Review of evolution of clinical, training and educational services and research program for autism spectrum disorders in Hong Kong

Abstract

The evolution of a local fragmented model of services for children with autism in Hong Kong emerged gradually over the past three decades with lack of government funding or support. This had been due to increasing number of children with autism being detected and referred for earlier assessment. With increasing pressure from parents due to long waiting time for assessment and training services and the increasing polarization by mass media there had been a gradual increasing public awareness over the past five years. Though still highly fragmented in the availability of services, there is a growing 'business model' available in the community due to increasing need and lack of public funding for support. There is a lack of strategic planning for medical diagnostic and management issues in Hong Kong. Our University of Hong Kong based Autism Research Program was pioneered in 1985 based on the increasing load of autism cases referred for assessment for other developmental problems and diagnosed as Autism in the Duchess of Kent Children's Hospital. As the first author has been the staff of the University of Hong Kong, this program flourished as a research based program. The benefits of early identification and intervention of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) had been increasingly recognized, and with the increased public awareness and increasing trend of earlier diagnosis, there has been a continuously high demand from parents for earlier assessment and training for children suspected to have ASD. This model had not received extra funding for this integrated program for research, teaching and training in autism. We had to apply for various donations and grants to support the development of this pioneer program. The research output and organization of forums for public education and awareness are reviewed. The latter part of the paper reports the summary of clinical profile of autism cases (N=1441) assessed from 1985 to 2010 June under the University of Hong Kong. As the waiting time for initial developmental assessment for any children in Hong Kong is 12-24 months, we also report our preliminary experience with a newly launched triaging service provision for children suspected to be ASD since 2009, including multi-disciplinary assessment and parallel interim training in our university affiliated child assessment centre in Hong (N=89).