How Hong Kong designers help children with special needs cope with school and learn better
A group of Hong Kong architects and designers are creating low-sensory environments in schools for children with autism spectrum disorder and ADHD
A typical kindergarten is lively and jovial, full of noise, bright lights and vibrant colours – a happy place for some, but potentially torturous for a child who is hypersensitive to their surroundings, such as those on the autism spectrum, or with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
When Canadian psychologist Hennis Tse moved to Hong Kong in 2012, he found the dearth of special education needs services a conundrum in a city with so much emphasis on education, and where places, even in kindergartens, are so hard to secure.
“Children might be age-relevant to start kindergarten, but because of social or behaviour issues, they are not ready,” Tse says. “At the interview process, a lot of these kids don’t get accepted.”
In 2013 Tse founded ChildPsy Assessment and Learning, a trilingual (English, Cantonese and Putonghua) private centre in Kowloon Tong for children with a range of special needs. He subsequently teamed up with fellow Canadian Zoe Lee, a speech and language therapist, to open Brighten Development and Therapy Centre in Sha Tin. Keith Chan Shing-hin, founder of Hintegro, was behind the design of both.