Meet Rekha Suryanarayana | Non-profit Co-founder and Mom

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rekha Suryanarayana and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rekha, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I am an engineer by training, and I had never imagined that one day I would be the co-founder of an organization serving children and young adults who are neurodiverse. (We used to call this population special needs, but our community is moving away from using that term). When my son, Siddhartha, was born in 1998, my husband Suri had the opportunity to take an overseas assignment in Scotland. We lived there for a couple of years and during that time, we noticed that Siddhartha was behind on hitting his developmental milestones. But our worries were frequently dismissed because he was born 5 weeks premature and we were told that he “would catch up”.

When we returned to the US in 2000, I enrolled Sid in a Montessori School and went back to work at Texas Instruments. It was then that his delays became more noticeable, in comparison to other children his age. We knew something was “off”. When we got him evaluated at Easter Seals, he was in the bottom 1st percentile on his speech/language and occupational therapy evaluation. We immediately enrolled him in therapy and at that time, naively believed that a few months of therapy would help him catch up with his peers. Soon, the therapists referred us to a developmental pediatrician, who cautiously said that there were several red flags for autism. In those days there was not much talk about autism and the incidence was believed to be 1 in 10,000. These days the number quoted is 1 in 36 according to the CDC! Sid enrolled in a program called PPCD (Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities) and thus began a long journey.

My husband Suri had just started an energy industry company of his own at that time and his work involved a lot of travel. So I decided to quit my job to have the flexibility of taking Sid to various therapies and incorporating them into our daily life. We have been fortunate to have been able to provide every type of intervention for our son. Speech, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Vision Therapy, Behavioral Intervention, Brain Training, just to mention a few. He was also always in a small private school or home schooled, so that we could fit in the various therapies that he needed. One thing was abundantly clear, taking him to therapy once or twice a week, for 30 minutes, simply was not enough. Practice and follow-through were imperative to see progress. While some of the “therapy homework” could be implemented at home, some activities, which involve movement and much needed for sensory integration, could not be done at home. So I had a vision of a center, much like a Little Gym, but would be filled with therapeutic equipment, so that parents could come and work on their therapy goals.

I was talking about this once with Rosalind Funderburgh, who was the principal of my son’s school and she said that Angela Stephens, who was my son’s speech therapist at that time, had a similar vision!! Angela and I started putting together our ideas. She brought a wealth of programming ideas to the concept of a sensory gym, and we started It’s a Sensory World with financial support from my husband Suri in 2007.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I never expected It’s a Sensory World! to grow into the big organization it is today! When we opened in 2007, we were one of only two sensory gyms in the country. We called it a “parent-child learning experience” and envisioned it as a place where families could come and work on their post therapy goals and never have to apologize for their children’s behavior or language delays. We wanted programs structured by ability and developmental levels, instead of age-based groupings. Since then, our programs have grown to include a school program, camps, and social groups. We even have a sensory bus now which enables us to take our innovative programs to other locations. Our programs have grown in response to community need and our drive to incorporate the latest intervention methods into our programs. Each year we serve around 300 students in DFW from 100+ Zip codes.

Our foremost organizational value is “respect”. We respect our students by fostering a loving relationship with them, teaching them to communicate, acknowledging that some things are hard for them, and setting high, but realistic goals for them. We respect the families’ journey and understand that each has a different circumstance and must balance competing demands. We respect the other therapists and caregivers in the students’ life and work as collaboratively with them as possible. We respect our teachers and staff, and recognize that expertise, passion, and self-care are all necessary to do this work consistently.

Our programs are expensive to run, because they are highly customized to each student, and our student to teacher ratios are very small, 1:3 or 1:4 in most cases. The families who utilize our programs are already burdened with additional medical, therapeutic, and nutritional expenses. Often, one parent has had to quit their job to care for their child with a disability. Keeping all this in mind, we try to keep our programs as affordable as possible. Fundraising covers almost 35% of our expenses.

Like many organizations, we faced an existential crisis during the 2020 pandemic, when we questioned our ability to fundraise during those unprecedented times. However, our community, especially parents of our students, did everything to ensure we weathered the storm. It was heartwarming to know that we fill a community need that is not met anywhere else.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When friends and families visit us, we love to take them to the museums in downtown Dallas. The Perot Museum is a favorite among our nieces and nephews. We usually spend an entire day there and catch the 3D Imax movie there. Another favorite among children is the Dallas World Aquarium. I remember the astonishment on my niece’s face when she saw a penguin for the first time! We live in Plano, and it is very convenient to take the DART train to the Dallas Zoo. Some of our friends are history buffs, so we take them to the Sixth Floor Museum, Dealey Plaza, the Kennedy Cenotaph, and the old Courthouse. After that we like to grab a bite at the food trucks in Klyde Warren Park.

In the summer months, something we never fail to do when friends visit us is to take a picnic dinner and head to Shakespeare in the Park at Samuell-Grand Park. This has been a tradition for us for almost 30 years now!

While we have the choice of many cuisines in Dallas, our favorite place to take friends out for dinner is Tukta Thai in Lakewood. We have been going there for almost 20 years!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Angela Stephens, who Co-founded It’s a Sensory World! with me has been the engine for our growth as an organization. Her creativity, hard work, and passion for serving those with disabilities have been the reason that we have weathered every storm and become the institution we are today. She is also my close friend and my son’s go-to person. I consider myself fortunate for having met her. It has forever changed my perspective on many things, especially those who are differently abled.

My husband, Suri will always have my deepest gratitude. Without his mentoring and financial support in the early years, ISW would never have come into being. My son, Siddhartha, whose autism diagnosis made us want to connect to the larger community and fill holes in services that were not available elsewhere.

Every staff member that has ever worked at sensory world has my deepest appreciation. Their work is hard, and if they were not filled with a sense of purpose and passion, it would be very difficult to make a lasting impact.

We are a non-profit and a huge shoutout to our donors who have sustained us with their generosity for many years. And finally, but most importantly, the families who have trusted their children in our care since 2007.

Website: www.itsasensoryworld.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsasensoryworld

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@itsasensoryworld4311