Setting up special needs centres: A focus on early intervention centres for the underprivileged

This paper looks at the gap in provision of early childhood care, education and therapy services for those with special needs with a specific focus on our experiences with the IDEAS Autism Centre (IAC), a full day child care centre for children with autism which includes education and therapy as well. The need for early intervention centres catering to parents from low-income households is not being adequately met by government or even private sector players.

Based on the experiences of the IAC we believe that there are two main challenges to providing affordable early intervention services for lowincome households in Malaysia:

1. The financial sustainability – covering the high costs per student for early intervention programmes.
2. The registration process – with the Social Welfare Department or JKM.

Autism, life after early intervention

This paper looks at the educational, care
and therapy options for children with autism
who are between the ages of nine (upper-limit
to when they are able to enter mainstream
primary schools) and above.

Through interviews with parents, teachers and special needs education, care and therapy providers, and desk-based research the author documents the costs, curriculum, admissions policies and challenges of the main options available. The paper concludes that provision of educational, care and therapy options are lacking and too expensive for the average family in Malaysia. Hence, the paper recommends measures to be taken to improve this situation:

1. Make more affordable full-time care centres available;
2. Ensure these programmes are not age-specific;
3. Improve financial assistance given to families with children with autism;
4. Public-private partnerships encouraging supply-side reform to ensure the other three recommendations are carried out.

Financial Burden of Living with Autism: A case study of parents at IDEAS Autism Centre

Care, therapy and education for children with autism can be a financial drain on parents’ incomes hence the IDEAS Autism Centre (IAC) was established to counteract this impact. This paper presents a case study of the Centre and if it has been able to provide parents with some financial relief besides giving them the opportunity to find employment if in the past they chose to remain unemployed to care for their child with autism.

The study finds that some parents were able to successfully find full employment after enrolling their children into IAC, whereas others were less successful – all parents nevertheless have benefitted from the low-cost high quality care that IAC has provided, as seen by improvements in their child’s behaviour.