Category Archives: Articles & Journals

Iconic landmarks in Singapore, from Marina Bay Sands to the Esplanade and Clemenceau Bridge, will light up in purple at the end of this month to celebrate those with special needs. This lighting up of 16 buildings and bridges from Oct 29 to Nov 5 is one of the new features of the annual Purple […]

Parents who reproduce later in life are more likely to have children who develop autism disorders, according to a large Danish study. Over the past 30 years numerous studies assessing the effect of late reproduction have produced variable results, often due to substantial differences in study design. Now researchers from the Copenhagen Centre for Social […]

My perception of what’s “normal” changed after meeting a 17-year-old-boy with mild autism, writes Lam Shushan – but not before I nearly quit on him. SINGAPORE: We sat in the living room in silence, flashing polite smiles at each other every now and then. I looked at the big wall-mounted clock in front of me, […]

SINGAPORE: Like any parent, Madam Jennifer Ng had concerns about her nine year-old son’s safety when he first started learning how to swim six years ago. “He was only three, which is actually very young, and I thought the water is so deep, so how is he going to swim when he can’t even stand […]

SINGAPORE – One choir hails from an Ivy League university, has a history that goes back 70 years and is in Singapore as part of its two-month world tour. The other, just four years old, is made up of students with autism from a special education school. But both share a love for music. Harvard […]

A blue, dinosaur-printed pouch, carried by Ho Ching, the wife of Singapore’s PM on a state visit to the White House, has stolen the limelight. Priced at just $11 (£8), the pouch was designed by a Singaporean student at Pathlight, the country’s first autism-focused school. PM Lee Hsien Loong and Ms Ho have been in […]

You can say it’s music to the ears of the people behind the Purple Symphony, which is touted as Singapore’s first inclusive orchestra and started just last year. It has received $450,000 from sovereign wealth fund GIC to launch an award programme that will provide weekly music lessons for members with special needs. The sum […]

Counting money is a critical functional skill for all students. For children with learning disabilities but average intelligence, money not only gives them access to things they want to purchase, it also builds a foundation for understanding the base ten system of numeration, which will help with decimals, percents and the metric system, vital for […]

Measles has been an uncommon disease since Singapore introduced compulsory vaccinations in 1985. But last year, Dr Low Kah Tzay, a paediatrician at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, saw a patient with the extremely contagious disease. He was 11 months old and had yet to be vaccinated. “He had a very high fever, rashes and seizures, and […]

Iconic structures and buildings of institutions in Singapore such as the Helix Bridge, National Gallery, St Andrew’s Cathedral and Khoo Teck Puat Hospital are going blue for a cause this month. Blue is the universal colour of autism and the light-up is part of a campaign meant to mark World Autism Awareness Day, which falls […]