Virtual therapy unit at Nedumangad buds school

Thiruvananthapuram: With the help of the newly inaugurated virtual therapy unit children of Nedumangad municipal buds school can now enjoy a better learning environment. Food and public distribution minister GR Anil on Wednesday inaugurated the auticare virtual therapy unit set up by Thiruvananthapuram-based startup Embright Infotech.
Virtual therapy can help the social, psychological and intellectual development of children. It also helps them to be more creative in classroom activities. This is the first time in Kerala that a municipality is setting up a virtual therapy system for the welfare of differently-abled children. There are 26 children studying in the school.
To operate the unit, special training was given to the teachers from the month of March.
“This is a tool for therapists and special educators to target the development of around 11 skills like cognition, motor skills and behavioural growth. We have developed interactive scripted content based on our research since 2017 and inputs obtained from experts. With the help of 30 different scenarios in the tool, such as crossing the road and grocery shopping the child will be able to complete normal tasks at a much faster pace. Teachers can also track the performance of each child by monitoring their reaction time and attention span,” said Sathyanarayanan AR, CEO of Embright.
The unit was installed by the municipality which spent around Rs 8 lakh. “We have also appointed a speech therapist here. We are planning to bring in a physiotherapist and behaviour therapist within the next three months,” said B Satheesan, Nedumangad municipality standing committee chairman.