special attention to a differently abled child, Anand said. This is why the differently abled children at Montfort Matriculation Higher Secondary School have a shadow teacher accompany them.
The shadow teacher’s job is to help the child participate in class and understand the material.
“And some shadow teachers are not that literate that they would be able to teach the whole curriculum,” Sriram said.
So when the child comes to the resource room, the shadow teacher also accompanies them and special educators like Sriram teach them to fill in the gaps.
Shadow teacher at Montfort School in Chennai
The Resource Room
The children also have access to a resource room in their school. Within this resource room, the child receives special education and language and communication classes, Anand said.
“We help the kids to talk and to express,” Anand explained. “It's more to do with expressive language either by saying or by expressing on the face just by saying yes or no. The yes or no concept itself gets so difficult for them. So the shadow teacher sometimes find it very difficult when they're not verbal.”
Anand works with the child to get them to be more expressive, using yes or no flashcards and getting them to nod their head or produce some kind of action. This in turn helps the shadow teacher understand the child better so that they can communicate with them.
The shadow teachers also receive training in the resource room. Anand and her colleagues work with them to make sure they are able to teach the child in the classroom.
Resources Available
Besides scribes, who are people who write the exam for the differently abled if they are unable to write the answers on their own, the children also have access to various resources the special educators use to communicate with and teach the children.
“For academic purposes we use something called alternative augmentative communication, which is called AAC,” Sriram said.
AAC’s are available in two forms. They can be word charts, picture charts, or simply a board and marker that the special educators and shadow teachers make, or they can be in the form of software like Hope, Slate and Avaz, according to Sriram.
However, the software is not usually already available in the schools, so the parents have to buy it, Sriram said.
Sriram and her colleagues also prepare activities for the children to improve their fine motor skills. They use simple resources that can be easily obtained, like straws, beads and vegetable baskets, and ask the children to do things like inserting the straws into the holes in the basket. Kannan uses similar techniques at D.K.’s Learning Centre.
Resource box at Montfort School in Chennai
“It's not like high-funda resources,” Sriram said, “it's basically flashcards, and we use straws, we use paper plates - whatever basic things are available, we just convert it into some skill sets.”
Exam Time
During exam time, children can have a scribe to help them read or write the answers.
The shadow teachers are swapped for scribes, according to Anand.
“We swap it with the other shadow teachers so that it's not that the same shadow teacher,” Anand said. “If she's going to take the exam, of course the child is going to get full marks.”
In this way, they make sure they are really testing the child’s mastery of the material and it’s not the shadow teacher writing the child’s exam for them.
In addition to the provision of a scribe, the exam itself can be modified according to the child’s abilities.
Anand said that sometimes it is the special educators like her who create the exam question papers for the child because they are the ones who know what the child knows and doesn’t know.
“It may not be exactly the syllabus,” Anand said. “It could be a little lower than the syllabus, wherein the child the child can do it, the child can perform.”
NIOS
Math was really hard for Samuel, as well as drawing and handwriting, so he had a modified syllabus for math and science until 9th standard. After that, he switched to NIOS.
NIOS is a central government-recognized board that is not only for differently abled children, but also for children who travel a lot for sports and extracurricular performances who do not have the time to attend regular school classes. According to Sriram, the minimum age to enter NIOS is 14. Until students reach that age, they must go to a regular school.
Kannan, who uses the NIOS curriculum at D.K.’s Learning Centre, explained how NIOS works.
In NIOS syllabus, students have the opportunity to choose whichever subjects they want to take.
“Like we do not have to give them math, we do not have to give them science, we do not have to give them social science,” Kannan said. “Instead we give them painting, data entry operations, so which the child will be able to perform. So we take up those courses. And we can also get them to pass in 2-3 years. So every 6 months, they take an exam. And they clear their 10th.”
Students who are unable to study five subjects at once can take two or three subjects at a time in NIOS, and study those subjects over a period of six months. In this way, students are able to pass 10th and 12th standard.
Obtaining Disability Certificates
Samuel used a computer to type his school work at school. However, CBSE didn’t allow the usage of computers in the exam hall at the time, so Boaz said she had to go get a disability certificate for Samuel.
When differently abled children reach 9th standard in India, they need to go to the government medical board for a full, formalized psychiatric evaluation, according to Sriram. In order to go to the psychiatric evaluation, the student needs three letters: a letter from the parent; a letter from the school authority stating how long the child has been studying in that school; and a letter from the special educator or a professional who’s intervening with a child talking about the current performance level and recommending what accommodations the child would need for the board exams.
“The different kind of accommodations the child would need on the board are extra time, making him sit in a separate room when he gets too disturbed by the distractions, provision of a scribe, usage of a calculator, language exemption,” Sriram said. “Of late, taking exams on the computer has also been added.”
The examination takes three to five days, during which the psychiatry ward of the medical board of the government hospitals will decide whether the child can be given these things. At the end of this, a disability certificate is issued for the child.
“Once they do the evaluation they would give a GO order, which is a government order saying that this child can sit for the board with XYZ accommodations,” Sriram said.
Peer Sensitization Workshops
Sriram also conducts peer sensitization workshops for the other classmates to make sure the differently abled child doesn’t face any bullying.
“Whenever we put in such kids who have behavior issues, or who look different, we do peer sensitization workshops for the children,” she said.
She said that they don’t go into the technical details, but she explains why the child is different. She tells the children that their new classmate might do things that seem funny or silly, but that that’s just the way they were born. Sriram also tells the children how they, as friends, can help the differently abled child out and what they can do.
Insecurities, Bullying and Making Friends
Many differently abled children are not insecure about their disability when they’re young, according to Anand. She said that around fourth grade, some children become aware that they are different and feel insecure, but there are many who don’t even know what is happening.
“Beyond fourth grade there are many kids,” she said. “They know that they have a problem. They do get bullied in the school. And then we have to go and intervene.”
That’s when Anand has to go tell the bullies that what they are doing is wrong.
However, when I visited Montfort School, I observed children playing during their physical education class. I watched with awe as a group of young girls playing with a ball went out of their way to make their differently abled classmate play with them when they felt sorry seeing her standing alone.
A neurotypical student plays ball with a differently abled student at Montfort School in Chennai
This is what most differently abled children are lacking, Anand said. They often don’t have friends. Fortunately, she said she’s noticed that the children at Montfort are very understanding and make friends with their classmate. She’s seen children take them to the washroom, make sure they sit next to them during lunch and play with them.
“Nobody hung out with him,” Boaz said as she described Samuel’s interaction with classmates at school. “One of the challenges of autism, Asperger's, is the inability to make friends. It's like nobody wants to hang out with them.”
Despite the challenge with making friends, Boaz said Samuel didn’t face too much trouble in school because he studied in the school she ran.
Problems with Inclusion in Mainstream Schools
“We feel they are included in the society - actually they're not,” Kannan said.
In all her years of being a special educator, Kannan said despite hearing a lot of talk about inclusion, she has seen that the children really suffer in mainstream schools.
Jayanthi Kannan
The differently abled children who go to mainstream schools are unable to perform in the field during physical education classes or understand general instructions if they have autism or mental retardation, according to Kannan.
“So maybe physically they're present in the school, but not taking part in anything,” she said.
Interaction with People and Adolescence
Friends and Family
Samuel said that when he messages his friends from school, they don’t usually text him back or talk to him. However, he said that he has other friends outside of school who he sometimes talks to.
Boaz jumped in saying that Samuel does keep in regular touch with her brother’s daughters.
“They wave at me,” Samuel said. And when his cousins wave at him over Facebook messenger, he waves back and finds out everything going on in their lives.
“When they have holidays, when it reopens, when they'll be at home, when they won't…,” Samuel listed out.
Having a younger sibling has also helped Samuel a lot, according to Boaz.
“Zubin's been a very very supportive younger brother,” Boaz said. “And Mihir has also been a very very protective older brother. So that bond they have has really helped them both.”
Boaz also said that when she or Zubin are around, he likes to rely on them to communicate and speak on his behalf.
“I’ll enjoy,” Samuel chimed in.
Samuel likes to stay in the background and let his mother and brother speak for him when they’re around, according to Boaz, but he said he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself on his own too.
“Yeah, exactly, but you're just lazy,” Boaz told Samuel. “You don't want to do it when we are there.”
Mihir and Zubin on Mihir's 18th birthday
“I'm not lazy,” Samuel argued back in typical childlike fashion. “You know I'm not lazy.”
Samuel also had a wonderful grandfather who never treated him differently, Boaz said.
Boaz’s father took Samuel on buses, trains, even boats in Besant Nagar without telling her, she said.
“So I think when you realize,” Boaz said, “at one point it hits you, that there's no need to hide it, there's no need to feel ashamed - cause everyone kind of slightly feels ashamed that my child is like this.”
The Adolescent Experience
Most children with autism have mental health problems around 15 to 18 years old, according to Sriram.
“They would get depressed, they would get into schizophrenic mode,” she said. “That's because of the chemical imbalance which is happening in the brain during the adolescent phase. And already the brain is affected because of autism.”
Sriram also said that behaviors that are normal for children with autism reach their peak during the adolescent phase. She’s noticed that parents of children with autism come to her when the child is around 18 years old saying that the child has suddenly become more violent. It could also manifest in another way.
“Some parent will say, 'My son doesn't talk with anybody, he's gone secluded. He giggling, he's laughing to himself, he's talking to himself’ - which is there for autism, but at this phase it goes into the peak,” she explained.
Like any adolescent, these children also have to deal with hormones and feelings for the opposite sex. But Sriram said they don’t know how to deal with these hormones and feelings, leading them to develop learned helplessness. This learned helplessness leads to frustration, which can lead to violent outbursts or withdrawing themselves, or develop into behaviors that are destructive to themselves.
However, the opposite can also happen. Sriram said some differently abled children may develop an attitude where they try to manipulate people with their disorder.
“It all depends on the environment which they're grown in and the kind of response they have got from parents and teachers when they are just beginning to understand 'Can I use this disability as a strength? Or can I use this this ability to manipulate people?’” Sriram said.
Raising a Differently Abled Child
“I think as parents, whatever you may see a therapist does or doesn't do, finally it's like you need to do 200 percent for this child,” Boaz said. “Because everyone else is paid to do stuff for your child, but you just have to work that much harder.”
Boaz said that the biggest thing about raising a differently abled child is that the parents need to work doubly hard.
A lot of parents just want a quick fix or a cure of some sort because they get overwhelmed or discouraged when they find out they need to work twice as hard throughout their life for this child, according to Boaz.
Home environment is important
Anand conducts workshops for the parents of differently abled children once every three months. She said that it’s important that the child sees the parents spend time together.
“The intimacy, you know,” Anand said. “The child should see all that. Child should see that the parents are in love so that that love shows on to the kid. We always say that if the parents are going to be very sad, it shows up on the kid. The kid also react the same way. The kid is not happy.”
Sathya Anand
In India, parents seldom even have a cup of coffee together in the morning, according to Anand. She gives many handouts to parents about how they should act in front of their child. The child also needs to grow in a happy home environment where the parents constantly encourage them.
“A lot depends on the parents,” she said. “I would say it's all 50-50.”
Be wary of your attitude
Out of 100 kids that Anand has seen, she says about 75 percent of their parents nowadays are proud of their children. They’re not ashamed that their child is differently abled, even though they do have fears for their future.
Anand said she reassures the parents whenever they express fears that they should focus on the present and work on the child, that they should take this journey day by day.
The attitude shown toward the child is very important when raising them.
Sriram explained that depending on how the child’s parents react when the child is beginning to understand their disability, the child might learn to use it to manipulate others into giving them what they want on the sole grounds that the they are differently abled.
“It all depends on the response they get from the environment, basically,” she said.
What you need to know if your child with a disability is starting school soon (The Conversation)
Click on the image or here to read the story!
Parent’s role in early intervention
When Anbumani starts early intervention with children and notices developmental delays like the child not smiling like other children do, the parents play a huge role.
“We'll tell the parents always move close to the face and smile, talk to him face to face, go to the child's level and do everything, all those small small strategies we'll use,” she explained.
The result is that eventually the child starts to smile, just by seeing the parents smile at them at eye level whenever they are interacting together.
Using the Internet
Initially, when Boaz first found out Samuel has Asperger’s, the internet didn’t have much information about it. So she went to a special institute and completed a course to help her learn how to raise her son.
“At that time I was facing learning difficulty, so I did a course on that,” she said. “And yes that really helped me. Because I interacted with a lot of kids with special needs. Thanks to the course, I interacted with them, and it also helped me as an educationist in my own school to identify kids with special needs and in tackling with the challenges faced by my child and by me.”
But today, the web is a brimming vessel of infinite information. It is the age of the internet, of course. Parents often turn to the internet first when they find out their child is or may be differently abled. This may not always be a good thing though.
Boaz said that the internet is risky because parents often come across ads for sophisticated-looking centers looking to scam the parents out of their money in exchange for a “cure” for their child. The scammers prey on the insecurities of the parent and get away with it because the parents don’t want to go public with it.
Pros and cons
Parents and special educators alike use the internet as a valuable resource bank, according to Sriram. Parents also have the opportunity to gain a better understanding of their child’s disability thanks to the wealth of information on there.
Kannan recommends the web as a resource for parents. She herself uses the internet to connect with parents of the children in her school through a Facebook page and website for D.K.’s Learning Centre.
“I upload all the materials and I also keep updating whatever new methodology that has come up, or whatever the difficulty we faced, and the teaching methods,” Kannan said. “So lot of things I share, through which a lot of people are really benefited by.”
However, the amount of information on the internet is a double-edged sword. On one hand, parents can understand what their child is going through better and how to help them. On the other hand, they can read so much that it can lead to confusion, according to Anbumani.
When it comes to differently abled children, each one is different. One child’s autism is never the same as another child’s autism. What works for one child may not always work for every other child. However, parents can read about someone else’s experiences with raising a differently abled child and think their child will turn out the same way.
“I have seen at least two to three of my parents read the internet and then they have gone into literally depression,” Anbumani said. “Because they will read the good things also, bad - even though the child may not have those features, these parents will read all those things and they are like, ‘Oh, my child will, may, become like that. They may not be able to do such things.’ And they will go into depression.”
Mothers of Autistic Children and Depression (VeryWell Health)
Click on the image or here to read the story!
This is a huge problem because Anbumani points out that the parents won’t be able to take care of their child then. The parents start to wonder what the use is of sending their child to therapy or school, wonder why they are spending so much money, or why they are even bothering to work so hard.
So when parents ask Anbumani for help, she never recommends they go do their own research on the internet. Instead, she finds good websites herself and recommends them to the parents.
How Mihir Alexander Samuel feels about himself
“In his mind, he's normal,” Boaz said. “So he doesn't like to really touch on the fact that he has special needs. But then, he is aware that he has special needs.”
Samuel also understands that he has a disability, and he’s aware of his limitations, but he doesn’t let himself be bound by those limitations, according to Boaz.
“He wants to push himself out of it, in his own way, in his own time,” Boaz said.
Samuel overcomes a limitation only when he sets his mind to it. Only then does he work hard with determination. When he was choosing what classes he should take with NIOS, he chose painting as one of them. Boaz said this was because Samuel didn’t want the handicap of being unable to draw.
Boaz also narrated a story of how Samuel learned cursive writing out of sheer anger at a rather rude lady at the passport renewal office.
How Mihir learned cursive
Success Stories
A school’s first differently abled child
Twelve years ago, Sriram admitted a 5 year old boy with autism into a school she used to work for. The boy was the first differently abled child to be admitted into that school.
The boy had been going to a play school and his parents had approached Sriram saying they wanted their son to go to a mainstream school.
“But the child was not ready,” Sriram said. “He was nonverbal and he used to have lot of sensory issues because of which behavior issues were there. He used to bite everybody, pinch everybody. So then we put him in a learning center for about 2 years wherein I used to give him intervention.”
The boy eventually joined the school Sriram worked in when he reached 3rd standard. The school didn’t know how to deal with a child like him, Sriram said, because he was still pinching other kids and running away from his classes. But Sriram held a peer sensitization workshop for his classmates and the boy’s teacher took ownership and responsibility of the child. Together, with a supportive school management combined with all the effort put in by everyone, the boy began to communicate a little bit.
He studied in that school until 7th standard, after which the school management changed and the boy was forced to leave the school. Still, Sriram said that was a big success for the boy and the school.
The resource room at Montfort School in Chennai
When the parents remembered to call and share the happy news
Sriram then spoke of another boy who was studying in a special school until about 6th or 7th grade. She admitted him into Montfort School.
“He was a child with autism on the verbal spectrum,” she said. “Continuously used to talk, talk, talk. Used to run away from the class and then come back.”
Once again, the school provided accommodations for the child and the teacher and a special educator worked with him.
Neurotypical and differently abled chilren play together at Motfort School in Chennai
He studied in Montfort until 9th standard, after which he left because he couldn’t do math. Unfortunately, math is a mandatory subject in State board syllabus, Sriram said, so the boy switched to NIOS.
Sriram said she stopped working with this child in 8th standard.
“Day before yesterday his parent called me up,” she said. “I had not intervened with the child for the last 5 years. He called me up and said, ‘Ma'am, he's passed his 12th grade with 68 percentage. We thought you should know because you were the first one who admitted him in the mainstream school.’ I feel that is a big success because the parent need not have called me. It was very overwhelming because there are very few parents who remember what we have done and get back to us.”
From shy guy to confident, talented drummer
Another boy Sriram worked with about eight years ago, also with autism, was completely nonverbal and had mental retardation. He was already going to a special school, but Sriram said it wasn’t doing much for him, so his parents approached her asking if she could privately tutor him and incorporate some academics into his lessons so he can do something with his life.
Sriram noticed within a couple sessions with the 12 year old boy that he was shy and had very low self esteem because he was constantly looking down.
“But one thing I noticed is whenever there used to be a pencil or a pen nearby, he used to drum it,” she said. “Drumming. So then I told the parent that maybe he's interested in drumming, so why don't you venture somewhere near your area and see if he can find any class where there is drumming class. But they couldn't find, then I found somebody and connected the parent, and he went for drumming class. Believe me, after that the whole personality of a child changed. Because he loved drumming so much, he started looking at people up. His body language, everything changed.”
He couldn’t read, but could identify pictures. Sriram channeled his love for drumming and used drumming instruments as sight words for him. The boy started showing an interest in academics.
The boy got totally into drumming, started playing at concerts, and began to earn some money. His parents asked Sriram to teach him some money handling skills so she gave him a few sessions on that.
Now 19 or 20 years old, Sriram proudly said this former student of hers went on to be one of 1,000 students selected to play with the famous Indian drummer Sivamani.
“So for him, for me, that was a proud moment,” Sriram stated. “A boy who could not talk, he could not meet people's eyes, was playing in front of thousand people without feeling scared.”
Beyond School: College
The NIOS syllabus allows differently abled children to graduate from 12th grade and, because it is a syllabus recognized by the central government, let them enroll in any college in India.
However, just like the problems with getting differently abled children admitted into schools despite the RTE Act, colleges too pose a striking lack of accommodations, which discourages differently abled people to join them, according to Sriram.
Still, many differently abled children do enroll in colleges, thanks to a few colleges that take in these students now, according to Sriram.
“So Ethiraj college takes in, DG Vaishnav College in Arumbakkam takes in, Jain College, MCC takes in, SIVET College here, they take in,” she listed out. “There are few colleges now.”
Sriram said differently abled children mostly pursue subjects like commerce, arts and social work. Very few take science majors though.
The colleges do not open up with the accommodations on their own, according to Sriram. However, by the time the child gets to college, the special educators and NGOs working with the child have empowered the parents. Now, the parents start fighting their own battles, she said, and sometimes the child themself is an activist.
“Our role does not end with just teaching and training the parent, the child, the special educator,” Sriram said. “It also involves in empowering the parents, empowering the other professionals to preach inclusion, coordinate with the therapist and make inclusion success.”
What’s Next for Samuel?
At the time I talked to Boaz and Samuel, Samuel had just finished 12th grade and wanted to take a gap year, like his cousin did before she started college in London.
However, Boaz told Samuel he needed to spend his gap year productively, so that he would have something to show for himself when he goes to universities for admissions. She suggested he take a year-long course on travel and tourism and put in an application for him at one of Chennai’s most prestigious colleges.
“I just put in an application and I came out,” she said. “And I was determined not to get concessions for him. You know, I didn't want people to think otherwise for him. Of course I had to submit certificates and all that, but I didn't want him to get through any quota.”
Boaz said her father never believed in any kind of reservations for them in schools or colleges, because Samuel would be sixth or seventh generation college graduate in her family. She also hoped that if her son could get in on his own, through sheer merit, it would be a huge boost to his self confidence.
And Samuel was confident indeed. Boaz said that throughout their summer trip before Samuel went to the college for the admissions interview, he kept saying he definitely will get in and talked about all the things he would do after he joins the college.
Boaz said she didn’t want him getting too over confident, but she helped him prepare for the interview. However, a surprise awaited them when she and Samuel appeared at the college.
Samuel had to take an entrance exam, which Boaz did not know would be there and Samuel had not prepared for.
Both Boaz and the staff at the college were doubtful of how Samuel would perform on the entrance exam.
“He's not got a very expressive face,” she said. “So when he goes there and he just stares at them, they kind of know, okay, he has special needs and all that. They look at him differently.”
The people at the college were not even sure if they could communicate with him, according to Boaz.
Click or tap on the gallery to expand!
Conquering the exam
Samuel, however, simply said he’ll try the exam and went for it. When the results came, Boaz said everyone was shocked. Samuel aced the exam.
“I was able to do it,” Samuel said. “I was able to.”
Of the 10 questions that appeared on his question paper, Samuel said he knew all the answers except one. In fact, Boaz said the staff told them he had done better than all the other who applied for the course.
Boaz said that to ace the exam, one needed both general knowledge as well as industrial knowledge about travel and tourism, which is basically what Samuel had already.
His face changed when the results were unveiled.
“I felt happy, I was so proud,” Samuel said. “Very proud.”
The way the staff, who were previously judgemental, looked at Samuel also changed. Boaz said that when people usually look at her son, they expect nothing. They expect him to know nothing; they expect him to be able to do nothing.
However, on occasions like this when Samuel proves himself to everyone, they look impressed and surprised. That is when they start treating Samuel differently, or rather, normally.
They went from 'We've never taken any special needs before in this department, and so we don't know. And only if he finishes, if he gets through this entrance test, he'll qualify for an interview,’ to, 'I think we've completely underestimated him, and he's done so well. He's just got one question wrong, and he's done better than all the other children and people who are older than him who's done this test. So you know, there's no problem at all, interview is just a formality…,’ according to Boaz, describing their complete attitude change.
Hope
Even though Samuel conquered the entrance exam, Boaz said nothing is still set in stone for him.
“He might do the first semester great, or the second may not be so good,” she said. “The third might be brilliant. So you never know with him.”
She said she has to be realistic with her expectations of him.
Despite her uncertainty with Samuel’s academic performance, Boaz said she hopes college life opens him up to social communication.
“See, now I'm happy my son's got into college,” Boaz said. “But that's just the first step, right? How he copes in college socially, emotionally, academically, all those things will now be looming ahead. Which would happen in time.”
At the time I talked to Samuel, he was mostly quiet, stiff, and his expressions were stilted.
Aarti Boaz and Mihir Alexander Samuel
Boaz said he’s much more relaxed when he’s not being observed, like when he was giving travel advice to a woman on the plane and thought his mother was asleep.
She paused.
“I think when going to college,” Boaz said, “he may get bullied, right? But he might also learn to survive better and communicate.”