“Autism is not a lifelong disorder. It can be managed” — The Blazing Heart Autism Center
Blazing Heart Autism Center is a Non-Governmental Organization based in Rivers State Nigeria that aids children suffering from Autism and other spectrum developmental disorders. Its aim is to be a guiding light for these children in a world they struggle to understand.
Autism or autism spectrum disorder mainly affects the brain of children which makes them subject to limitations in their physical, mental, and social growth. In most cases, they struggle in speech production making them produce sounds that are not recognized as words in a language, their understanding of real-life occurrences is altered by the illness, lowering their social skills. They also tend to get violent when they don’t get what they want at the time and throw tantrums that require patience from the guardian or parent to curb.
Scholars have shown that one in a hundred children suffer from autism and early signs can be detected during childhood. In rare cases, people do not get diagnosed until adulthood. Early signs may vary from delayed speech and movement to impulsive behaviors and even epilepsy.
Seeing the struggle faced by autistic children and their parents/guardians, Blazing Heart was founded with the mission to provide quality therapy services and support for such families. They set to achieve this by equipping autism patients with the skills and knowledge they need to become functional members of society.
Although autism affects children socially and prevents children from communicating the way they should, The Blazing Hearts Autism Center believes that it is not a lifelong disorder. it can be managed. With early intervention and timely therapy autistic children are able to behave the way society expects them to.
“Speaking on behalf of the team at The Blazing Heart, I believe what inspires us as therapists, teachers, and individuals working in this spectrum, are the children. The children inspire us. They inspire us to be better at what we do, they inspire us to help them thrive they inspire us to be patient, and inspire us to be teachers,” said Mrs. Beauty Kumesine, Founder and executive director of Blazing Heart Autism Center.
Some of the methods used by the teachers and therapists in this organization are counseling sessions for both the patients and their parents, occupational therapy which used playtime to improve children’s skills to learn, Speech and Language Therapy, Music Therapy, and Applied Behavior Analysis. Applied Behavior Analysis, also known as ABA therapy is one of the most effective methods seeing as it entails teaching children to be independent and develop skills through effective teaching techniques. This form of therapy is the main focus of Blazing Heart’s therapy techniques.
Mrs. Beauty also said “There’s a good amount of awareness that still needs to be done for a lot of people to understand what autism really is and how to cater to autistic children. A lot of families still live in denial, a lot of schools do not understand what the spectrum is all about and a lot of churches have found it difficult to include children with neuro-diversity in their midst.”
The staff at The Blazing Heart, are trained certified, and retrained regularly to ensure they are well-equipped to help these special needs children. Working with the children requires a lot of patience and passion and the center looks out for these factors while recruiting staff.
It is not easy to cater to children with neuro-developmental disorders such as autism in Nigeria, but this NGO believes that helping parents and families understand and better care for their autistic children paves the way for a better future for everyone. The Blazing Heart Center aims to do more through partnerships with schools, hospitals, churches, families, and public enlightenment on this developmental disorder.
The NGO has set out to be a voice for children who are unable to speak up on their own and are oblivious to the disorder known as autism and also enlighten parents on how best to reach the needs of their children. Through various campaigns that address every aspect of the spectrum of autism, Blazing Heart is set to end the negligence of autism all over Nigeria.
In Mrs. Beauty’s words “My message to families with autistic children is to be cautious of your mannerisms and how you treat these children and individuals they watch our reactions, and facial expressions and hear our comments about them. Then my message to schools, hospitals, and individuals is to include children and individuals with neuro-developmental disorders in your activities as we have seen from years of experience that these children can do way more than we think or imagine. So give them a chance to thrive and do what we don’t expect them to do.”
For more details on their work, check out this YouTube Video:
