Corry Elyda, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Headlines | Mon, April 08 2013, 10:06 AM
Paper Edition | Page: 1
Not only families but also society need to help create a friendly environment for children with autism, whose numbers increase by the year.
In order to create such an environment, the Jakarta administration, in conjunction with the Indonesian Autism Awareness Society (Mpati), launched on Saturday a program called Jakarta, An Autism-friendly City.
Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said at the program’s launch that the administration would provide facilities for autistic children in schools and public places.
Jokowi, who admitted that he did not know much about autism but was willing to learn, said he would study further the kind of facilities that children with autism needed.
“I want Jakarta to become a role model as an autism-friendly city for other regions,” he said, adding that the administration also intended to build an autism institution.
“We need real action for the program,” he said.
He added that the administration had so far helped campaign autism through brochures, letters and videos, so more people knew about the complex neurodevelopment disorder that typically lasts through a person’s lifetime.
Indonesia has no reliable data on autism cases. Data collected by Yayasan Autisma Indonesia estimates the number of people with autism stood at one per 500 children in 2000, an increase from one per 5,000 children in the previous 10 years.
Mpati chairwoman Gayatri Pamoedji said the main point of the program was to create a city that could accept children with autism.
“We want Jakarta to become a city that will not judge these children and treat them well,” she said.
Gayatri said people needed to be aware of the symptoms of autism in order to be empathetic. “People need to know, so when they see children with the symptoms, they know how to treat them,” she said.
The early symptoms of autism, include children not taking an interest in other children, not pointing to indicate interest in something, not making eye contact for more than a second or two, not imitating others, not reacting when called, not looking at toys offered to them and not pretending, for example, to talk on the phone or take care of a doll, according to Robins, Fein, Barton, Green’s The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers.
Wiwie Kartati, a mother of autistic ninth-grader Thomas Andika, said she welcomed the idea of an autism-friendly city and hoped that people, especially workers at public facilities like malls and public transportation would get to know that these special children needed special treatment.
“I hope they will treat them more humanely,” she said, adding that some people unaware about autism considered children with the condition to be merely naughty.
At the event, children with autism sent an open letter to security staff in public places to treat them well if they caused trouble.
Hendrawan, 47, a parent of a child with autism, said it was important for security staff to understand the children’s condition.
“When a security guard, for example, behaves aggressively to a child with autism who undergoes a tantrum, other people will assume the child did something wrong that justified the action,” he said.
Gayatri said that besides informing the public about the symptoms, her foundation and the administration would also cooperate in providing educational tools for children with autism. The administration would provide funds for the tools, she added.
Gayatri said her foundation had produced and distributed a series of free autism therapy videos to help parents, teachers and therapists in handling children with autism. “We produced the video because we realized that many parents do not have enough money to bring their children to therapists,” she said.
She added that one hour of therapy could cost between Rp 100,000 (US$10.30) and Rp 150,000 while a child needed 30 to 40 hours therapy per month.
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