One of the few English-speaking centres for pre-schoolers with special needs in Hong Kong is facing closure. Tina Leung reports

For the past two decades, perched high on The Peak and nestled beside the Matilda International Hospital, the Child Developmental Centre at Matilda (CDC) has had a safe home. From its humble beginnings as a playgroup founded by Sarah Roe in 1976, it now provides integrated early intervention programs to more than 100 special needs children aged six and below, and remains one of two public centres that cater to the English-speaking community in Hong Kong.

However, this charitable organisation may not last. In 2008, the Matilda Hospital announced reclamation of the grounds the CDC currently occupies with plans to expand the hospital, which is now at over capacity. “It’s not something we take lightly,” Linda Burgoyne, Deputy CEO at Matilda of the decision, told Time Out. “But unfortunately we have to put our patients first.” The centre has been given until 2014 to vacate, but time is ticking to relocate to premises capable of accommodating its growing waiting list. As a quick fix, the CDC has opened a small unit at the Tang Shiu Kin Hospital, but in Hong Kong where land is notoriously expensive, the biggest challenge for CDC still lies ahead. At present, the Social Welfare Department (SWD) subsidises each child for only an hour out of their 20-hour weekly curriculum. Further government assistance is also unlikely, as the SWD has expressed no further plans to provide assistance to the CDC beyond the subvention agreement at this point. Yet against all odds, the CDC still manages to keep its waiting list to under 5 months, compared to the SWD’s special needs waitlist which can take up to two years for its 6,500 pre-schoolers to be placed in a suitable classroom. It is a situation that Virginia Wilson, Executive Director of CDC, finds unacceptable. “One of the things that have been proven to work is early intervention. So how early is it if you’re two [at time of diagnosis] and you wait until you’re five?” asks Wilson.

Sonia Lee, a mother of two, is an advocate for early intervention from experience. Following a complicated twin pregnancy that saw the loss of a daughter, her surviving son, Issac, was discovered to have a hearing impairment, which delayed his speech. “The first week he got his hearing aid, he called me ‘mama’ for the first time,” recalls Lee affectionately. And while Issac remains soft-spoken, his time at the CDC has seen him catch up steadily with his peers. “Now he talks so much I have to tell him to eat his food and not talk!” she adds.

The benefits of early intervention at CDC is also something Wilson herself recognises first-hand. Having turned her back on the corporate sector over 10 years ago when her son was diagnosed with autism, she did not think twice when offered her current position at CDC. “It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made,” insists Wilson, “the satisfaction is much closer to your heart.”

CDC staff member Ann Bridgewater agrees: “One of the main reasons we work is because of the parents. It’s absolutely devastating for [them].” This is especially true for caregivers with autistic children, whose symptoms rarely get diagnosed before their first birthday. “They look as if there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them,” explains Bridgewater, “so it’s almost like you lose your child at one.” As head of Motor Therapy at CDC, she focuses on developing fine motor skills and self-help skills such as getting dressed, going to the toilet, and eating meals – simple acts which already prove challenging to most children, let alone those with developmental delays. But what really sets the CDC apart, is their insistence on classroom integration. “There’s no point in teaching the child to communicate to an adult in a one-on-one situation because that’s not life,” explains Bridgewater. “They need to be able to function in a classroom with other kids.”

The ability to integrate back into the mainstream system is important, as up to half the CDC attendees continue onto regular primary schools and kindergartens. But the current educational infrastructure in Hong Kong remains unprepared for them, despite the Education Bureau’s move towards ‘Integrated Education,’ which includes a 5-year development framework that aims to increase teachers’ professional capacities in supporting students with learning difficulties. The approach is something Bridgewater supports: “The best thing would be if there was enough funding for [special needs children] to be able to access mainstream schools, with support, and for the teachers to be able to cope with them.” But she also has her reservations: “One thing is training, the other is putting it into practice – teachers need the experience.”

According to DAB legislator Starry Lee, Hong Kong’s special needs education policy lags far behind the UK, the US, and Taiwan, where special needs pre-schoolers are systematically incorporated into mainstream schools by way of legislation and teacher training. In Hong Kong, preschool teachers and parents bear the burden of identifying these ‘special needs’, and children must fulfil criteria set by the Department of Health to be admitted to SWD special care centres, leaving children with mild learning delays, like those at the CDC, to fall through the cracks. These children are also not covered by government subsidy, which can cause huge financial strain for parents such as Polly, who receives partial remission for her son’s fees at CDC, but recalls being quoted $40,000 for 10x30-minute therapy sessions at a private practice. Whilst she feels resources do exist for non-Cantonese speakers like herself, what little there is comes at a very steep price. It seems policy-level changes must begin with re-education.

“There’s just a big misconception with special needs,” Wilson states. “Teachers are afraid of having kids like this in their class because they don’t know what to do.” According to Wilson, for such misconceptions to be dissipated, reintegration of special needs must happen, in an appropriate manner. She suggests a ‘90/10’ model within the classroom, where the minority is composed of special needs children so as not to place strain on the teachers and other kids. While Wilson foresees this shift to be slow, she remains hopeful. It is a contagious feeling that Polly steadfastly shares: “As a mother, I should keep hope.”