They say every child is special but there are some children who have special needs. Their wants go beyond the usual obstinate materialistic demands and insist on sensibility, acceptance and understanding from their educator. These children have learning difficulties like dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia. Boosting these kids towards realising their potential and giving them inclusive education is of utmost importance. And this time to take up the Herculean task are educational psychologists, special educators, counsellors and experts- Madhvi Kapoor, Reena Bonagiri, Sandy Andrade, Rashmi Kothari and Hema Nair who reach out in the most individual way offering counselling, remedial teaching in English and Marathi, supporting groups, holding therapeutic workshops and more, to children with learning challenges as well as to their parents. This is the motive behind their organisation Cornerstone. Launched in June, Cornerstone now attends to over ten children.

"It is a condition. Giving the child overcoming and coping strategies we alter the way they process particular information. Using his strengths, step by step, consistently and systematically there can be almost up to 90 percent recovery. To imbibe self confidence and addressing them accordingly is very important. There are very bright kids and there is no difficulty at the sensory level. The problem lies at the perception level and is child centric. Hence we attend to the needs amd then make a special programme to follow up with," says Kapoor.

These children come to the centre after their school hours to learn and are in turn studied. "The child comes with a diagnosis. We identify the levels and have remediation and recommendations. Although we follow an international system, it has been implemented in Marathi as well with an intention to cover a larger part. The age group varies from five to 13 years. However, the younger the better since at a later age, the child needs to unlearn before he starts again," adds Bonagiri.

They further plan to give training in remedial work to the teachers and stress on having such centres in all schools given the fact that 10 percent of the population has these learning difficulties. "More than hyping the problem, awareness needs to be created. There are hardly any centres and there's a dearth of trained professionals. There is a system, methodology and more importantly sensitive teachers. For instance a child who has been coming for the last five years has had a lot of processing difficulties in school including writing and bad comprehension. She couldn't read two letter words put together. After observing and assessing her for the last five years she is now able to read one year lower than her grade and very confident. The greatest reward of this lies in seeing the progress in the children," smiles Kothari.

The centre is open from 4 to 8 pm from Monday to Friday at 515, A9 Eden Garden, Vimanagar.