Children with developmental challenges and their worried parents
“I wish my child could grow up healthy and happy.” This seemingly simple wish of parents may not be easy for families with children who have developmental challenges.
“I did not realise that Yu Yan had any developmental problem, until she entered the nursery school at the age of 2. The teacher told me that Yu Yan was easily distracted in the class, and her reading and writing ability was below other children at the same age. She thought Yu Yan might have developmental problem so she invited me to sit in the class and have an initial meeting to talk about it,” Yu Yan’s mother recalled the first time contacted by the teacher.
“When I was sitting in the class, I saw that Yu Yan could not stay quietly in her seat. She would suddenly become emotional and too passionate to other children, sometimes lost control and her temper, and refused to apologise after making mistakes. Even so, I still refused to believe that my daughter had developmental disabilities and thought that she was just naughty or not used to the school life. However, after several class observations, I found that her situation was getting worse. The teacher also suggested me to take Yu Yan to have professional assessment as soon as possible in order to understand her situation and seek appropriate treatment,” Yu Yan’s mother said anxiously.
“I remembered that I kept asking myself: Did my negative emotion affect Yu Yan’s development? Was I too harsh on her that she had these problems? I was so worried that my daughter might be excluded by other children at school and even rejected by the society in the future,” full of self-blame and worries, Yu Yan’s mother could no longer hold back her tears.
Long waiting time for assessment causes treatment delay
It is natural for parents to feel anxious when they notice developmental delay or signs of special educational needs (SEN) in their children, and might desperately seek prompt support services. However, the process might be longer and more difficult than we expect.
Yu Yan’s mother recalled, “I took Yu Yan to the nearest Maternal and Child Health Centre immediately to seek assistance. After the doctor and social worker at the centre learned about Yu Yan’s situation, they referred us to the government’s assessment service. However, the waiting time was as long as 9 months, and the location of the service was remote and cannot be reached directly by public transport. It was very inconvenient to me as I needed to work and look after two children at the same time. Since I had no idea how to seek other support services, I felt completely helpless.”
According to government statistics, the number of new cases receiving the Child Assessment Service, offered by the Department of Health, hits 9,000 annually. Cases in which the assessments could be completed within 6 months saw a sharp fall from 90% in 2012 to 55% in 2017, and the actual waiting time depended on the complexity and the circumstances of individual cases.
In other words, each parent has to wait for at least half a year or more just to receive a simple assessment report to know some basic information of their children’s development situation. During the waiting time, both parents and children could not receive any assistance and training, and many could miss the golden treatment period. This might lead to more serious developmental problems in the children, such as difficulties to adapt to environmental changes, slow learning progress and emotional fluctuations.
Early assessment service brings hope to the children
“After that, the nursey school’s social worker told us that Centre for Child Enlightenment (CCE) of Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children also provides professional assessment service with waiting time shorter than that of the government. What’s more, the Centre is just located at the same building as Yu Yan’s school. Thus, we applied for the professional assessment service of CCE immediately.”
“We received a detailed report for Yu Yan one week after the assessment and the educational psychologist at CCE explained the details to me patiently. The assessment result showed that Yu Yan had early symptoms of dyslexia and attention deficit. Fortunately, her situation was not so serious. As long as she receives appropriate training, her situation could be improved gradually,” knowing her daughter could grow up healthy like other children, Yu Yan’s mother finally broke into a smile.
Centre for Child Enlightenment of Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children pursues the goal of “early identification and early intervention”, making great efforts to provide a one-stop assessment and training programme for SEN children and their parents. Yu Yan is one of the children who received our assessment, as well as appropriate and timely support services.
Comprehensive support to children’s growth and development
As one of the service providers of the On-Site Pre-school Rehabilitation Services of the Social Welfare Department, CCE runs the Magic Learning and Development Support Project to drive the three-way collaboration model: Home, School and Professionals. It provides rehabilitation trainings to children with developmental challenges and their parents, as well as offers one-stop support to the partner schools and teachers.
In terms of child care support, we have developed the “Child Development Checklist”, the first child development screening tool basing on local norms and standards. It helps to identify and monitor the growth and development of children systematically, as well as to provide a framework for regular screenings to understand the developmental status of the children. In addition, the project provides individual and group trainings to children to enhance their reading and writing skills, attention span, problem-solving skills and emotion management skills.
Magic Learning and Development Support Project provided on-site individual training to Yu Yan once or twice a week. Conducted by children development and training instructors, speech therapists and occupational therapists, the children would undergo cognitive, reading skills, language, fine/gross motor and social emotional skills trainings. Parents could sit in the class twice a month and communicate directly with the instructor or therapist to understand their children’s developmental progress and acquire advices on home-based training. In addition, the children would participate in different group activities, such as attention training group, reading and writing group, speech therapy group and executive function training group.
Yu Yan’s mother said the trainings were very effective. “Yu Yan couldn’t sit properly and listen to teacher’s instructions in the past, but now she has become more patient and has known how to control her emotions. In addition, Yu Yan would sometimes reverse the sequence of words when speaking, but now she is able to organise the sentences properly and express them clearly. Her handwriting has also become much tidier.”
Understanding parent’s needs and standing together with them
In terms of parent support, since some parents might refuse to admit their children have developmental problems, the professionals at CCE provide consultation and counselling for them to understand and accept their children’s situation and developmental needs. Moreover, social workers provide professional advices to the parents on children’s emotional problems, teach them how to manage and comfort their children’s emotions, and relieve their own stress caused by their children’s problems.
“Apart from taking care of Yu Yan’s situation, the service also helped me a lot. I remembered that when I first learned of Yu Yan’s problems, I felt very upset and even had the symptoms of depression. Fortunately, the responsible social worker talked to me patiently and listened to my thoughts and feelings, which greatly relieved my negative emotions. She also taught me different parenting skills which helped to improve our parent-child relationship.”
“The service also provided a series of parent talks and parent-child activities for me and Yu Yan, like the 7-week parent-child reading programme. In the programme, the social worker gave me some useful advices, such as giving Yu Yan appreciation and a hug when she performed well, to let her know that her improvement was well recognised. The programme not only made Yu Yan love reading and enhanced her personal ability, but also enhanced our parent-child relationship,” Yu Yan’s mother expressed her sincere gratitude to the support and assistance offered by our On-Site Pre-school Rehabilitation Services.
Three-way collaboration model to support the children
Magic Learning and Development Support Project also provides training workshops and seminars for teachers to help them identify children with developmental challenges, as well as to offer them advices on classroom management, teaching strategy, curriculum design and children’s adaptation. Our cross-professional team comprises educational psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, social workers and special child care workers. Apart from conducting on-site consultation to help teachers identify children with special education needs, they also provide follow-up suggestions and professional support to individual cases.
“It was really fortunate that Centre for Child Enlightenment had provided timely assessment to Yu Yan and worked closely with the nursery school to provide one-stop on-site training services, so that Yu Yan could receive proper training so soon. Now, Yu Yan can finally catch up with the developmental pace of other children at the same age. We are really grateful for the support from CCE and the selfless efforts of the social workers,” Yu Yan’s mother believes that the services of CCE are strong back-up for both children and parents.
Support our assessment service to provide timely treatment to the children
We believe that every child in the world has unlimited potential. Even their pace of development may be different, every one of them can grow big and strong if they can receive appropriate and timely support. Unfortunately, the long waiting time for government services or high assessment costs at private institutes could cause some children to miss the golden period of treatment.
CCE is committed to providing timely and appropriate support to the children in need. However, we have been providing subsidised professional assessment services to low-income families without any financial assistance or support from the government. In order to sustain our services’ operation, your support is vitally important to us. Let’s join hands and work together to bring hope to these families and the children in need.
Service Overview
| Our Work Achievements | |
| Service Name | Centre for Child Enlightenment - Professional Assessment Service |
| Service Period | From October 2017 up to date |
| Service Group | Children from low-income families with suspected developmental challenges |
| No. of Children Who Have Received Fully Subsidised Assessment | 86 children |
| No. of Service Sessions | 430 sessions (5 sessions for each child) |
| How to support us: | |
| By making a donation of $800, 1 session of professional assessment service will be provided for the children from low-income families. |
Please select Centre for Child Enlightenment and remark “Professional Assessment Service“
If you / your organisation are interested in supporting the Professional Assessment Service of Centre for Child Enlightenment or have any enquiries, please contact our staff at 3844 8200 or email to cce@hkspc.org.