After the tragic loss of her husband, Sonia Wadhera turned the personal necessity of raising a son with autism into a career in special education. Winner of multiple awards, she advocates mainstream inclusion, water therapy, and skill-based training for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Sonia Wadhera is a Special Educator and Administrator at Arunabh Special School, as well as a trainer with the IDS Group in Indore. She has worked in the special education field for 10 years.

Her work has earned her three recognitions: an award from the Jwala Mahila Samiti in 2024, the Special Educator Award from Free Press, and the Nari Sashaktikaran Award from RNSS.

Sonia’s career path was defined when her son was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was one and a half years old. She chose to specialize in this field to help him progress, moving her professional life forward alongside his development.

Originally from Gwalior, where she completed her education and married, the diagnosis marked the start of a difficult struggle for Sonia Wadhera. Following the news, her husband went into depression and committed suicide. Earning money suddenly became as critical as taking care of her son. She relocated from Gwalior to Bhopal to formally specialize in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Living there, she managed his therapy for two years, enrolled him in a special school, and completed her studies concurrently.

After finishing her education, she struggled to find employment because she had no one to watch her son. She began conducting professional home visits to earn an income. Later, relatives called her to Indore, where she found a job that allowed her to work while keeping her son close. This personal necessity evolved into her life's aim: to work for other children just as she did for her son. Today, at Arunabh Special School, she works with about 50 people, aged 2 to 40, addressing intellectual disabilities including autism, intellectual disability, and learning disabilities. When students turn 18, the school provides them with skill-based training to prepare them for jobs.

Her association with the IDS Group began three years ago when she sought physical solutions for her son, who struggled with toe-walking. She introduced him to skating and swimming. Skating helped bring his heels down, while swimming induced positive behavioral changes. Noticing that hyperactive children gained physical and behavioral control through water therapy, she transitioned into a trainer role, teaching swimming to autistic and special needs children.

In her professional life, her role models are her son and her boss, Ashish Katti, whom she admires for his dedication to running a special school despite not coming from a special needs family. Sonia is a firm advocate for inclusive education and notes a significant need for more manpower in the field. While working with dedicated individuals like Indradev Sharma at the IDS Group, she actively opposes the practice of separating autistic children from children without disability into different batches. She argues that the core issue in autism is a lack of socialization; separating them during activities like swimming or skating defeats the goal of mainstream inclusion.

Driven by the belief that \\\"if you are strong-willed, every problem becomes easy,\\\" Special Educator Sonia Wadhera urges society to embrace special children. She emphasizes that these children are hungry for love and will accept anyone who chooses to include them rather than separate them.