Autism gains voice in China

• Source: The Global Times
• [21:57 May 19 2009]
• Comments

Official action

There are three rows of one-story houses in the federation’s autism facility. They look simple; the rooms are neat and uncluttered. Full-day treatment last three months and costs 20,000 yuan ($3,000), including accommodation fees for the family. More than 70 families have received treatment since it was founded.

“We send doctors to Hong Kong to learn treatment for autism, and import advanced evaluation standards from the United States. All of these cost a lot,” said Wu Weihong, director of the federation’s autism facility. “The government supports 60 percent of the cost of the facility. The other 40 percent is on our own.”

Autism is poorly understood by modern medical science, and diagnosis is characterized by elaborate detail involving a variety of complex symptoms, said Yang. That can make for long and aimless treatment plans.

Autism is a brain development disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior, according to Wikipedia.

Autism affects many parts of the brain. How this occurs is not understood, but most leading experts in the field agree on a genetic connection.

“Most autistic children have difficulty communicating with others,” said Yang. “Sometimes, they have an obsession with daily products like a plastic basin or a spoon, and totally ignore the people around them.

“Lots of autistic children write letters oppositely, and draw objects top downward and bottom up.”

Most autistic children don’t need drug treatment or expensive examinations of the kind that could generate handy profits for hospitals. Autism treatment is basically a profitless task, Yang said.

Since there insufficient social welfare resources, she said, the government could instead play a role as the manager of non-government facilities, issuing licenses or certificates.

The school was not just built for her son, but for all autistic people in the hope of a social safety net following, said Tian.

“My son can only be safe and respected when every disabled person is cared for,” Tian said. “Social support for autistic people in today’s China is what America was like 20 years ago – maybe not good enough, but it keeps improving.”

Tian’s autistic son Yang Tao is now 24 years old, and attends Beijing Huiling Community Services, a non-government health facility for people with learning disabilities.

“Living in a country with a long history of 5,000 years, everything calls for patience,” she said. “I have patience.”

Autism: fast facts

Although in China autism was first diagnosed in the “1980s”, according to Dr Yang Xiaoling, it went largely unknown among ordinary Chinese people until quite re¬cently. “I would never have heard of autism if I didn’t have an autistic son,” said parent Tian Huiping.

1987 China launches the first national survey of disabled people. Autism is not included.

1990s Tao Guotai, the first doctor to diagnose autism in China, writes to President Jiang Zemin seeking special government attention for autistic children. It came to nothing, says Yang.

1993 Stars and Rain, the Chinese mainlands first autistic school, opens in Beijing. Founder: Tian Huiping.

2001 The China Disabled Persons Federation launches a survey of children in six provinces with mental illness, discovering there are at least 10,000 autistic children. Prevalence of autism is officially about 1 per 1,000 children on the Chinese mainland, with about four times as many males as females.

2006 Autism officially listed as a mental disability

2007 First official autism facility is founded by the China Disabled Persons Federation in Beijing.