Is Hong Kong neglecting the needs of its autistic pupils?
An expert in special education is urging the government to rethink the way it classifies and handles autistic children and to change its funding policy
Ahead of World Autism Awareness Day on April 2, a non-profit organisation has called for changes in government funding policy to improvespecialised publicservices forautistic children.
Hong Kong is home to 25,000 registered autistic children, according to the Autism Children Foundation.
Sandra Tsang Kit-man, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s department of social work and social administration, expects more than 10,000 schoolchildren to be diagnosed with autism in 2017-2018, up from7,200 in 2015-2016.
But there are already long waiting times for government-subsidised rehabilitation services that provide intensive training programmes for autistic children.
“Parents usually have to wait one to two years for services to be allocated, while the best times for these children to receive training are from two-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years old. Autistic children are usually diagnosed at around two-and-a-half-years old or a bit later,” said Keith Lee Seng-hoe, who has been working in the special education field for over 25 years.
We need to have a tailor-made approach to help them learn