Global public health crisis and a fast-growing epidemic: these were the stark terms used by experts at an international summit held here last weekend to describe the cost of autism. The descriptions are backed up by grim figures. In South Korea, as many as one in 38 children are diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorders.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reports prevalence at about one in 88 youngsters in the country. Hong Kong doesn't have an official estimate, but groups say the number ranges from 70,000 to 200,000, depending on the screening criteria.
For their parents, no amount of research or statistics can compare with the stark realities of raising children who will struggle all their lives to make sense of the world. There are long waiting lists to get into the special needs facilities in Hong Kong, from assessment centres to schools, whether private or government subsidised.
English-language services are even more limited, which makes for a desperate group of expatriate parents, especially if their child is among the more severely impaired.
Alison Ridley strived for years to get help for her son Jack, now six. The Polytechnic University lecturer counts herself lucky that Jack secured a place last year at the Jockey Club Sarah Roe School, a centre for children with learning difficulties under the English Schools Foundation.
'Sarah Roe offers a very rich special needs curriculum at the basic ESF price. Having messed up Jack's opportunities for early intervention, I am just happy that he is happy there,' she says.
Her son enjoys the school trips and activities, such as riding. But Ridley says she never ceases to think that he would have been much better off if they had chosen to return to her native Britain, where there is better access to therapy, or to go deep into debt to pay private therapists for the recommended 30 hours of one-to-one sessions a week when he was younger.