Centre for Educational and Psychological Services

About the director of the organization:

Dr. Akila Sadasivan is a clinical Child Neuropsychologist. She has been actively involved in providing awareness and intervention for children with psychological, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Her primary interest however has been working with children and families of children with Specific learning disorder (SLD). She has obtained her Post Graduate degree in Clinical Psychology from the Department of Psychology, Bangalore University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Subsequent to this she obtained the M. Phil in Clinical Psychology from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, Karnataka, India. She developed a Neuropsychological remediation programme for adolescents with reading disorder as part of the M. Phil Course. The programme was found to be successful as the children who received the training showed an improvement in their reading skills. Dr. Akila obtained her PhD from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. As part of the Doctoral degree, she received training on Phonological awareness intervention for reading disorder from Dr. Gillon in New Zealand. The doctoral thesis compared the efficacy of both the Phonological awareness programme (WHICH IS INTERNATIONALLY ACCALIMED) and the Neuropsychological intervention (WHICH IS INDEGENIOUSLY DEVELOPED IN INDIA DEVELOPED BY Dr. AKILA). The findings suggested that both programmes were associated with positive outcomes with regard to improving reading accuracy. After this research, she has developed a unique programme that combines the strengths of both the phonological as well as the neuropsychological interventions for all groups with specific learning disorders. The programme caters to children (and adults) with specific learning disorders (SLD) in reading, spelling, writing, maths, motor-coordination, attention deficit hyperactive disorder and children with SLD and children with atypical autistic features.