3Cs Concept- the Brain Child of Fr. Felix for Intellectually Challenged Children
Fr. Felix developed the 3Cs concept for the maximum development of the intellectually challenged children by building up in him optimum physical ability, mental ability and natural skills through the stimulation of full functional growth. The 3Cs are Comprehension, Competence and Creativity which is built on the basic finding that the world around us could be reduced to basic shapes and everything could be built up from these basic shapes. Shapes are the alphabets which would be understood in any part of the world which doesn’t have any boundaries.
An intellectually challenged person can be developed into a productive, versatile, creative and socially acceptable human being by training him to know these basic shapes using various materials select the required ones from among the medley of shapes and combine them to produce things of more complicated shapes. Through this process of learning it is possible to develop four cardinal functions namely motor, psycho social, language and cognitive. This leads to the development of mind and body and also skills for independent living.
Being so vulnerable, children with disabilities require special education tools which can easily be adapted by them. With this view, Fr.Thomas Felix CMI, the Founder Director of CIMR evolved a unique educational concept known as “Three Cs” which has charted a new course in the training, education and normalisation of the intellectually challenged. Three Cs recognises the basic shapes and colours as basic alphabets. By knowing, making, selecting and combining shapes, the intellectually challenged experience the world. Three Cs stand for Comprehension, Competence and Creativity- three steps to the goal of total development.
From knowing shapes, an intellectually challenged person is logically taken to the next steps – that of making shapes, Selecting shapes and combining shapes, using the four basic shapes of Circle, rectangle, triangle and square, we can stimulate an intellectually challenged person to attain growth and development in the four basic human functions namely motor, psycho-social, language and cognitive. This revolutionary approach helps the intellectually challenged person to move forward in the path of comprehension, with time and experience gives that person competency, and further onwards to the arena of creativity.Shape is a Universal alphabet and from shapes all the alphabets and numbers can be meaningfully derived.
