With daily reports on autism and its growing prevalence in the world, China is notably silent. While China’s influence on the world is wide spread, and is fast increasing its sizable power not only in manufacturing but technology and adoption of Western practices, the world’s most populated nation has been relatively quiet when it comes to autism.
China does indeed have individuals with autism, although the exact ratios are far from exact as the Chinese have only “officially” recognized autism as of the 1980s and have not made a concerted effort to measure that segment of the population. The WHO puts the number of autistic children in China at around 600,000 to 1.8 million, but due to under-reporting and recentcy of acknowledging autism in the country that number is argued by others to be more in the range of 1.5 to 7.8 million – not including those adults who may have autism.
Unlike the US or UK, whose media broadly exposes autism and has created more significant social awareness, China has clearly not. And awareness of autism in China is absent.
For those families that have children with autism, the combined lack of community awareness and available services can be devastating. For those children with more severe symptoms – non-verbal, self injurious – parents face the reality of schools that will not accept their child. More desperately, parents have to plan how to hope and care for a child that will grow, become an adult and need care once they are gone. Some families go so far as to commit family suicide rather than to face that future burden.
While the number of trained professionals to service those with autism is still significantly limited –nationally there are only 20 professionals qualified to conduct official diagnosis – the landscape for autism treatment fortunately is growing, if only in small ways. Beijing Stars and Rain is China’s first non-governmental educational organization dedicated to serving children with autism. Founded in 1993 by Tian Huiping, a mother of an autistic boy, the school is a grassroots educational institute providing special education for families of autistic children. It currently services about 50 families a quarter for an intensive 12-week training and educational program The school has helped more than 6,000 autistic children and their families across the country and has won support from an army of volunteers from around the world. Stars and Rain has also recently opened a small group home for teens.
Despite their good efforts, the school has sometimes been the victim of lack of understanding. Tian noted that the school had moved four times because of some neighbors’ hostilities. Many local residents thought the children were “insane and dangerous”, says Tian, underscoring the gulf between those understanding autism and those still ignorant.
While autism therapy’s successes are most often measured in terms of years, not mere weeks, Stars and Rain focuses on Applied Behavior Analysis therapy (ABA), and teaching the fundamentals of this therapy with the child’s parents who can then continue working with their child long after the initial program is complete.
Stars and Rain’s mission at times can seem overly daunting when the need is so significant, and so unanswered. Nonetheless, they continue their commitment helping and training each family as they can, providing hope where there previously was none.
You can make a donation directly to Stars and Rain a self-funding NGO. All donations will be administered by them.
For further information on donations please contact Mr. Sun Zhong Kai at Stars and Rain who will be happy to answer any of your questions in English or Chinese.
Tel . : 0086 10 853 732 36
Fax : 0086-10-853 734 86
E-mail: sunzk@autismchina.org
To view a short trailer based upon this program see below.
Brian Field is the co-founder of the Autism Support Network
