Twenty years ago, Karanam Sreelatha, Director at Sreelatha Autism Center, was like any other college student who wanted to pursue a corporate job after her studies and reach the pinnacle of success. However, Sreelatha’s life took an unexpected turn while conducting fieldwork with autistic children as a part of a college project. Witnessing the hard life of autistic children and the negative public perception of the disorder, she understood that autism came with a whole host of myths and misconceptions. More importantly, the lack of affordable and high-quality early education to effectively identify and treat the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASD further aggravated the issue.

After due consideration, Sreelatha decided to make a difference in the lives of autistic children and founded Sreelatha Autism Center, a treatment clinic for a broad range of child development challenges. Sreelatha Autism Center primarily focuses on providing early education and childcare services to children facing common developmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders, motor incoordination, behavioral dysfunction, sensory-motor dysfunction, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

“Although the prevalence of autism has helped raise awareness of the disorder among parents to a great extent, many

parents are still clueless when it comes to treatment and rehabilitation,” Sreelatha explains. For that reason, Sreelatha Autism Center communicates with the parents extensively to help them understand the disorder better and take precautions at an early stage. Although the treatments will vary depending on the child’s situation and needs, the goal will always be the same: reduce the symptoms and help the child improve learning abilities.

Sreelatha Autism Center has developed multiple programs that help autistic children strengthen positive behaviors and learn new skills. For example, the clinic’s Activity of Daily Living Skills program focuses on training both parents and caregivers and enables them to give realtime feedback to children. In addition, the program targets important areas of a child’s skill development, such as communication, social skill improvement, care, and more. This intensive training brings huge gains to autistic children by enabling them to take charge of social situations and excel in areas like self-management.

Sreelatha Autism Center determines the therapy for autism disorder after understanding the child’s unique needs. After performing a thorough diagnosis, Sreelatha’s team of expert physicians recommend a variety of therapies to help with speech, behavior, and other medical concerns associated with autism. For example, interacting and communicating with people is difficult for a child with ASD. Although such children desire close relationships but lack the skills to build them, the clinic provides various treatment programs such as picture exchange communication and vocational training. “These trainings enable the children to acquire essential social and communication skills to interact and build relationships with people,” mentions Sreelatha.

What makes Sreelatha Autism Center different is its long-term learning programs, which aim at preparing children for regular school in a short span. Most parents are extremely satisfied with these sessions as the clinic offers a low trainer to trainee ratio, which allows the trainer to provide sufficient attention to each child. “We provide the service of one caregiver for every seven children, which helps children realize their full potential academically, socially, and interpersonally,” says Sreelatha. With such intensive training programs, Sreelatha Autism Center is helping many children attend regular school every year. In this academic year, around thirty children who attended training in their clinic will start regular school. In this new academic year, they have also started an inclusive school for special kids. Such successful results stem from Sreelatha Autism Center’s commitment to making the world a better place for autistic children.