Topic Talk-Autism

General Description:
One out of every 150 kids born in the United States is diagnosed as autistic. People with autism have difficulties interacting with people, communicating with others by using the proper language tools, and participating in normal activities. Thousands of scientists are trying to figure out the cause of this hard-to-rehabilitate developmental disorder. In US, the autism population is over 1.5 million; in China, the number is approximately one million. Autism has become a global epidemic. The book "Autism" by Peggy Parks states that the number of children going to special school for autism has risen from 22,245 in 1995 to 140,254 in 2004, an increase of 525%. Also, according to a news article from Xinhua News, the estimated percentage of autistic child in Beijing is 1.53%, which means that three out of every 2000 children are autistic.  Among those, approximately 50% have no ability to communicate. So, my research focuses on the current condition of autistic people all over the world, and governments’ roles in helping these people. Mainly, I am trying to make an autism program comparison between developed countries and developing countries. More specifically, the living environment they have, the special education system that is provided and the protection the countries have for autistic people.

Its importance:
Millions of people are affected by autism everyday: the people with autism and their families, their community, and society. The rapid increase of autism population around the world in recent decades also forces us to take notice.  More importantly, their voices are often ignored because the lack of communicating abilities. Thus, it is extremely critical for us to help them express their ideas and give them protection. Further more, developed countries tend to have a better environment for autistic people, while on the other hand, developing countries are paying little attention to them. In this case, study government policies, organizational programs and scientific researches in different nations become very important.

What I hope to achieve:
Even though the autistic programs in US and Europe are more advanced, there are still many questions that cannot be answered, such as: can they live independently or can autism be cured? Autism is spreading globally, and its population keeps growing at a startling rate, even worse, we know so little about it and it affects our society more and more. Therefore, through my research, I hope more people will understand it better and start to pay attention to it. Maybe someday, the questions can be answered.

Murder in Amsterdam, A Reflection

           In Ian Buruma's book Murder in Amsterdam, he details on the conflict of Moroccan immigrants and Islam in Amsterdam by telling murders of two public figures: Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn. He also touches on other people's point of views and further explains the problem that Amsterdam is having now is a worldly phenomenon. However, Ian Buruma is not giving us an "A+" answer. He only presents to us the controversy and leaves it unsolved.

           The death of Theo van Gogh reveals the true cultural conflict in Amsterdam, even though many Moroccan immigrants are legally citizens, they never feel like Netherlands is their home. To some people, they express their angers violently. LIke the murder of Theo van Gogh, a TV producer and a journalist, often too aggressively expresses his opinion in public was shot by a radical Islam on street.  Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer, whom after watching Theo van Gogh's short film- Submission, felt extremely offended. According to Ian Buruma, Mohammed Bouyeri became a strict Allah's follower after losing his hope of seeing Netherlands as his home time after time. Consider Mohammed's motivation, it is not hard to tell from his experiences that Mohammed had some very bitter memories of surviving in Holland. He had the taste of inequality when he was in school, after he stepped into the society. The environmrnt he grew up in was also very different. Compare to the openness of Western culture, Islam practice a more conservative religion that requires women cover their faces in publics and stay in the house without permission. Overall, in Islam world, women have no rights of speaking, working or against their husbands' wills. So Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's movie character standing naked with Koran written on her back clearly made Mohammed angry. Thus, as Ian Buruma points out "the question of how to stop future Mohammed Bouyeris from becoming violent enemies of the country in which they grew up--- how to make those boys...feel that this is their home too."(240.)

              In other sections of the book, Ian Buruma talks about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is a feminist escaped from Islam envirionment and now is trying to fight for Islam women. She wrote: "we must face the facts and give migrants what they lack in their own culture--- individual dignity."(165.) Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote the script of Submission,  she was trying to make more people stand against Islam out-of-dated traditions. It brought the negative effects of multiculturalism to a higher extent for the public. Ian Buruma is trying to tell us that too.

            Again, Ian Buruma does not give us an exact solution, instead, because it is too complicated and too hard to solve at the current moment, he ends with "what happened in this small corner of northwestern Europe could happen anywhere."(262.) The problem of multiculturalism cannot be ignored.

Developed countries "wake up" early on Autism-USA/UK

After the child psychiatrist Leo Kanner identified Autism in a study of a group of children who locked of contact with outside, and were interested in particular things in 1943, a psychologist, Bernard Rimland founded the Autism Society of America. It is one of the first group to help parents of children with autism in 1965. In 1996, the States passed a law---"Cognitive Impairments anf the Application of Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act", which covers all the people with disabilities in the United States. It insures the equal rights for those people, such as employment and education opportunity. 
(According to Washington Post.)

Soon after US, UK started its research on autism. The Parliament just passed an act in order to help autistic people in 2009. It is mainly "for the purpose of securing the implementation of the autism strategy...the Secretary of State must prepare and publish a document setting out a strategy for meeting the needs of adults in England with autistic spectrum conditions by improving the provision of relevant services to such adults by local authorities,NHS bodies and NHS foundation trusts." Since it is just passed last year, there haven't been any violation against this act and no specific case benefit from it yet. (Autism Act 2009 UK)

Further research on the way...

Analysis the autism programs in China

What is the autistic program like in China? How far are they into the research and what is the percentage of autistic people in the local community? While China is trying to create a more comfortable international environment for economy,  it still has a lot of problems inside. From my research of autism in China, it is not hard to tell that China still needs to improve its medical services, and expanding protections for disabilities. 

According to a news article from Xinhua News, the estimated percentage of autistic child in Beijing is 1.53%, which means that there are three autistic children in every 2000 kids. Even though the rate is relatively low compare to the United States', due to a huge population, in a large city like Beijing, there could be about 3000 autistic children in total, only include children from age two to six. Now the problem is, there is no well-prepared schools for those 3000 special children to go in the city. Normal schools do not accept special kids, include public and private schools. So parents have to find special schools, some may have to send their children to another city in order to go to a school that has this kind of programs. More importantly, many families with autistic children are facing high payments for rehabilitation programs,  and small protections from the government. 

The estimated number is based on Autism Report(Chinese), but the arthur points out there is no an exact number of autistic population in China since the population is too big. So the number listed above are extracted from five provinces and one city (Beijing), and the percent is 0.97 in thousand, which if we use it to calculate the overall autistic population in China is 1 million.

The obstructions for US to gain a balance in Globalization

The motivation for the United States to open its gate and welcomes all the other developing countries to peek inside their advancement on technology and democracy is that, we are expanding our market and influences. However, the quickly catching-up Asian countries and other developing countries made the US worries. Kishore Mahbubani tells a new point of view in his article The Case Against the West that Asian countries has changed quite enough in order to join the wave of globalization, and the reason that the West is losing its advantage is that the West is refused to change. The West do not want to admit that they will have to "adjust to the Asian century". Also in Fareed Zakaria's The Rise of the Rest, he talks about how the world is not controlled by two countries anymore, it has been dividend into multiple pieces of puzzles, and to complete the whole picture, US has to become a piece in it. But US is not willing to cooperate. Although people are worried about the growing power of India and China. But looking at the truth, even though Asian countries are catching up the West with an exponential rate, they are still chewing the technologies that West has left behind. Every year, enormous amount of electric wastes are dumped onto mainland China, and the workers in Southern provinces are making toys for wages that are unimaginable low. Also, America is still maintaining the top of many high-tech fields, which means that US has a great comparative advantage over other countries. However, even though Americans are worried about the world in changing, we are not trying to adjust to it. At one point, he talks about the effort that many countries have put in to reduce Greenhouse gas, while on the other hand, US has repeatedly ignored the Tokyo Protocol. For example, Beijing has been limiting the cars on the road everyday by the last digit on their license plate, so if today is Tuesday, the cars that end with number 2 and 5 cannot be driven on the road. Whereas in America, each family has one to three cars, and since that all the greenhouse gas are accumulated together, it is the West that has been effecting the environment. Still United States would not want to make a change. So, in this case, America has to remind itself that while others are stepping out of the continent, US should take in stride with the same measuring system, and that because Americans are still having the best universities, we should be confident that one day, we will reach our new destination.

Brief information of autism

Autism is a neurological disorder. Kids may show symptoms of Autism as early as when they are only 8 month old, and can be diagnosed  having Autism by the age of 3. The symptoms of autism involve three major areas of development and impact a child’s abilities to: interact with people, communicate with others by using the proper language tools, and participate in normal activities for kids from same age. For example, children with autism prefer to play alone rather than play as a group, they would avoid eye contacts, and show low interest in other people's talks.

According to the book "Autism" by Peggy Parks, the number of children going to special school for autism had rose from 22,245 in 1995 to 140,254 in 2004, increased by 525%. In United States, about 1 to 1.5 million people have autism, and approximately 50% of autistic children has no ability to communicate.

One example of severe autistic children is "it is no use telling him, 'Now do a drawing of what you saw today on our trip.' You need to tell him,' Get your pencils out, take some paper, sit at a free disk'... and so on. While other kids in the class react instinctively to fill in the gaps, he can't function without explicit instructions. If you said, say,"Sit down and draw a picture", he'd sit down and then be distraught because he can't draw without his pencils, which are on the other side of the room."


Bibliography: Parks, Peggy J. Autism. San Diego, CA: Reference Point Press. 2009.