Autism Exposed Singapore

We like to thank Autism Exposed Singapore for inviting our Clinical Director, Mr Zhang Liyuan, to be one of the guest speakers.

The topic that he will be covering is the roles of parents, educators and therapists in early intervention for a child with Autism.

Interested party can register at http://www.eventbrite.sg/e/autism-exposed-singapore-2015-a-community-dialogue-on-autism-tickets-16494975917

Autism STEP is now a Baby Bonus Approved Institution!

We are now a Baby Bonus Approved Institution! Below is the scheme that our organisation is approved for.

Child Development Account (CDA) for children eligible for Baby Bonus
The CDA is a special savings account that you open at any OCBC Bank or Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited branch for your child who is eligible for CDA. You can save in the CDA any time until 31 December in the year your child turns 12 years of age. The savings will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to the cap of $6,000 each for the first and second child, $12,000 each for the third and fourth child and $18,000 each for the fifth and subsequent child. The Government will match your savings in the following month.

We thank you for participating in the Child Development Co-savings Scheme, and hope you have found it useful. As part of the Government’s efforts to save the environment, we will stop sending hardcopy updates on Government’s matching contribution to your child’s CDA and the remaining cap, from 1 June 2014. Should you wish to check on the status of your CDA remaining cap, you may login to do so. You would also be able to monitor your CDA deposits and the matching contribution by Government, through your bank statements.

The savings in the CDA may be used to pay approved expenses for all your children approved institution registered with the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) under the Baby Bonus Scheme. These include child care centres licensed by MSF, kindergartens and special education schools registered with the Ministry of Education (MOE) or the Council for Private Education (CPE), early intervention programmes registered with the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) or SG Enable, healthcare institutions licensed under the Private Hospitals and Medical Clinics (PHMC) Act, pharmacies registered with the Health Sciences Authority (HSA), optical shops registered with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) and assistive technology devices providers registered with ACRA or known to either the Ministry of Health (MOH) or SG Enable. The CDA savings can also be used to purchase MediShield or Medisave-approved private integrated plans for all your children. To know if you are eligible for baby bonus, please visit www.babybonus.gov.sg for more information.

A Mindmap of behaviors management

We always try to find out what is the antecedent or cause of a behavior. There are 4 main categories what triggers the behaviors of people with autism. The 4 main categories are as follow:

• Attention – They want your attention
• Escape – It is their way to try to get away from a situation
• Tangibles – There may be a certain tangible (eg. toy, sweet, etc) that they want
• Sensory – They need a sensory input

The picture is a Mind Map of the different reason why a child with autism may exhibit difficult behaviors and how do we deal with them.