TWO centres for autistic children age between two and six will be opened next August following the success of the first Permata Kurnia centre in Sentul, says Permata Kurnia director Dr Hasnah Toran.

“On the instruction of the Prime Minister (Najib Razak), we’ll open two more centres in August next year – in Alor Setar, Kedah and Malacca,” Hasnah told reporters in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon after the launch of a revamped website for people with disabilities by Bakti.

Hasnah said the centre in Sentul, opened in December 2015, currently caters to about 320 children with autism.

“Even then, the waiting list is very long. We’ve at least 200 children on our waiting list,” she said.

She added that parents from Kedah, Johor and Labuan are willing to travel weekly to Kuala Lumpur for their children to attend their programmes.

“The demand (for special needs educators for children with autism) is very high,” she said.

Hasnah said her staff have also developed two free online courses in Malay and a weekly tutorial video for parents who have autistic children.

“We’ve received a lot of queries from parents, about how to play with their child, how to toilet train them… We hope to develop more courses for them in future,” she said.

Noriani Daud, 36, a physician from Selayang Hospital, said the behaviour of her four-year-old son with autism has improved tremendously since he started attending the weekly programme in Sentul in April.

“Previously he wouldn’t talk, has poor eye contact with us and was isolated from his siblings.

“Now he can call mommy, abah, and can at least tell us what he wants, and socialise with his siblings and other children. It means a lot to me,” said Noriani.

Mariam Abdul Malek, 41, a freelance property agent from Puchong, said her five-year-old son is less aggressive and can communicate better after attending Permata Kurnia’s programme in August 2017.

“I didn’t know how to handle him. My four other children are normal. But after the teachers taught us how to communicate with each other, my son has learnt how to talk and show me what he wants,” said Mariam.

Hasnah said based on the World Health Organisation estimates, one in 10 people are autistic, there could be some 310,000 people with autism in Malaysia’s population of 31 million.

Permata Kurnia is one of the early childhood educational programmes under Permata, a brainchild of the prime minister’s wife Rosmah Mansor.

Rosmah was also present at the launch of the revamped website, the Malaysian Information and Network for Disabilities, originally launched by Bakti in 2004.

It seems to be a well-designed website which includes options for visually impaired people.

The Prime Minister’s Department funds the Permata programme. – November 6, 2017.