Every little life is a special present for a family. From the time a baby is born, parents journey through lots of highs and lows, wishing for their child to grow up with a big smile, make great friends, find their own way in a job they love, and create a happy family. However, for parents bringing up a child with ASD, these dreams can sometimes seem far away and hard to reach.
Parents raising children with ASD often encounter extra challenges and experience higher levels of stress compared to other parent groups. Each child with ASD is unique and exhibits various symptoms and degrees of severity, like a lack of interest in social interactions and learning, tantrums, and trouble following instructions. Moms and dads often feel overwhelmed in handling their child’s challenging behaviors, and they often face hurdles in finding effective treatments, which can slow down or impede their child’s progress even more.
To support families with children facing ASD challenges, Autism Partnership has been organizing the APM Educational Project, a project that offers free 5-day APM training for children with ASD, every year since 2020.
This year, we have invited three 5-6 years old children with ASD to join the APM Educational Project 2023. While the three children each present unique challenging behaviors, a common thread among them is difficulty in social interaction and a lack of learning motivation. These shared struggles raise concerns among their parents about how they will integrate into society in the future.
The 5-day school-readiness training program aims to enhance their communication and social skills, as well as their learning motivation. Prior to the training, we have invited a kindergarten teacher to have a lesson with the 3 children, allowing our consultants to identify their strengths and areas for improvement.
Join us as we delve into insights from both mothers and the kindergarten teacher, providing a comprehensive understanding of the children and their unique qualities.
Ming Ming is an outgoing 5 years and 10 months old boy. He was diagnosed with ASD at 4 years old. His mother reported that Ming Ming doesn’t proactively engage in group games with his classmates, making it difficult for him to fit in. Ming Ming’s language development is also slower compared to his peers. Sometimes, he rigidly repeats certain phrases, and he has difficulty expressing his thoughts, which further hinders his social interactions.
His mother hopes to see Ming Ming thrive in a mainstream school, secure employment, and eventually lead an independent life. Her hope is for Ming Ming to refine his ability to articulate thoughts and needs accurately, bolster his intrinsic motivation to learn, and establish a strong foundation for integration into society.
Sum Sum, now 6 and a half years old, was diagnosed with ASD at 2 years old. Despite his strong desire to socialize and make new friends, he faces challenges as he perceives slapping and pushing others as a game, leading to his isolation from peers. Sum Sum also struggles with emotional regulation, often resulting in tantrums when faced with rejection. Sum Sum also displays challenging behaviors, such as not following instructions, rolling on the ground, and screaming in various situations.
Sum Sum’s mother hopes that the 5-day training will lead to improvements in his social skills, his capacity to follow instructions, and his ability to connect with other children.
As a kindergarten teacher in a mainstream school, Ms Wong shared the difficulties she faced in getting Ming Ming, Sum Sum and Hyun Hyun to follow instructions during the first lesson.
Within a standard kindergarten class of over 20 students, Ms. Wong highlighted the challenge of supporting a child with ASD while ensuring the learning and safety of other children. Considering the limited resources in mainstream schools, she suggested that children with ASD should receive 1-on-1 training to acquire foundational learning skills before entering mainstream schools. Ms. Wong believes that this will be more beneficial for their future development.
In the 5-day training, our team of experienced consultants, Mr. Justin Cho, Dr. Yvonne Cheung, and Ms. Christy Lai, have designed a specialized curriculum to meet the unique needs of Ming Ming, Hyun Hyun and Sum Sum.
Stay connected with our social media and website for upcoming videos, offering in-depth insights into the curriculum and highlighting the remarkable progress achieved by the 3 children. Keep an eye out for updates!
Ed.D., M.S.ABA, BCBA
Behavioral Consultant
Dr. Yvonne Cheung is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). She has a Master’s degree in Applied Behavior Analysis (St Cloud State University), and a Doctoral degree in Education (The University of Bristol).
Yvonne joined Autism Partnership in 2003. She has extensive experience educating children, teenagers, and adults with autism. She had worked as a Behavioral Consultant at AP School since 2017. She is experienced in supervising cases and classrooms, designing individualized education programs, and providing teacher and parent training. She has also helped many students to adapt to local mainstream and international schools.
Yvonne had experience providing school consultations, parent and teacher training, and presenting about effective teaching strategies in Singapore, China, United Arab Emirates, and Russia.
Currently, Yvonne is a Behavioral Consultant for Autism Partnership and the Director of Research for Autism Partnership Foundation.
M.ADS(ABA), BCBA
Behavioral Consultant
Mr. Justin Cho is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) with a Masters of Applied Disability Studies in ABA from Brock University, Canada. He joined Autism Partnership in 2009 and has accumulated many years of experience in working directly with children of ASD in one-on-one, social groups, school shadow and Little Learners.
M.Sc., BCBA
Behavioral Consultant
Ms. Christy Lai is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with a Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis from St. Cloud State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Ms. Lai joined Autism Partnership (AP) in 2011 and she has extensive experience in working with children with ASD. Ms. Christy Lai currently take lead of the case supervision in the new established AP Beijing center. At the same time, she oversees the Little Learners program in Hong Kong and Shanghai and consults families in Asia. She directs overseas training to staff in the Train the Trainer program and provides parent education to families with children with ASD. She also conducts Jumpstart and PIIP programs locally and internationally. In additions, she is keen to take part in overseas ASD conferences and take lead of the design and production of AP teaching materials. Moreover, she helps with producing ABA training videos and articles in the APSPARKS website for public education.
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