Special Needs - schools and facilities

I am looking for opinions from Teachers and parents of special needs children about their experiences in Hong Kong. I would be really interested in also sending a questionnaire as I am currently studying Special needs at University here.


Kind Regards

Hello! I just wanted to let families know that International Christian School has recently received approval from the EDB to start a new program for students with special needs. There will be places in a self-contained class for seven students aged from 5 years old with moderate to severe disabilities, such as Down Syndrome, Global Developmental Delay, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. If you know any families who are searching for an English program in Hong Kong for their child with special needs, please urge them to contact the school as soon as possible.

and charging an extra $10K for the pleasure! As far as I know, ESF is the only International School providing placements for special needs children without charging anything on top of their regular school fees. All other schools I've contacted charge anything from $13K to $30K per month. Then on top of school fees there are also speech therapy, occupational therapy, physio therapy etc etc that charge approximately $800 for each 45min session.


Sorry. Just needed to vent.

You mean you didn't know that all English speaking people are rich and ones with special needs children own their own banks!?!?!?

Very sad indeed , however brutal truth that is! am having a tough time finding something for my son too. seems for now being on the waiting list for a local intergrated kindergarten is all there is to do. no way can afford the fees.

I am moving to HOng KOng soon for my son with ASD. Is it really that expensive? How about the child development center. help

I think you'd be able to get some good advice from the child development centre, I assume you mean at the Matilda. They sometimes post on here too, so keep an eye out or do a search. I don't think it is always that expensive. My daughter is in an ESF school where there are always a couple of special needs kids.

You could also contact the folks at the Springboard Project.

http://www.growingtogether.org.hk/springboard/

For pre-primary kids there is Watchdog, Child Development Centre at Matilda and The Rainbow Project. Autism Partnership used to have a Little Learners class but they're stopped that. My son attended that class and even though they charged 10K per month, it really made a huge difference. After that, my son attended Watchdog and we paid $4,000 per month for 2 x PM sessions that included speech therapy, occupational therapy, physio therapy and small group teaching. Then because I also wanted my child to interact with typically developing peers, he also attended 3 PM sessions at a Int'l kindergarten which charged $3,800.


For primary aged children, from recent experience, they really are THAT expensive. My child has just been accepted into the Learning Support Class in ESF which is such a relief because I just pay the usual school fees. If I remember correctly, Springboard is about 12K. Autism Partnership is about 17K. Child Institute of HK is about 27K. Rainbow Project is about about 14K. There are a few others too but I've basically erased them from my brain after their fees blew me away.


Don't quote me on the above fees but it will give you a rough idea on what you're looking at.


For individual therapy sessions, they are approx. $700 per 45mins. So say you child requires OT, ST and PT once per week, that'll be $2,100 per week. There are some cheaper ones but the English standard is so bad that my child usually ends up correcting them when they speak LOL. If you want native English speakers then you're looking at $900 per 45mins.