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UPDATED: September-5-2008  
Ensure Independence for Disabled Children
By KOU ZHENGLING

Some 60 percent of China's disabled school-age children are receiving special education at various institutions for the handicapped.

According to a 1987 national sample survey, some 9 million, or 2.66 percent of China's over 300 million children through age 14, suffered from various disabilities.

The First National Work Conference on Special Education was held in 1988 to explore ways to promote compulsory education for disabled children. Participants introduced the principle of developing a new pattern of special education by placing priority on related schools, supplemented by expanding the number of related classes and promoting the admittance of disabled children to regular schools.

The effort has greatly enhanced the school attendance of disabled children,and has helped to foster both their abilities and confidence.

Seeking Independence

Zhu Jiansheng went blind at the age of only one month. Fourteen years later his eldest brother arranged for him to attend a school for the blind in Beijing.

Zhu not only studies at the school,but also attends a number of extracurricular classes. He has learned to play the flute, guitar-and accordion, and he is now a leading member of the school band.

"I love music which helps me to feel the beauty of the world," said Zhu.

In July last year, Zhu captured third place in the flute contest for students from schools for the blind or speaking and hearing impaired. The contest was jointly sponsored by the China Association for the Disabled, the State Education Commission and the Ministry of Culture.

While happy with his success, Zhu was saddened by a letter from his parents informing him that they could no longer afford his education. They instead asked him to return home to learn fortune-telling from his third brother, who is also blind.

Zhu's eyes filled with tears as he told the principal, "I want to attend a secondary vocational school to study medical massage, so I can support myself in the future."

The government invests heavily in special education. For example, students pay 2-3 yuan for a braille text- book, with the government subsidizing the payment with yet another 10 yuan.Obvisously the purpose is to give more disabled children access to education.

The principal decided to call on society for help. Upon learning of Zhu's situation, Wen Shijie, manager of the Beijing California Beef Noodle Co., which had previously donated 60,000 yuan to support the school's band, promised to cover Zhu's annual tuition and living expenses of 4,000 yuan. Wen also promised to provide further financial assistance should Zhu decide to attend college.

The school offers a nine-year education program ranging from primary to junior middle school. With the exception of fine arts, it offers all other subjects available in regular schools. In addition, students attend special handicraft and fixed-directional walking classes to improve dexterity and enhance their ability to live independently.

Zhu will attend the three-year medical massage course, where he will learn the basic theory and diagnostic methods of traditional Chinese medicine, as well as anatomy, physiology,massage methods and the theory of the main and collateral channels (the circulatory network for vital energy and the location of acupuncture points).

Zhu and his classmates enjoy listening to music, as well as "listening" to television and exercising on the parallel bars or playing cards after class. They are allowed to take the school's musical instruments to their dormitories, which are always bustling with activity in the evening.

"We take the bus and mail letters and parcels free of charge. Many streets have special pathways for the blind.The food in our canteen is less expensive than that offered in regular schools," said Zhu. Although Zhu finds school life much more comfortable and exciting than life at home, he nonetheless misses his parents, who live in the Tangshan suburbs, and yearns to help them till their land.

Zhu once contracted a high fever,and caring teachers immediately admitted him to a nearby army hospital. A teacher lived at the hospital and provided care during his one-week hospitalization.

"There are so many caring people here to help me. I'm very lucky when compared to other blind children in my village," said the excited Zhu.

Farewell to Silence

The claim that "nine of 10 deaf people are also mute" seems to be valid. However, the Beijing Dongming Rehabilitation Center for Mute Children has successfully used early language training to help many hearing and speaking-impaired children learn to speak. Many of the children have, in fact, been able to attend regular schools.

The 18 deaf children studying in the Beijing No.2 Xizhimen Primary School regained their ability to speak in the center.

Hearing-aids are the only discernible fact indicating that they suffer hearing impairments.

All of the children lost their hearing between the ages of two and three because of the adverse side effects of medicine. Their affliction was diagnosed as nerve deafness resulting from drug poisoning.

Nine-year-old Yu Menghui said her parents enrolled her in the Dongming Center when she was only two. The center provided her with a hearing-aid,and she learned to identify the sound of various percussion instruments. This treatment enabled her to regain her hearing. She then learned the names of various familiar objects, first learning individual words, then phrases, and later complete sentences and grammar.

Yu completed two years of training,acquiring the ability to speak simple,everyday vocabulary. At the age of six,the center sent her to the No.2Xizhimen Primary School.

Each weekend, Prof. Ha, a faculty member in the Special Education Department at the Beijing Normal University, volunteers his time to train the 18 deaf children, teaching them to "read" lips. Now all of the children have acquired this ability.

Hearing-aids cost from 400 yuan to more than 1,000 yuan each and must be replaced after a certain period of usage.Therefor, most children wear only one hearing-aid in their most seriously affected ear.

Teachers allow bearing-impaired children to sit in front rows in order to enhance their educational opportunities. If needed, other students sitting beside them explain what the teachers have said. A parent contact book for each deaf student contains timely reports of the child's progress and provides an avenue enabling parents to submit questions to the school.

Principal Bai said the children have a strong sense of self-preservation. The fact that the school asked all students to care for them fostered their sense of well-being, and instilled the feeling that they deserved assistance. So the teachers told them that other people also need their care and help.

"We strive to create an appropriate study environment which enables these children to overcome their inferiority complex and live as normal children.This in turn enables them to work and live as normal people in the future,"said Bai.

The children responded enthusiastically when asked what they wanted to do in the future. Chen Yin said, "I want to be a football star." The somewhat shy Yu Menghui said, "I want to be a fashion designer." Other occupations mentioned by the children included artist, medical massager and computer specialist. Wang Wei, who sat quietly in the corner, responded, "I want to be a primary school teacher just like our teachers."

New Fate

Teacher Sun Wei provided individual instruction for six-year-old Hu Sibin in a small room at the Beijing Xinyun Nursery for Mentally Handicapped Children.

The teacher placed a stuffed bear, a ruler and a notebook on the table. The child quickly responded when the teacher asked him to pass the bear to her. The teacher then asked the child to follow as she moved the bear to and fro.The teacher explained that the exercise was designed to increase the child's attention span.

She then asked the child to use a ruler to draw a horizontal line. He com pleted the task, and the teacher wrote "good" on the paper and clapped her hands as a sign of encouragement.

The last training exercise centered on using pictures to teach characters. The teacher showed the child pictures for two characters. She recognized his correct response with "Clever boy!"Hu smiled proudly.

The teacher then showed him a pic ture of an accordion and asked what it was.

"Shoufengqin (accordion)," said the boy distinctly.

"Wonderful," said the excited teacher. "This time you didn't miss the character 'feng'."

Sweat trickled down the teacher's face during the 20-minute, individualtraining session. However, she was pleased with the child's progress.

According to Sun, the child's mental disability was the result of a lingering high fever when he was a baby. He was admitted to the nursery with an IQ of slightly over 20. He lacked the ability to speak, his attention span was negligible, and he was unable to exhibit coordinated hand movements. After only one year's training, however, the child can utter three-character phrases.

Sun, a young woman of 20, teaches 18 profoundly retarded children between the ages of three and 12. She provides 20-minute individual training for each child daily.

The children have poor memories,said Sun. Their inability to concentrate makes reading, writing and arithmetic quite difficult. They have no concept of numbers, and thus arithmetic is extremely difficult.

Sun seizes every opportunity to teach simple arithmetic by encouraging students to count. She asks them to count the number of people and cars on the street and plays a game in which they have to use the right number to get a cartoon fish. Brightly colored teaching materials are used to stimulate their interest. Following various periods of training, most children can add and subtract numbers below 10.

"Mentally handicapped children also have emotions and thought processes. I primarily consider them as growing children, and then think about their mental problem. Good teaching methods can only be effective when we exhibit respect and love for the children," said Sun.

The nursery was founded in 1986 by Mao Yuyan, a research fellow of the Psychology Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Mao believes that early intervention into cases involving mentally handicapped chil dren between the ages of three and seven may help to upgrade their IQs.

Mao completed a decade of research before publishing his Handbook on Early Education for Mentally Handicapped Children. Mao joined with the parents of mentally handicapped children to raise funds to establish the nursery in order to provide a base for practicing training methods outlined in the textbook and to increase public awareness of the need to help such children.

The nursery's 56 children are grouped in three classes according to their conditions of mental retardation.Each class has two teachers, one of whom is responsible for care and the other for teaching. The children receive individual training in addition to participating in singing, recreational and outdoor-exercise activities. Individual notebooks record each child's training progress.

Prof. Mao trains teachers and monitors activities every weekend. Over 70 children have graduated from the nursery and have been admitted to Beijing's 18 primary schools for mentally handicapped children, and two children have entered regular primary schools.

(Beijing Review p.15 No. 24, 1996)


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