Dr. Radha Balachandar

In my career as a physiotherapist and mental health counsellor for the past two decades, despite various challenges, I have been fortunate enough to see happiness in the eyes of the parents by helping them
mitigate the problems they face with their autistic children. I take this opportunity to thank God for helping me in this endeavour. In the 20 years of my experience, I have had the opportunity to render my services for a few years in Malaysia as well. In Malaysia, I have had the chance to provide therapy to kids with autism, attention
problems, learning difficulties and speech delay. Through these years, I have had the opportunity to carry out live discussions with experts in the field from all over the world about therapy techniques available to help these children. I have participated in exclusive training workshops and seminars to equip myself.
After my stint at Malaysia, for the past 12 years, I have been giving therapy and guidance to hundreds of children through Kids Care Rehab Centre in Chennai. After therapy at my centre, many of these children have moved up in life with appreciable improvements, unexpected even by their parents. The main reason for this is the fact that at our centre, we do not follow a one-size-fits-all approach. We provide tailor-made therapy techniques suitable for each autistic child depending on their problems. We help the children to sit in one place, to observe, to talk and to behave appropriately.
We also provide exclusive therapy for children with learning difficulties by teaching them to control distractions. Many of the parents I’ve met at my centre have mentioned that there is no simple book, especially in the Indian context, to explain “What is Autism?” or “What are the symptoms that characterize autism?” in clear and
simple terms. They inspired me to write this book. I finally put my thoughts into action, and here is my book to help and guide parents of autistic children. I strongly believe that this book will be of immense use to the parents of children with autism, lack of attention, learning difficulties and speech delay. In this book, I have clearly explained in detail the answers to various questions such as “What is autism?”, “What is lack of
attention”, “What is speech delay and why do some kids speak late?”, “What therapies are available?” and “How do we handle autistic kids at home and outside?” I have described in detail the issues that autistic children face daily, on the basis of the knowledge I have gained from the children who I’ve treated over the years at our treatment centre, therapies given to them and improvements seen in them. I have also recorded the feedback given by some of the parents/caregivers. It is my motive as well as my desire that this book should be a guide for parents to identify autistic children and also to find remedy for their behavioural and other issues.

Dr. Radha Balachandar, PhD,
MPT (Ped), MSc (Psy), PGD (P. Counselling)
Cert (Acu), NLP, MIAP
Director, Kids Care Rehab Centre, Chennai, India