‘Special needs’ children deserve better understanding
WHEN John Au and Dominica Lau welcomed a healthy little baby boy into their family, the couple were overjoyed by their little bundle of joy as he was perfect in any way they could imagine.
Their son Marcus was the apple of their eye but the couple began to fret over his slower development of social skills as a toddler.
“Very early on, Marcus was diagnosed with Asperger’s in Singapore. At the time, we were told it was under the autism spectrum disorder but we had no idea what the disorder was and were self- educating from sources found online.
“The information online often showed us more severe cases of the autism spectrum disorder and as Marcus was nothing like that, we just assumed he would eventually recover and become a normal person,” Au recalled.
While the Asperger’s syndrome is considered a sub-group within the autism spectrum, Asperger children tend to display fewer issues with speech and cognitive delays than other children under the autism spectrum but more with significant motor skill delays and obsessive interests.
As speech delays and lower cognitive functions are the hallmark traits of the autism spectrum disorder, often times Asperger children might be overlooked from being part of the Autism spectrum until they are older.
The diagnosis of Asperger’s has been removed from the fifth editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) back in 2013 and was reclassified under the ‘Social Communication Disorder’ subgroup in the Autism spectrum.
However, the disorder still remains within the 2015 tenth edition of the International Classification of Diseases ( ICD10).
In Marcus’ case, this was what had happened and it was only until he was around schooling age that his parents realised his development was not ‘normal.’
“At the time, he was in kindergarten about to start primary school and it was a tough period for us as it was just a constant argument with teachers and schools over his enrolment.
“We received complaints from teachers as his academic results were not stellar but we just ignored it.
“But when it came time for him to enrol into secondary school, many schools turned us away, saying our child is not suitable for their school and that he is not ‘normal’ so he should just go to a special school.
“This was very frustrating because to us, Marcus was still teachable in a normal classroom setting and we believed he would do all right with other normal children.
“There was no need to send him to a special school,” Lau said.
She lamented that often times, there were teachers who would be accepting of Marcus but there would also be teachers who were not.
“They don’t understand him and will just end up complaining about him or ignoring him completely. He is with them from half past seven to half past three, so I think there is a very important need for these teachers and schools to have a better understanding of ‘special needs’ children, instead of just discarding them to the limited number of ‘special schools’ out there to deal with,” she stressed.
While Au and Lau don’t expect schools and teachers to do everything, they believe that just as how they give support to the development and education of other children, schools should also help provide
more support to children with special needs or are considered ‘different.’
“Because there is so little support from our education system for ‘special needs’ children, parents need to be courageous and help their child now.
“People outside won’t help, so parents need to go find it themselves now because once they are older, it’s much harder to teach them. The golden time is to help them is early on.
“Their self- esteem is very low, so you have to accompany them in doing new tasks until they are comfortable.
“A lot of things like social skills we have always taken for granted but these children need to be guided on how to respond and communicate with others.
“This is very important because if you don’t teach them these skills now, they will just end up isolating themselves at home when they are older.
“For our son, we are doing our best to support him through therapy sessions to help with the development of his social skills, his talents and interests for his future and also help him build up essential life skills.
“For life skills, we give him daily routines and objectives each day to keep him motivated and focused.
“For example, outside of his daily routines, we might tell him that today we need to buy a certain thing, so we need to plan where to go, where to find it, and where to pay for it.
“Every single step needs to be taught but once he understands, he can be very independent and is even regularly taking grab rides with his friends or by himself to his art classes.
“We are also doing our best to help cultivate his interests and talents in art. He is a wonderful artist and hopefully, one day more and more people will notice his talent,” Au said.
To give ‘special needs’ children the best support possible, the couple advocates that families may want to consider having one spouse stay at home to undertake a full- time role as a caretaker until at least the child is past the age of six.
“Asking some families to have one spouse stay at home to fully support their child might be a difficult task but this is precisely why we need to push for more acceptance and awareness of our children from both schools and society,” Au pointed out.
Towards this end, the couple believes the best way forward for the treatment of ‘special needs children’ in the state is to ensure more awareness be brought to the topic.
“We need more understanding and empathy from the public towards ‘special needs’ children, and this is only achievable through increased awareness. If they were aware, they would treat this type of children like normal and help support them in their development.
“But as it stands now, there are even those who are terrified of allowing their kids to play with our kids.
“So, there is still a huge stigma out there that hinders the development of these children as they are not even given a chance to prove themselves,” Au lamented.
Very early on, Marcus was diagnosed with Asperger’s in Singapore. At the time, we were told it was under the autism spectrum disorder but we had no idea what the disorder was and were self-educating from sources found online. John Au