Episode 6: Empowering Abilities

Concept & Host:  Priyanka Nomula
Designed & Directed: Sandeep Raj
Presented by: Aussie Talkies
Guest: Archana Koorthy

Join us for an inspiring exploration with Archana Kurthi, a dedicated dancer, behavior therapist, and advocate for individuals with disabilities, especially those with autism. Discover how her passion for dance led her to make meaningful connections with children facing developmental challenges, using her skills in ABA therapy to create positive change. Archana opens up about the profound satisfaction she feels witnessing her clients' progress and stresses the essential role of community work and inclusion. Her journey is not just about dance or therapy; it's about weaving together compassion, expertise, and advocacy to support those who need it most.

Through heartfelt conversations, Archana shares the invaluable lessons she's learned, offering motivational insights that captivate and inspire. Her story underscores the importance of early identification of autism and proactive approaches to developmental delays, providing a wealth of information for parents, educators, and anyone eager to make a difference. Tune in to be uplifted by Archana's dedication and passion, and gain a deeper understanding of autism and the transformative power of inclusion and support.

Chapters

• 0:00 Supporting Disability and Autism
• 19:36 Inspiring Conversation on Disability Advocacy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the show. Archana. How are you? I'm very good, priyanka. And how are you? I'm good, thank you. Let's start from the beginning. So, for our audience, we'd like to know a little bit about you. So who is Archana Kurthi?

Speaker 2: 0:16

Well, my name is Archana, as you know you just said it I'm a dancer and a choreographer and I'm a behavior therapist. I do practice for ABA therapy. We have Indian costume hire shop where we cater Bharatanatyam to Bollywood costumes for hire. Apart from that, I'm a mother of two kids and a good wife and a good cook.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Oh, what a package. Yeah, I mean, you're quite well known for your dance school. We know that your kids from your dance school perform at different events, so it's good to know the other side of you where you are supporting disabled individuals, the other side of you where you are supporting disabled individuals. So what inspired you to pursue your journey into supporting disabled?

Speaker 2: 1:12

Actually, I've been in this industry for several years supporting disability, mainly focusing on autism and ABA therapy, and actually it started through teaching dance and that inspired me more and I could see that I have a deep interest in children and I wish to make a real difference for those who are having developmental challenges. I actually worked with different families, individuals and children. Mainly, I've helped them understand what is autism and disability challenges as well disability challenges as well and I could see a positive changes and a progressive I would say progressive behaviors and that was main motivation for me to get deep involvement in a be a therapy and autism that's lovely.

Speaker 1: 2:21

So what does it mean to you?

Speaker 2: 2:24

For me.

Speaker 2: 2:25

I personally feel very satisfied because I see daily changes, weekly changes, I would say, in the client, with the therapies, what we are providing and they're being able to practice in their daily routine life.

Speaker 2: 2:40

They're being able to practice in their daily routine life and when I see these changes it gives us a great confidence and we are able to go out there, find out more resources and, you know, look for something else, what they need and being from autism to going to mainstream. So that's a big change for a client and when we see that difference happening, especially with the families, they come back and give us a feedback. You've been really amazing, our child is progressing. This sort of feedback actually feels like very passionate to me and me as a person. I am very into deep with the children and when I see a difference in the child, I'm very emotional at the time and then I feel very proud of myself and I take it very personally because for me this is also a community work and inclusion is one we should accept and that's my main motive so it's basically work that is like associated with a purpose purpose and a passion as well for me.

Speaker 1: 4:00

Yeah, that's very well said. Okay, so we spoke about you know autism, so you're working with not only disabilities, but you also include the autism.

Speaker 2: 4:10

Autism yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:12

So, talking about autism in kids, right, how does one identify that their kid is autistic? I mean, I'm sure it is available on Google, but are there any? Like you know, as a behavioral therapist, what would some of those initial identifiers would be for parents?

Speaker 2: 4:35

Yeah. So for children, if you look at it is very early that you have to observe your child very closely when they're taking the first steps, when they're taking the first steps, how they're taking the first step, checking their feet, checking the sound. You know, sometimes they speak slowly or they'll be able to respond All these observations as a mother should have, as a father, of course, they have to respond immediately. Are they able to look and identify things faster? Are they walking faster? Or you know even their gestures, sometimes the kids A constant observation around. I I would say from 10 months onwards you should keep monitoring the child very closely and when um, that's.

Speaker 2: 5:34

That's an never-ending story. Right through the journey, at least until three to four years, you constantly observe. Sometimes it might not occur during that stage, it could be after, but that could be some developmental delays. Or verbal speaking is slow, or delay in speech, I would say, or maybe hearing less, sometimes the vision. Everything matters because only as parents can observe closely what the child is going through and the faster you observe, the better it can be addressed. So it's a constant monitoring, I would say. Sometimes you're overconfident and you leave it to five, six, seven years. By the time it's too late. We can still work. There's no treatment for this, it's only a practice in place. So basically I have an overconfidence and I don't overlook and I don't want to accept that's not going to help the child.

Speaker 1: 6:45

One has to be very vigilant and keep monitoring as much as possible yeah because, end of the day, it's your child and you want your best out of it yes, the child has to be the best yeah, yeah, but I feel like Australia's got very lot of avenues where they can go find out information and then they have these like regular checks for the child. So, yeah, they do identify this in most cases, but do you think there are still some cases that where you identification early identification has been missed?

Speaker 2: 7:19

see, no one would particularly say, hey, your child has some special condition, can you go and check? It's nothing like that. It's just an awareness program. So you watch out, you keep watching society and communication, community participation, all these things. Once you start observing them, you will actually identify there's something wrong, something not wrong, something you know how. In 10 months the child is walking. But if my baby is 11 months still crawling, I would really just quickly concern myself and look what's happening. It's okay, sometimes the child walks after one year, but like 13 months that's fine. But still there's no wrong in me observing the child.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Keeping an eye out.

Speaker 2: 8:12

Yeah, that's right, sorry, that's a very good thing for a mother or a father to do that. And then also, sometimes a three to four year old kid is not able to make a sentence, and still on one word. That's when you need to really concern the speech, speech therapy, or talk to your general physician gp. Sometimes they might not be able to address, they would say it's okay. But as a mother you need to have that awareness, and sometimes the pediatricians might help as well. And unless it is really concerned, normally things would pick up on their own, as every individual is different. So some are really fast, some are a bit slow, but they go very fast later. So it's all about the journey, but it's always good to keep an eye on everything, because here in Australia we have a good awareness programs and a lot of resources everywhere in, even in libraries, for example, if you go to google they give you everything. But even in libraries you have a good awareness, even in kindergartens, schools, of course, the mainstreams they have very good information about this.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Working with individuals with disabilities, autistic kids. As much as it brings you contention and the fact that we are working for a purpose, it gives us a kind of happiness that we are actually doing something good. It also brings an effect to our emotions, like you can get emotional right to see a kid struggling and things like that. Does it actually affect or impact you To an extent?

Speaker 2: 9:59

yes, I would say, but I think it's been in To an extent, yes, I would say, but I think it's been in practice for me, sort of I got used to as we apply different strategies, working with families to collaborate and overcome those challenges, issues which we have faced in past. It does, and we also work with our professionals, discuss with families. There's a lot of emotion involved here, like I would start with a scenario. For example, say, in my early stages of working in this disability sector, I was practicing with a child ABA therapy where the child was very aggressive and once child hit me on my nose and I had to stop the session and immediately rush to hospital where I had a bit of fracture on my nose. That time it was very sensitive for me, like I was thinking, oh my god, this is going to reach where. And then once I realized it was a week after that, I slowly started talking to my professionals how to address these issues, or where are we going to, what are we going to do that sort of stuff?

Speaker 2: 11:29

And eventually, where we have come to a stage where we can now manage aggressive behavior, kids, mild behavior and vulnerable children and children with emotions, where we can actually apply different strategies, we we could go back. Sometimes we have non-verbal kids as well, where they can't speak. And how are we facing these sort of children? We use images. We use pictures, a bit of sign language as well, where we are able to communicate as well. Where we are able to communicate and the family is very cooperative with this and with aggressive behaviors, we are able to manage their behaviors by diverting them to another different activities.

Speaker 2: 12:16

So it's been very challenging, but it is also very stressful for us. Obviously we can't carry this stress to home, so we leave it outside, but we do discuss with our professionals and talk to them and say I would say, like, get their opinions. A bit of counseling for us as well, through our professionals helps us overcome with this sort of situations. But we have all sorts of kids with their emotions involved mild, severe and, you know, aggressive. So all sorts of kids we have and we are in a stage where we are able to manage. Now, initially everyone has to struggle, but eventually I guess you get the practice and we amongst our team, with professionals, we discuss quite a lot of information. There's a lot to exchange as well, and we do some developmental courses as well, like a professional development course, where which it helps us to manage our emotions. Okay, to manage their emotions as well right, okay, that's cool.

Speaker 1: 13:36

So um, you're saying that you basically have the emotional, you know impact, but it does, it does yeah but you actually talk it with your fellow colleagues, yeah and went it out yes, sort of thing. And then you have some kind of like boundaries. Yeah, so that true what?

Speaker 2: 13:59

what happens is when we discuss, we we discuss in such a way that we apply different strategies. That's when we are now in a state where we can manage our emotions, which doesn't keep much stress. Of course, there would be some days which could be unknown for us but so how does your dancing help into this?

Speaker 1: 14:21

that is this your stress buster? That let's just say okay.

Speaker 2: 14:25

So for everybody. I wouldn't say, dance is one stress buster for me. It is because I have a tough day today with with any child. I just go and dance, my stress is finished. So that's my detox, actually, where I can forget everything.

Speaker 1: 14:43

That's your outlet, yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:46

Even with the child. Sometimes, when the child is very aggressive, I start playing some music and start dancing. The child actually diverts. So dance is a very good medium of communication and it can lower your stress and you can be very happy after dancing.

Speaker 1: 15:05

I can tell you that much. Okay, I might try it. Yes, and you can be very happy after dancing. I can tell you that much. Okay, I might try it. Yes, that's good. So, speaking of dance, right, when did you start?

Speaker 2: 15:14

when I was five years old you were dancing since you yeah, I started when I was five yeah okay yeah, and then you went to different classes and then that was back in India. Yeah, back in India I started with Bharat Nathiyam, then folk dances, then we did Khichapudi and there was not Bollywood much famous during that time, yeah, and then we used to perform a lot of Janapadal Nithyalu. You know it's folk dances, typical folk dances. It was very popular then. So I did my bachelor degree in Bharatnatyam and master's in Kuchipudi.

Speaker 1: 15:56

Nice, that's back in India. Yes, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:00

And I think I moved to New Zealand after I got married to Raghu. Okay, yeah, then I started my dance school you have started dance school in New.

Speaker 1: 16:10

Zealand as well, yeah, so you still have it, or?

Speaker 2: 16:13

no, it's been taken by senior students and they continuing yeah but I think 2009 we we left New.

Speaker 1: 16:21

Zealand okay, so how many kids do you have in your dance school in total?

Speaker 2: 16:25

In total approximately 200.

Speaker 1: 16:29

200 dance students, students.

Speaker 2: 16:32

you have yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:32

And all of them are kids.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Yes, kids. No, we have adults as well. Okay, maximum age is about 52.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Right yeah, so you have age groups, and then we have different age groups, starting from four years to 52. So you can actually organize your own event with all of your students performing yeah, we do every year annual concert.

Speaker 2: 17:00

And every year we get to perform, showcase the students, all 200 students take part in the event and we do all styles, like kuchipudi, but of natium fusion, bollywood, hip-hop, all sorts of dances lovely yeah, and we have all, especially children as well, performing on the stage was as well. Okay, they come as a dance therapy. They learn dance, dance with inclusion, with other kids as well.

Speaker 1: 17:26

That's cool. And just Indian kids, or do we have that diverse sort? Of setup there.

Speaker 2: 17:34

We have kids with different background and it's a very diverse school and I'm very happy that we have a lot of diversity and it's good. We sometimes do different language songs as well and add Bollywood into it. We do a mix and match as well, yeah that's really lovely.

Speaker 1: 18:00

So, before we wrap up, what would your advice be for someone who's looking to you? Know, enter into this field to support the disabled or autistic kids.

Speaker 2: 18:11

Yeah, it is a very vast industry. Disability support is many areas. First, you need to choose which area you would like to be and you would come to work with children. It's not about providing a care to them, it's about making them work towards the focus and be able to be individual. So you have to do some courses, understand yourself, get into a certification where you can apply some strategies and then be able to work with a child with a lot of patience. And it is not just about you working in the industry. It is about you giving yourself to that particular person whom you're working with. So you should think twice that yes, this is me, because we don't know what disability could that person have and you are facing that disability directly. So you have to put yourself into that person and act towards yourself to be I'm here to support you. That's when you can actually jump into this place and then you can really work very well for this one lovely, really good suggestion.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Thank you so much, archana, for sharing your journey and your insights into this. Your dedication and passion are truly inspiring. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2: 19:45

Thank you so much, Priyanka. Thanks for having me Pleasure. It's been a pleasure being here. Thank you no-transcript.