Autism gains voice in China
- Source: The Global Times
- [21:57 May 19 2009]
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Unofficial action
Autistic children receive treatment for their communication problems at the China Rehabilitation Research Center. Photos: Chen Yawei
With help from a private kindergarten in Beijing, Tian opened Stars and Rain School on March 15, 1993, with six autistic children and six members of staff. The name comes half from the 1988 movie Rain Man, and half from “Children of Stars,” the fond nickname that Taiwanese people first used for their autistic children.
The facility focuses on educating parents in the skills and techniques required to ensure their own child’s development through four 12-week courses. As the first autism school on the Chinese mainland, Stars and Rain has helped more than 2,000 families since it was founded in 1993.
Most of the furniture, air conditioners or pool tables are donated: little pieces of paper with different donor’s names are pasted to them. In the four cramped classrooms whose walls are bedaubed with children’s art, parents are learning skills like how to teach their children to fasten a zipper: step 1, zip up a zipper that is almost fastened; step 2, learn to zip from the middle; finally, the entire zip.
While parents take class, children play in the yard outside the classroom: they run around, climb up and down a plastic slide or complain in tears that someone or other took their favorite wooden horse. The only obvious difference with a regular kindergarten is that most children are pursued by a volunteer who treats them like they were a crystal vase that might crack at any moment.
“They look like normal kids, but you will find they are living in their own small world,” said Shen Tongmiao, a volunteer from Beijing International Studies University.
“Once a boy told me there is a palace in this yard and described every detail like the color of windows and the door – electric and locking. But when I mentioned the nonexistent palace to him 10 minutes later, he could not even understand what I was talking about.”
Stars and Rain also take cares of six autistic teenagers at its Group Home from Monday to Friday.
More than 20 are on the waiting list.
Group Home director Wu Liangsheng said parents pay 17 percent of the cost, or 1,200 yuan a month. The rest comes through donation, mostly from foreign charities.
Unlike the yard, the Group Home is quiet. Three boys and a girl sit at table waiting for their dinner. When a stranger passes by, they eye him curiously. But if a passerby meets their gaze, they turn away. One boy naps on a couch, while another tries to squeeze his body into a space between the air conditioner and the sofa.
“They will adopt any position to make themselves feel safe,” said Wu. “We can only afford six teenagers, but we will take care of them as long as we have enough donations.”