Laws and Policies on the Education of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in China

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder. ASD is considered a serious challenge to the world’s public health because the causes are unknown and there is no effective medicine for treatment. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) of the United States in April 2018, the incidence of children with ASD rose from 5000:1 in 1975 to 59:1(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2018). Being considered a type of disability with a low incidence before, ASD is today a developmental disorder which is most widespread and has a highest incidence in the world. The number of children with ASD far exceeds the sum of the numbers of children with cancer, diabetes, and AIDS (Geraghty et al. 2010). As a country with the largest population in the world, with the growth in population, the number of special children in China, especially children with ASD, is also increasing gradually. Although China has not conducted a national epidemiological survey on ASD, according to surveys in Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and other places, the ratio of people with ASD in China is about 1%, which suggests that the number of individuals with ASD in the country may exceed 10 million and the number of children with ASD at the age of 0–14 may exceed 2 million and is increasing year by year. The large number of patients with ASD is a huge challenge to China’s education policies and social welfare systems. This requires well-developed education policies and related resources to provide favorable education and rehabilitation training for children with ASD, so that they can be better integrated into society and realize their own value.

Although China has not formulated laws and regulations on special education, and there are still some shortcomings in the development of the legal system of special education, in order to protect the right to education of children with special needs such as children with ASD and ensure that special children can go to school, under the background of China’s national conditions and the development of international special education, the government has enacted a number of policy documents and rules and regulations to guarantee the right to education of special children and regulate the development direction of special education. This chapter will summarize the rules and policies formulated by China for safeguarding the right to education of special children such as children with ASD since the reform and opening-up and introduce the efforts and effective results of China in promoting the development of special education and integrated education.