Pushing for public awareness

Sha was so stressed back then that she could only sleep for four hours daily, yet found it hard to teach the girl to talk. "Even when you grabbed her favorite snack, she would not make a sound," Sha recalls.

When she finally heard the girl cry, Sha was happy. But she left the job later to join a kindergarten as a teacher and then taught at a primary school. When the new semester started, Sha noticed the little girl was among the new students at the school. What surprised Sha was that the girl who didn't talk at all earlier was then calling her "teacher" in a clear voice.

"I realized I should not have given up two years ago, and the efforts made for children with disabilities were worth it," Sha says. "I could have been the teacher who taught her how to speak out."

Sha then decided to return to special education and became a language training teacher at Yunnan Disabled Persons' Federation.

"The best time to rehabilitate children with autism is before they turn 7, and training for these children cannot be delayed," Sha says.

With that thought in mind, Sha quit her job and founded the children's development center in the provincial capital Kunming that provides training in behavior, cognition, language, understanding and social integration in individual and group classes. Each training class is set according to a child's development requirements and the group classes conduct teaching and training in music, dance, sports, arts and crafts.

"Hopefully, after the rehabilitation training, our children will be able to take care of themselves and integrate into society," Sha says.

Her center has met many difficulties since its founding, because of the misunderstanding about children with autism in society. For example, the children would often make a lot of noise that affected the surrounding residents who complained to local authorities. To provide a better environment for the children, Sha got the center relocated several times.

"Being in the special education industry, you need a kind of self-cultivation that can make your mind calmer and more rational," she says.