Autism Rehab Center Under Fire After Videos of Abuse Surface

[AGXStarseed]

(Not written by me. The following is a sensitive article, so reader discretion is advised)

Senxi Education Group in Beijing claimed to treat ‘fake autism,’ which it turned into a marketing catchphrase.


Police in Beijing are investigating an autism rehabilitation center after videos exposed teachers abusing children attending the facility, China National Radio (CNR) reportedSunday.

Surveillance camera footage from the Senxi Education Group shows teachers mistreating several children with mild autism, a mental disorder, at their rehab center in the capital. The videos released online this month by parents showed in detail how the children were tied, dragged, beaten, and made to do exercise by the teachers.

The rehabilitation center agreed to release the videos after repeated complaints from parents. A woman surnamed Zhang was among those who pressed Senxi after seeing bruises on her son last month. “It looks like his feet were bound,” Zhang told CNR. “His left ankle is injured more severely, and it had scabs.”

Autism, officially known as “autism spectrum disorder,” is a developmental condition that affects more than 10 million people in China. However, there is still little understanding of the condition, and many parents are left seeking alternative solutions, often ending up at high-priced private institutions like Senxi, which claims to treat “fake autism” and charges up to 14,000 yuan a month.

The institution claims to have coined the phrase “fake autism” to describe children with development disorders. Its website also asserts that more than 90 percent of children diagnosed with autism in China have “fake autism,” and encourages parents all over China to send their children to Beijing for treatment.

In April, the group’s co-founder, Liu Yu, also affirmed on national television that her center pioneered the “gold standard” now used by the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule in China to diagnose and assess autism. But following media reports of abuse, the center’s website has become inaccessible, and the company couldn’t be reached for a comment.

Yang Wenhan, an assistant professor at the School of Public Health at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, told Sixth Tone that only licensed psychiatrists, not rehabilitation centers, are qualified to diagnose autism or any other developmental disorders. He also suggested that children with mild autism do not require intensive treatment, and that centers like Senxi are only profiting from concerned parents.

“We are in a tricky position,” Yang said. “It’s good that there are organizations providing service for children with autism, but you can hardly expect staff with expertise in most of these institutes, many of which we have seen are unprofessional.”

Currently, experts estimate that there are more than 1,000 private institutions across China specializing in educating children with autism. However, the majority are run by people with little or limited experience.

Last year, the death of a 3-year-old boy at an autism rehabilitation center run by a self-taught medical practitioner prompted debate on the continued operation of such facilities. The day before his death, Jia Jia was forced to walk 20 kilometers in temperatures of 27 degrees Celsius in southern China.


Source: Autism Rehab Center Under Fire After Videos of Abuse Surface

 

[Chance]

I simply cant understand any of this. I cant make sense of people so devaluing human life.

 

[oregano]

A few years ago, there were lots of stories in the American media about "boot camp" programs that claimed to "fix" kids who were using drugs or had behavioral problems. The general idea was that kids were dragged out of their rooms at dawn by fatigues-clad mercenaries, then driven to camps in extremely remote locations, usually in the Nevada or Arizona desert, and then forced to perform backbreaking, pointless labor and long hikes in ~40 C heat in order to break them and make them meek and compliant. A lot of the camps were run by wealthy families tied to the Mormon Church, and many of the kids had been sent there by their devoutly Mormon families after openly rejecting the religion. Mormon politicians in the Desert West protected the camps from scrutiny. Eventually the glare of New York media got to be too much, and most of the camps shut down.

It looks as if the business plans were simply sold to Chinese entrepreneurs. China has always been a very regimented society, although not nearly as militarized as Japan, and "oddity" is not tolerated. The Chinese camps mainly target "internet addiction" and other behavioral problems. The same problems have popped up in China of severe abuse unto death, but surprisingly it has been covered widely in Chinese domestic media, which is tightly controlled by the central authorities in Beijing and which generally aims to present an image of China as a happy place where most people are content with their lives. Usually something like this would be quickly swept under the carpet after the expected bribes were paid.

 

[Butterfly88]

Poor kids. I'm not quite sure why the author refers to autism as a "mental disorder", that makes me think of mental illness and I personally consider autism to be more of a neurological disorder, though it is hard to classify.