SIBU, April 2: Parents with autistic children have been advised to apply for an OKU (person with disability) card for their child’s benefit and ease in future.
Revealing this at a press conference here, Sibu Autistic Association president David Ngu said with the card, which could be applied from the Welfare Department, autistic children could enjoy subsidies from the government.
These subsidies included tuition fees at care centres that provide special education for people with autism to acquire special skills.
“I hope parents with an autistic child can change their mindset by not having the thought that autism is the end of the day for their child as they can grow to be an important person in the society with special talents from early intervention programmes that they have gone through,” he said.
Ngu said there are parents who consider that with the OKU card, it signifies that their child born with autism will be a handicap for their whole life.
“If their condition gets better, they can surrender the card,” he said.
Ngu gave an example of a German-born theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein who was also born with autism but became one of the most powerful persons with his theory of relativity.
“We, as parents of autistic children, need to guide them, to help them so that they are aware of their talent. I have a six-year-old boy who is also an autistic child. He is smart in Maths. He can do minus and multiplication with three digit numbers,” he said.
He emphasised that although there is no medicine that can cure autism, with early intervention programmes, their complications can be minimised.
“At our centre, our goal is to make them independent. We do a lot of vocational training for them like tailoring and cake making,” he added. — DayakDaily
