Therapy for kids with special needs: Call for more protection and standards

This comes as parents turn to private sector for services and need help to navigate the space

- Thian Wen Li

When housewife Safirah Oshin, 33, first hired a behavioural therapist in 2018 for weekly home sessions to help her then five-year-old son Ali, she did not imagine the prolonged distress it would cause her family.

The therapist from a private centre was supposed to teach her son, who has autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, how to cope better with his tantrums.

After four months, she saw some positive changes in her son, who is non-verbal. He could remain in his seat to do tasks and express his needs.

But one day, she noticed Ali running out from a therapy session in tears and locking himself in another room, she said. From closed-circuit television footage, she saw the therapist had grabbed Ali by the neck and handled him roughly.

The therapist was later fired by the company, said Madam Safirah, who also made a police report. But because there were no physical injuries and Ali was not able to verbally recount his experience, not much else could be done, she added.

As parents of children with special needs, like Ali, turn to the private sector due to long wait times for subsidised support, industry practitioners say more protection and standards are needed to help them navigate the space.

The lack of national standards results in varying practices and quality across service providers, they added.

These services could be offered by the likes of behavioural therapists and educational therapists, as well as psychologists, who are currently not regulated under the Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC). Such services may cost a parent $150 to $200 an hour or higher.

From 2019 to 2023, the Response, Early Intervention and Assessment in Community Mental Health service and the Institute of Mental Health's (IMH) Child Guidance Clinic saw a yearly average of about 200 new cases of children with autism spectrum disorder, said Dr Goh Tze Jui, principal clinical psychologist at IMH.