AUTISTIC CENTRE (Setting up)

Mr Goh Choon Kang asked the Minister for Community Development if his Ministry has plans to set up an autistic centre to cater to the needs of autistic persons who are above 12 years old.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Community Development (Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon) (for the Minister for Community Development): Mr Speaker, Sir, presently, there are several voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) that provide services for autistic persons above the age of 12. Autism occurs in varying degrees of severity. With the appropriate training, the majority of autistic persons can remain in the community. The National Council of Social Service (NCSS) and the Autistic Association (Singapore) in a joint effort started the Autism Youth Centre (AYC) in March this year. The AYC provides autistic youths aged between 12 and 21 years with social and learning skills.

The AYC has just been allocated new premises at an HDB void deck at Hougang Avenue 6, and will move there as soon as renovations are completed. This location will enable AYC to reach out to more autistic persons and help them to integrate better with the mainstream community.

Another VWO effort is the Christian Outreach to the Handicapped's day activity centre which trains autistic youths aged between 13 and 18 years in independent living skills (such as taking a bath, making simple meals, sweeping the floor, making their own beds and clearing their own things). The very low-functioning autistic persons without family support and who need residential care can be admitted into the seven homes for disabled persons run by VWOs. Two more homes are in the pipeline.

MCD will continue to work with the NCSS and VWOs to ensure that there are adequate services and facilities to meet the needs of the disabled, including the autistic.

Mr Goh Choon Kang (Marine Parade): (In Mandarin): Some autistic persons need to be looked after in the homes. At the moment, there is no such home. If they are sent to the homes for the disabled and handicapped, will such homes have adequate facilities and expertise to look after the needs of such autistic patients?

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, at present there is a day activity centre in Clementi which takes in autistic children and the Government has also allotted a HDB void deck in Hougang Avenue 6 to build a new day activity centre. When completed, the new home can take in all the 30-over autistic children on the waiting list. There are seven homes for the disabled which take in those who need residential care. MCD will try its best to help the family and the community to better look after these autistic children and endeavour to allow them to lead a normal life. Sending them to the homes should be the last resort.

Dr Lily Neo (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): May I ask whether we know the number of such children in Singapore and whether we have done any study to ascertain the future trends and how do we cope with it?

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: At present, in the schools system, we have about 200-300 such students and we try to encourage them to integrate into the mainstream. Those who really cannot do so, we will send them to the special schools. Based on the UK experience, it is estimated that for every 500 persons there will be one autistic person. So if we have three million people, there would be about 7,000 autistic people. Based on the United States' experience, for every 200 persons you have one autistic person, but this would depend on the degree of autism. At the moment, quite a number of VWOs are very actively working with MCD and MOE to try and develop programmes to support the children as well as they are trying to integrate the children into the mainstream. We try to let them learn some skills so that when they grow up, at least they can be employable. Those who really cannot be employable, they can go to the shelter workshop. At the moment, we have quite a number of shelter workshops. Those who cannot enter the shelter workshop can go to the 11 day-care activity centres which will help them to learn some living skills. We will try to do more.

I would say that as society progresses, people will expect the Government to do more. Our approach is that through the many-helping-hands, the family, the community and NCSS, we hope to develop more for our children.

Dr Lily Neo: May I seek a clarification? Autism is a difficult condition. Does the Senior Parliamentary Secretary think that we should leave all this to the grassroots organisations or does she think we should rope in the Ministry of Health so that we can get their experts from the medical doctors to help these children?

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: Mr Speaker, Sir, I have said just now that MCD actually believes in the many-helping-hands approach. For infants, we need the MOH to come in. For the school-going children, we need the MOE to come in. For the others, we need the community and the society to come and try to integrate them into the mainstream society.