Mother of an autistic child herself, Dr Sonali Kataria, resident of Noida sector 120’s Prateek Laurel, completely feels for the children having this development disorder. Besides running a school, Sunrise Learning in sector 116, for them, she organises many play dates in her society to raise awareness about the neurobehavioural disorder.
Kataria feels there is already a lot of awareness about autism in the world, thanks to our medical science, but at the same time she thinks the awareness to accept autism is yet to be worked upon.
“I was a doctor. I studied from AIIMS and did my MD in anatomy. I was supposed to become an associate professor in anatomy. But it didn’t happen somehow. Right after my three year residency in neuroscience, I did a special course in autism. And, incidentally, I gave birth to a child who was also diagnosed with autism. Probably, this gave me a lot of inspiration to reach out to those mothers, who are on the same boat,” she told City Spidey.
The mother of two says an autism kid is the most beautiful human being in today’s times.
“A person who is on the autism spectrum is a beautiful human being. The beauty of them is visible through his inability to gossip, bully somebody, make fun of somebody or cheat somebody. These complex thoughts aren’t there in them,” she added.
On World Autism Awareness Day, she took almost thirty children of her school to the nearest Logix Mall for a shopping experience.
“We spoke to a lot of people we met. We introduced them to the students. On April 7, we are doing another program which is ‘dance of inclusion’ at DLF mall. The main aim of these outing is people should open up their mind. Being different is okay. Being different doesn’t mean being less. If you are proud of yourself it doesn’t matter if you’re good at few things,” she said.
