A guest lecture organized online on 'Learning Disabilities and Developmental Issues in Children' was jointly organized by the management of St. Teresa's Institute of Education and Rizvi College of Education on 15th October 2022 for the students of FY.B.Ed. The coordinators for this session were Dr. Spoty Karthik and Dr. Cerena D’Cunha and the Resource Person for the session was Dr. Manoj Bhatawdekar, a Practicing Psychiatrist, in Mumbai. The session began at 10.00 am with an introduction to the topic by Dr. Priyanka Pandey. Dr. Spoty Karthik introduced our keynote speaker Dr. Manoj Bhatawdekar. The objectives of this webinar were to evaluate the impact of labeling children’s self-concept and social relationships and to Identify common learning disabilities.

Dr. Manoj began the session by talking about who are the children we term the ‘The Problem Child’ in our classroom as a teacher and how to identify them. He emphasized the 5 domains of the problems and shared his expertise on how we approach and help students with developmental disorders. He explained to us the diagnosis, the varying symptoms, the treatment, and the outcome of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He further explained the general guidelines that we need to keep in mind for recognizing students with learning disabilities. Dr. Manoj shared his expertise on the topics of Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, and Dysgraphia. He further enlightened us about Autism. He highlighted the distinction between terminologies such as disorder, disability, difficulty, and how the Teacher's attitude should be towards their students, and how they would inculcate their teaching methods, and practices.

He also explained how parents can deal with such children. Subsequently, he elucidated the Teacher's role and responsibility to diagnose and understand different kinds of individuals whom they are teaching. He further carried out the session by making everyone aware that to understand the true meaning of Learning Disabilities, it is necessary for teachers to examine the problem not just in black and white but with all its shades of gray. These gray areas are the practical and experiential difficulties when dealing with these children in schools. Finally, the session ended by asking the students if they had any questions or doubts about the topic and answered the student's queries. In conclusion, Dr. Cerena D’Cunha proposed the Formal Vote of Thanks and the session ended on a very informative, enlightening, and comprehensive note for the students.