Official Newsletter of School Social Work & Research Department of Helikx Open School & Learning center. Newsletter discuss on Learning Disability, Self, School Social work etc.

1. 1
AN OFFICAL NEWSLETTER OF SCHOOL SOCIAL WORK & RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF
HELIKX OPEN SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIFIC LEARNING DISABILITIES
www.helikxopenschool.org | info@helikx.com | +91-98427-33318
Volume 1 | Issue 9 SEPTEMBER 2014
If I wasn't Dyslexic, I probably wouldn't
have won the Robotics in IIT Mumbai
If I had been a better reader then that would
have come easily. Thereafter I wouldn't try
painting & become an International Prize
Winner.
OCTOBER IS SPECFIC LEARNING DISABILITY
AWARENESS MONTH
JOIN WITH US TO RAISE THE AWARENESS
FROM OCTOBER 24 HELIKX FOUNDATION DAY TO NOVEMBER 29
 From the Chairman's Desk
 Career lab in your school
 Why Self Supervision?
 What is my Learning Style
 SLD Foundation Day Gallery
 School Activities
 Baby Camel & Mother
 Identifying Children At-Risk
and Early Intervention
 Handling Children with SLD

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From Our Chairman’s Desk
Dear Reader,
I thank all our readers and well-wishers for your continu-ous
support. Your feedback is always encouraging and
drives us to do better professional service.
This month our main focus will be on Specific Learning
Disability as October month is dedicated for disability aware-ness
throughout the world.
Our helikx open school has extended it’s service to other private
schools to set up counselling and remedial professional help. We
are happy to share the news that ,officially our centre has been
inaugurated on vijaya Dasami day at URC matriculation school
Erode and has signed MOU to start Assessment, Remedial and
Coun sellin g cen tre in their campus. We th an k URC sch ool
management for the support.
Our students participated in multiple intelligence competition
and brought laurels to our school.
Helikx School Social Work and Research department has orga-nized
state level paper presentation seminar on School Social
Work. Certificate course for parents
and teachers has introduced such as
2days bare counsellor introducto-ry
program, 5 days bare foot coun-sellor
program and 10days advance
program on school and general counselling.
We are participating in school Business enterprise competition
and mini blog competition, robotic competition in Mumbai.
Kindly visit our school blog- blog.helikxopenschool.org and post
your comments.
Congrats to Alen and Roopika for meticulous effort to bring out
every month newsletter.
Thank you again
Happy Reading!
G. Senthilkumar
Career lab in your School
O ctober is the month for Learn-ing
Disability Awareness.
Helikx started the campaign
on Learning Disability Awareness on
24th of October on its Foundation Day
and it lasts till November 29th. Foun-dation
Day celebrations included the exhibition
of paintings by Karthikeyan and photos by
Hariprasad our former students. Karthikeyan, is
ongoing his study in fine arts and Hariprasad
pursuing his diploma in Multimedia. Both are
pursuing their passion which was nurtured by
our school’s vocational masters.
Many teens after their secondary education think the same way
“Now what “. The young adults affected by ADHD are uncer-tain
about the next step that has to be taken in their life, while
their predecessors are depressed about the their ongoing job’s
that don’t suit them. They don’t know which job might make
them happy.
In this situation Career lab can be an environment to nurture
their talent into a job. Missions should be aimed to cap-ture
the brilliance of an individual with ADHD and Dys-lexia,
who think and work differently. Aravind, 10th stand-ard
student of our school has started earning from his
paintings, which he sells through schools. “ I feel more
confident and to write more when others comment on my
stories” says Prassana 9th Standard student of our School
whose stories are published online.
A Multi prolonged approach can help the kids to overcome their
problems:
Life coaching – Counselors can play a role of life coach in ca-reer
lab. They can train them in goal setting, accountability,
time management, organizing, and life style. The counselors can
address concerns of anxieties that
are there while taking a new pro-ject.
Therapy – Help to continue their
ADHD treatment to manage anxie-ty,
depression and to overcome
challenge with group dynamics, building self-confidence and
enhancing interpersonal relationship.
A stimulating environment wh ere everyone motivate their
creation. Mentor to open up a market for their product. Career
lab can be an open space where they can do little but not late
and do things differently.
EDITORIAL
By Alen Kuriakose, Trainer, HSSW

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A ny kind of personal develop-ment
endeavor involves a lot
of aspects to consider and
apply in order to realize one’s poten-tials.
Once these potentials are identi-fied,
they become your personal
strengths and assets that can empower
you as an individual and take you to
greater heights.
In order to become an effective indi-vidual,
you have to get in touch with
yourself. No one else knows you better
than yourself. In some cases, people
who fail to connect to their inner
selves find it hard to get a hold of their
lives. Other people tend to dominate or
take over their lives. Would you want
others to run your life because they
know your strengths and weaknesses
more than you do?
Personal development requires more
self-analysis; personal management
involves more self-supervision. Alt-hough
self-analysis and self-supervision
are related, they are sepa-rate
concepts. You cannot manage or
supervise yourself unless your get to
know the real you. Knowing oneself
entails knowing one’s abilities, flaws,
strengths, and behaviors. These are
essential components to practicing
effective self-supervision.
Understanding Self-Analysis
The concept of self-analysis was popu-larized
by the famous psychologist
Sigmund Freud. He studied and re-searched
Why Self Supervision?
Compiled By Mr.G Senthilkumar (HSSW)
on the field of
psychoanalysis, which is
an outcome of the study of
self-analysis.
Self-analysis is defined as
the process of studying
and examining one’s per-sonality,
emotions, and
behavior. In psychological
terms, the process involves an under-standing
or comprehension of the indi-vidual’s
subconscious and conscious
mind.
There are various means to conduct
self-analysis. A regular self-evaluation
of potentials and weaknesses can
make you realize what you need to
develop more and what needs to be
changed or even eliminated. Know
your talents and abilities and develop
them. Get in touch with your emotions.
Find out how well you handle positive
and negative emotions. Know your
personal behaviors and take stock of
your attitude. Be keen on what turns
other people off and what attracts
them about your personality. Take
personality tests to provide you objec-tive
explanations of your personality
issues. Ask other people what they
think of you and your personality in
general.
Self-Analysis as the Initial Stage to
Self-Supervision
It was already mentioned in the earlier
paragraph of this article that it is diffi-cult
to manage your own life and ac-tions
if you do not completely know
yourself. There are people who seem
like a stranger to their own selves. Self
-supervision is a highly motivating skill
and requires other major skills to be
utilized. Responsible people usually
just direct their own lives without rely-ing
on others. Self-supervised individu-als
know themselves best and can easi-ly
identify what works and what does
not work for them.
In order to properly manage your life
and your undertakings in both person-al
and professional aspects, you must
study your own personality. At times,
you find out the real you from other
people. The people who know you tend
to make you realize what is on your
subconscious that is not being entered
in your conscious mind.
Regular Self-Analysis for an Effec-tive
Self-Supervision
It was mentioned that before you can
start supervising yourself, a self-check
must be done to be fully aware of your
real personality. It will not be very
hard to handle your activities and oth-er
undertakings if you know what you
are capable of and what you are not
good at. Self-analysis does not end at
the initial phase of learning how to self
-supervise; it is a continuous process.
The more you know about yourself, the
better you become at self-supervising.
If you are about to establish your indi-vidual
career, you must have already
created an inner connection with your
personality. When you become im-mersed
in the corporate world, self-supervision
is very essential. As you go
through various experiences, you
should also be continually developing
your personality.
At the start, it is normal to depend on
other people for decisions and on what
to do. But you must be able to get over
this stage in the long run and learn
how to be an independent worker.
Good self-supervision will definitely
take your career to greater heights
and transform your life. Yet, always
strive to know yourself more and more
in the process.

4. Principal, Helikx Open School
4
E ach person has different
learning preferences and
styles that benefit them, in-cluding
auditory, visual, logical, social,
solitary or tactile. It is not uncommon
for people to discover certain learning
styles that work best for them or styles
that are preferable in certain situa-tions.
It is also possible for individuals
to develop learning styles never uti-lized
in the past or further hone pre-ferred
styles.
Visual Learning Style
Visual learners better retain infor-mation
presented in pictures, videos,
graphs, and books. These people bene-fit
when information is presented on
an overhead projector or white board,
on a piece of paper, or in a book. Visu-al
learners often make sure their notes
are very detailed and spend extra time
reviewing information from textbooks.
Visual learners also frequently draw
pictures or develop diagrams when
trying to comprehend a subject.
Auditory Learning Style
Auditory learners better retain infor-mation
presented in lectures and pub-lic
speeches, audio recordings, and
other forms of verbal communication.
While a visual learner would prefer to
read a book or watch a video, auditory
learners would prefer to attend a lec-ture.
Tactile Learning Style
Tactile Learners retain information
best through hands-on participation.
These types of people are also known
as kinesthetic learners. For example, a
tactile learner in an automotive repair
class would learn better by working on
cars rather than sitting through a lec-ture
or reading a book. They also excel
in classes where students are assigned
to study in labs.
Logical Style
Mrs. P.V Ananthalakshmi,
Individuals who excel at math and
possess strong logical reasoning skills
are usually logical learners. They no-tice
patterns quickly and have a keen
ability to link information that would
seem nonrelated by others. Logical
learners retain details better by draw-ing
connections after organizing an
assortment of information.
Social Style
Social learners usually have excellent
written and verbal communication
skills. These individuals are at ease
speaking with other people and often
comprehend their perspectives. For
this reason, others frequently seek
counsel from social learners. Social
learners also learn best working with
groups and take opportunities to meet
individually with teachers.
Solitary Style
Solitary learners usually prefer to
work by themselves in private settings.
They usually do not rely on others for
help when solving a problem or study-ing.
Solitary learners frequently ana-lyze
their learning preferences and
methods. Since solitary learners prefer
to work alone, it is possible for them to
waste time on a difficult problem be-fore
seeking assistance.
To get the most out of your time study-ing,
it is very helpful to identify your
personal learning preferences and
styles. It is very beneficial to know the
learning styles that best suit your per-sonality
when selecting a major, sign-ing
up for classes, and preparing for a
test. It can also help you when select-ing
a future career.

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HELIKX 14th FOUNDATION DAY CELEBRATION
 Rn. S.P Bala Subramaniam, District Governor, Rotary
International District observing the Students Perfor-mance
 Memories : Photo exhibition on Helikx
 Mr. Bala Subramaniam, Manager Glaze Brooke Matric-ulation
School on Foundation Day
 B.ed Students of Sri. Saradha College after attending
the orientation on SLD
 Students creating Human Pyramid on Foundation Day
 Dr. C. Janagavali, Principal Sri Saradha College was
the Chief Guest.
 Dewali Celebration in
Campus
 Students participating
Salem tree club’s CLEAN
Drive, painting town
railway junction and
planting tree sampling
 URC teachers after 15
days SLD Training
 Students & Staff on mak-ing
of key chains

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Helikx Open School Community Initiatives
Two days Classroom Remedial teaching strategies workshop Nov 28,29
Helikx open school and learning Centre in association with Sarada College of Education Salem organizing Two Day workshop on
Classroom Remedial Teaching strategies for teachers. More than 500 teacher will benefit from the program. Lead faculty Mrs.
Devipriya Psych ologist an d Secretary of Helikx open sch ool will h an dle session on Remedial strategies, Mrs. Usha Ra-makrishnan
from Vidya Sagar Ch enn ai will h an dle session on Mu ltiple in telligen ce, Mr.G.Senthilkumar Reh abilitation
Social worker will handle session on need for counselling.
14th year Helikx Open School Foundation Day
The year 2001 marked the beginning of Helikx open school journey with one student. Every year Oct 24 is celebrated as founda-tion
day. This year we celebrate our foundation for one month Oct 24 to Nov 29. This year theme “invisible to visible” still larger
section of population especially parent and teacher are unable to understand this hidden disability common known as Dyslexia. So
this year we decided to reach out to teachers, parent and public on a massive awareness campaign. More than 25 principals of
various leading school will visit our school to see the resource room. Our aim is to set up remedial, assessment and counselling
room in every school so that no student feel let down by teachers and parent and society. Let’s make learning a joyful journey.
5S practice by Helikx Open School Students
5S practice the most sorted process by all manufacturing industries all over the world to keep the work place well organised, in-troduced
by Japanese. In Helikx open school we are very proud to state we practice this system to inculcate voluntary discipline
among student themselves. In this process management, teachers, non teaching staffs, students are grouped in to zones. Each
zone will be represented by all the above stakeholders, every week meeting and every day cleaning of the zone will take place.
Monthly once audit will be done and point scored based on the work place discipline and way it’s kept organized. We are very
proud to state our school hostel is maintained so clean by students themselves, because of this practice falling sickness have come
done by 80%.our students participated in the 5S competition held in Erode and shared their experience and the effort was well
appreciated. Very surprising some of our student started implementing this practice in their home.
November 1 Salem Day Celebration Helikx student participation
Every year Nov 1st is celebrated as Salem day to make city greener and safer to live and to show cause of heritage to next genera-tion.
This Salem tree club organized CLEAN Drive, painting town railway junction and planting tree sampling in and around the
Salem town railway junction. Helikx school students participated in all these activity. Kudos to our Helikx students they won third
prize for the save earth wall painting competition. Participating in such events make student more responsible as future citizen to
make our living place cleaner and safe for future. Congrats students and tree club.
Helikx student at VANAGAM organic farming November 1 to 3
As part of holistic learning process our school is tied up with varnagam trust (late namalvar organic guru) institute, to teach chil-dren
importance of organic farming and importance of agriculture and how in school and home farming can be done. 17 students,
3 teacher and warden are participating three days in kadavaur tamilnadu about organic farming. In our campus children given
time to practice farming and happy to note for school kitchen vegetables grown from school farm is used in a small way. These
aspects are linked to learning subject as per respective classes. Children from framing background are these lesson back home
implement. Master Pradeep, is our inspiration story. Children with ADHD and ADD of our school benefited from these program’s .
Food security importance is made sensitized to students. Importance go green and protecting nature is made priority to next gen-eration.
We at Helikx are very happy to teach children with specific learning disability vocation that will give confidence to face
life in better aspects.
For more details visit http://blog.helikxopenschool.org/

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M other and a baby camel were
lying around, and suddenly
the baby camel asked,
“mother, may I ask you some questions?
Mother said, “Sure! Why son, is there
something bothering you? Baby said,
“Why do camels have humps?” Mother
said “Well son, we are desert animals, we
need the humps to store water and we are
known to survive without water”. Baby
said, “Okay, then why are our legs long
and our feet rounded?” Mother said, “Son,
obviously they are meant for walking in
the desert. You know with these legs I can
move around the desert better than any-one
does!” Baby said, “Okay, then why are
our eyelashes long? Sometimes it bothers
my sight”. Mother with pride said, “My
son, those long thick eyelashes are your
protective cover. They help to protect
your eyes from the desert sand and wind”.
Baby after thinking said, “I see. So the
hump is to store water when we are in the
desert, the legs are for walking through
the desert and these eye lashes protect
my eyes from the desert then what in
god’s name are we doing here in the
Zoo!?”This story clearly addresses the
state of a child with Learning Disability. If
parents and teachers are able to identify
the Skills, knowledge, abilities and experi-ences
of a child with LD and put them at
the right place, their true potential is dis-covered.
Myths & Facts about Learning Disabil-ities
1. Myth: People with LDs cannot
learn.
Fact:
People with LDs are smart and can learn.
LDs mean learning in different ways.
2. Myth: People with LDs are just
lazy.
Fact:
People with LDs often have to work hard-er,
but the results may not show their
efforts.
Some people with LDs may become dis-couraged
because they have struggled so
hard, and they may appear unmotivated
or lazy.
3. Myth: Accommodations give an
unfair advantage.
Fact:
Fair is not always equal.
Accommodations allow people with LDs to
work to their level of their ability and not
their disability.
4. Myth: All LDs are outgrown by
adulthood.
Fact:
LDs tend to be noticed most often in
school, but can affect all areas of life.
Often by adulthood, people have found
ways to use their strengths to compensate
for their LDs. Many adults seek work
environments that are a good fit.
5. Myth: LDs are all the same.
Fact:
LDs are complicated and vary from person
to person.
LDs come in many forms and affect every-one
differently.
The impact of
LDs may
change in
different set-tings
depend-ing
on the de-mands
of the
situa-tion.
Guide
Chil-dren
Ms. Thenu, CT
Freelance Counsellor
with LD to a Bright Future
Every child is different and so are his
needs. Some children have difficulty in
reading, writing, spelling, solving math
problems etc. These difficulties are a re-sult
of different Learning Disabilities.
As a teacher, one would want that all chil-dren
get premium education and find suc-cess
in life. And a teacher plays a very
important role in this. This is what one
needs to do to help children with Learning
Disabilities.
Divide and Rule
Break the tasks into smaller steps. Let
them complete one step and then give
them instructions for the next step either
verbally or in writing.
Give More Time
As these children find it difficult to read,
they need more time. Give these students
some extra time to finish their school
work or while conducting test.
Teach to Share
Since these children find it difficult to
read and write, one could try to allow
these students to borrow books and notes
from their classmates. Perhaps one can
give them textbooks-on-tape. Teachers
could also allow them to use a tape re-corder
to record whatever is being taught
or dictated.
Use Technology
Parents and teachers can allow these stu-dents
to make use of a computer so that
they don’t do spelling mistakes or they
can simply use it to record what is being
taught
Baby Camel
and Mother

8. 8
Identifying Children At-Risk and Early Intervention
"Every student
can learn, just
not on the same
day, or the same
way. " - George
Evans
T he way we grew up during our child-hood
and the way today's children are
growing are not the same. The various
factors involved in child rearing like:
house, weather, technology, food and
availability of people have changed. Eve-rything
have changed to, so-called better
living . But what is really happening is, as
we advance scientifically we are experi-encing
more and more challenges in child
development. Scientist are still pondering
what could be the reason for so many
child development issues that we are fac-ing
today. They are weighing so many
factors from life style changes, food hab-its,
hereditary, etc. But none of them led
to any fruitful findings.
Children develop at normal pace will
achieve age appropriate growths at the
right time or sometimes earlier than ex-pected.
But when we consider children
who does not reach those milestones on
time, they can be grouped under two
different categories. They are as follows:
1. Children who develop slowly and
2. Children who are At-Risk of developing
a disability.
When a child is experiencing developmen-tal
delays, he/she may not be reaching
age appropriate milestones. One of the
early yellow flag rises when a child is not
reaching the age appropriate mile stones
repeatedly.
The only way to distinguish a slow devel-opment
from At- Risk is through proactive
observation. The very first step that a
parent could do is to observe carefully
child's development and if they feel there
is repeated developmental delay, then it
should be communicated to the child's
pediatrician and consequently get appro-priate
help from appropriate specials like
psychologist, Occupational therapist or
early intervention specialist, if needed.
This should be done only by professionals
who are trained to evaluate various disa-bilities
and disorders. This evaluation will
involve combination of one on one consul-tation,
observation report from family
members, teachers or other related adults
involved in that child's life.
Early (yellow) signals for ages 0-3. A
child who fails to achieve the following
age appropriate mile stone repeatedly
may fall under "At-Risk" group:
Physical: Reaching, Rolling, Crawling and
Walking.
Cognitive: Thinking, Learning, solving
problem .
Communication: Talking, Listening, Un-derstanding.
Social and Emotional: Playing, Feeling
secure and happy.
Self Help : Eating, Dressing.
A child At -Risk of developing a disability
in the future should be intervened at the
early stage to bridge the gap in develop-ment.
Early intervention not only saves
the child from unnecessary stress but
also provides alternate ways to develop
the skills that the child is lagging. Also
early intervention helps parents to under-stand
their child better and provide nec-essary
help to the child.
Early Red Signal for school age chil-dren.
The most prominent sign for onset
of disability is there will be a distinctive
and unexplained gap between perfor-mance
and age appropriate achievement
at school. Learning disability is different
from intellectual inability, sensory impair-ment
and autism spectrum disorder. Stu-dents
with learning disability struggle to
acquire the skills needed for their aca-demic
performance. Learning disability is
lifelong, that why it's crucial to identify as
early as possible and proper supportive
actions should be provided to promote
learning by adopting alternate ways. The
sooner the alternate course of action is
taken it's better for the child, as the goal
here is to bridge the gap between the
performance and achievement not only
academically but also socially .
Sometimes Learning Disability(LD) will be
found along with Attention-Deficit/
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) but they
are not the same. LD may affect a per-son's
ability in Listening, Speaking, Read-ing,
Writing, Spelling, Reasoning and
Mathematics. Getting professional help to
identify, evaluate and provide necessary
help that the child needs will help the
parents to be well informed and help their
child get closer to their dreams.
Author's Insight: Many paren ts and
students has the question why do we need
to label a person with their disability? We
have common core instruction method
and each child learns differently, if we
could individualize instruction according
to individual child's need there won't be
any need for labeling, but the only way to
help a child with LD is to provide him
with alternate course of instruction that
would help him understand and learn.
Reference:
"Pink and red flags: Identifying children
at risk" presented by Meg Drake M.A in
learning disability, Canada, New Jersey
Montessori association corporation,
March 2011-2012..
National center for Learning Disability,
http://www.ncld.org
By Murugalakshmi Thirumalai , USA

9. 9
Handling children with
Specific Learning Disability
By Ms Jainy John,
Helikx School Social Worker
“S pecific earning disability is a disor-der
in one or more of the basic psy-chological
processes in understanding or in
using language, spoken or written, that may
manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calcula-tions,
including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental
aphasia. However, learning disabilities do not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor
disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage”. This is the
detailed definition given by The American Special Education Law, the individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2002).
When we talk about how to handle children with specific learning disabilities, it is mandatory to understand their issues and chal-lenges.
The learning disabled children face many challenges which we can discriminate under three headings. They are Academic
issues, Behavior issues, Emotional issuesSince they have a stigma as a learning disabled child these mentioned issues arise alter-natively
with their disability. It can be categorized under three headings as below.
Academic issues Behavior issues Emotional issues
Hand writing problems Foul language Inferior complex
Comprehension Nail biting Superior complex
Mathematics Bullying Anxiety
Exam fear Stealing Stress
Spelling problem Telling lies Mood strings
Memory problems Absenteeism Falling behind peers
Listening Gang fighting/formation Withdrawal
Grammar/ concept Playful attitude Single parenting
Poor reading and revising habit Damaging school property Abuse(verbal/physical)
Poor school work Disturbing others Temper tantrum
For the academic problem students facing we can give remedial teaching with the help of a trained special educators who can
understand their difficulties completely so that they can empathize with them. Individual Education Plan (IEP) is needed to pre-pare
for all the children after a detailed assessment both formal and informal. Behavior issues have to be treated by behavior
management technique. Identifying behavior problem is the first step to give intervention followed by behavior recording inter-vention
giving and observing the changes is the major steps under behavior management programme. Emotional issues should be
handled by giving adequate training. Emotions, Identification of emotions, handling different emotions, respecting the feelings of
others these are the major trainings needed for the children with emotional issues.
If we are able to handle these three areas of issues we can be successful in handling students with specific learning disability.
149 Alamelu Nagar, Pagalapatty Road, Muthunaickenpatty, Salem - 636 303
info@helikx.com | www.helikx.com

10. 10