Its mission is to provide an inclusive setting where these special needs people can call home. It would be self-contained with amenities necessary to provide quality life to this under served population. The term developmental disability refers to a severe and chronic disability that is attributable to a mental or physical impairment that begins before individual reaches adulthood. These disabilit
ies include intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism, and disabling conditions closely related to intellectual disability or requiring similar treatment. One of the activities in HoA’s plan is to provide meaningful programs to these special needs children so that they can benefit from regular social interactions and supervised physical exercise. Many of the children with developmental disabilities have poor health at very early age because their level of physical inactivity is less than one tenth of normally developed children at similar age. As a result, they have high body fat, cholesterol and in many cases high blood pressure. Besides the rapid health deterioration at early age, these kids have inadequate social skills to develop relationship with their peers. They typically do not know how to initiate and maintain a dialogue with their peers. They don’t know the basic social etiquette that they need to follow in their daily social encounters. While their verbal behaviors are below that of their peers, their biggest challenge is that they are not familiar with the social rules and they don’t have many opportunities to acquire this critical independent living skill. HoA’s day program will attempt to address both skills deficits. Our day program will provide supervised physical exercises and productive play groups. Currently there are not many programs that support these children. HoA wants to provide alternative solutions that would give them needed help.
