There is a need for more centres and special schools to enable learning for children who have been diagnosed with autism and related disorders across the country, parents made the case while marking International Autism Awareness day on Wednesday.

Special schools cater for students with particular educational requirements arising from physical or intellectual disability or behavioural difficulties such as autism.

Autism, also called autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by challenges in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and often repetitive behaviors and restricted interests.

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Some of the autism symptoms include delayed language skills, delayed movement skills, delayed cognitive or learning skills hyperactive, impulsive, and/or inattentive behavior, epilepsy or seizure disorder, unusual eating and sleeping habits, unusual mood or emotional reactions, anxiety, stress, or excessive worry, lack of fear or more fear than expected according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

People with autism have behaviors or interests that can seem unusual, studies have shown.

The child avoids or does not keep eye contact, does not respond to name by 9 months of age, does not show facial expressions like happy, sad, angry, and surprised by 9 months of age, does not play simple interactive games like pat-a-cake by 12 months of age, uses few or no gestures by 12 months of age (for example, does not wave goodbye).

A child with autism does not share interests with peers at 15 months of age, does not notice when others are hurt or upset by 24 months of age, does not join other children during play time at 36 months of age among others.

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Parents said that when children with autism go to schools, they are usually rejected because there are no facilities and teachers skilled in teaching them.

"There should be a centre or a special school for such children in every district or even at sector level. Even the few existing centres and special schools are privately-owned and therefore the cost of education for autistic children is too expensive to afford for low-income earning families,” said Jöhan P. Claude, a representative of parents with autistic children.

He said that such children must access special education from kindergarten to tertiary education.

"If having special schools and centres dedicated to children with autism is not possible, every school across the country should have additional facilities and trained teachers who care for such children. However, the government should subsidize the cost of education for children with autism,” he added.

Rosine Kamagaju-the Founder and Executive Director of Autism Rwanda says many autistic children at their centre received and catered for, come from families living in Kigali city and that since 2014 most of them managed to pursue their education.

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"We urge parents to observe early warning signs of autism. However, centres to cater for them are still few, especially in rural areas. Now parents are becoming aware of autism and the main challenge that remains is the cost of caring and education for these children.

Only children with autism from well off families can pursue their education. Poor families are feeling the pinch,” she said.

Curriculum for autistic children

According to Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB), a curriculum for children with intellectual disabilities including children with autism is being developed.

"As we revise the national curriculum we must integrate the one for children with autism,” said Nelson Mbarushimana, the Director General of REB Director General.

ALSO READ: School curriculum for autistic children in the offing

He made the case for research to come up with data on children with autism for better planning.

"We want private higher learning institutions to introduce special needs departments to produce teachers who can care for children with autism. However, we need data on children with autism to help us in planning and we should have data by next year,” he said.

Globally, 1 in 160 children has autism, according to the World Health Organisation.

He reiterated that to have more centres and special schools looking after children with autism requires planning, adding that there is still a limited budget and lack of enough teachers with skills in special needs education.

Meanwhile, Cedric Shema, a software developer at African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) presented an application dubbed "Igaju” that can be used by parents to diagnose and detect if a child has autism.

"The application will help to know more information about autism. The application presents information in three languages namely Kinyarwanda, French and English.”