Idiot savants
Autistic children have unexpected potentials
By Emily Hui
One might think this boy, Jeffrey, whose full name has been withheld for this article, is Albert Einstein Jr. However, he did not speak his first word, which was “No”, or his second, “Mum”, until he was 10.
He is not a slow learner. He is autistic.
Ah-kin, 18, can memorize the calendar for a whole year. He scored full marks in every dictation when he was at school. His excellent memory also makes people think he is a genius. But he could not speak until 6 years of age — and could not dress himself until he was 8. Again, he is autistic.
People tend to call others autistic whenever they are quiet, passive and solitary. In fact, most of them may not even know what autism is.
Autism is a severe, lifelong developmental disability that usually appears during the first three years of life. Up to now, neither the cause nor any certain cure of the disorder is known.
According to Dr. Kelly Lai Yee Ching, a lecturer in the Psychiatry Department at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, autism is an inborn cognitive impairment. It occurs in approximately 10 out of every 10,000 births.
Autism is four times more common in males than in females. It has been found throughout the world in people of all ethnic and social backgrounds.
One cannot judge whether a person is autistic simply by appearance. Autistic patients look normal — even attractive. There are three main symptoms associated with the disability.
First, autistic children are unable to establish normal social relationships. This is because they are not interested in playing with others. They seem to lack general emotional responses.
In addition to this, delayed language development in early childhood hinders their communication with others. They do not know how to express themselves, especially in emotional terms. Their speech is repetitious and mechanical. Also, they are usually incapable of distinguishing pronouns, like “you” and “I”.
The third symptom is extreme rigidity. They tend to insist on some daily routines or games.
Ah-kin has most of these symptoms. Once Ah-kin watched someone playing a computer game. He remembered how to play it. Since then, he has played the game repeatedly and never gets bored.
His mother, Mrs. Yeung, who asked that her full name be withheld, said she found her son abnormal when he was one and a half years old.
“At that time, I had never heard of autism before. I was told the syndrome is incurable,” she said.
As Ah-kin could not fully express himself, his mother faced a lot of difficulties in understanding him at first. Whenever his needs were not met, he would get frustrated and hurt himself.
Mrs. Yeung has to get at his feelings by asking him concrete, straightforward questions. Otherwise, he does not understand and simply repeats what is asked.
“He is very rigid,” said Mrs. Yeung. “If he wears short pants during summer, he refuses to wear long trousers in winter.”
He also rejects his elder brother’s clothes, as he remembers they belong to his brother.
His rigid behaviour causes other trouble as well.
Mrs. Yeung said that in a vocational training centre, one of Ah-kin’s duties is to switch off all the lights at 5 p.m. He never switches off the lights one minute earlier or later.
One afternoon at 5 p.m., a disabled colleague was still in the washroom. However, Ah-kin just switched off the lights as usual without any consideration.
In the dark, the person fell and was injured. Ah-kin was blamed, because most people did not understand that his behaviour was merely a symptom of the disease.
Even though Ah-kin’s condition has improved greatly, he still lacks confidence in speaking. He tends to repeat the previous answer if anyone asks him a question.
Moreover, he always mixes up “you” and “I”. He might simply replace “I” by pointing at himself or saying his name.
Since there is no cure for autism in a medical sense, treatments such as speech therapy and social skills training are crucial for autistic children. However, such services are limited in Hong Kong.
Psychiatric departments in public hospitals provide preschool services only for 2- to 6-year-old autistic children.
From 6 to 16, they can go to special schools. However, these schools are mainly designed for the mentally retarded. Autistic patients usually receive no special services after 16.
The Chinese University’s Dr. Lai said autism is different from mental retardation, though approximately 75 percent of autistic patients score below 70 in IQ tests.
The problem of mentally retarded people is mainly one of low intelligence. But for autistic patients, there are also communication problems and socialization problems.
Mr. Stephen Lee, a social worker at the Society for the Welfare of Autistic Persons, said autism and other general disabilities have very little in common.
Said he: “Although autistic children are rare in Hong Kong, grouping them into other disable categories so as to save social resources is unfair to autistic children.”
