Unpredictable and repetitive behaviour is typical for children whose wellbeing is affected by autism, and the disorder’s symptoms and severity vary greatly. Nuha Fithriya Nafisa,14, does not speak, and sits in the bottom 20% of the autism pyramid. This means that, in order for her mental health and cognitive function to significantly improve, she’ll require an enormous amount of effort from her parents.
According to Krisnadi Yuliawan Saptadi, Nuha’s father, ‘Nuha was first diagnosed with autism at the age of one year and two months. My wife and I tried to deny it and search for options to cure our daughter, but deep down we knew Nuha was different from other children.’ One thing Nuha struggled with was making eye contact, which Adriana S. Ginanjar, a psychologist and principal of Mandiga – a school in South Jakarta for children with autism – explains is a pervasive trait among autistic children.
‘Some 10 years ago we used to force autistic children to look us in the eye, but nowadays we do not do it anymore as the understanding of autism has increased,’ he says. ‘We teach children to count, read, write and also useful everyday knowledge, for example how to behave in a supermarket. Of course, the levels of the students are very different and some can only learn around 20 new words.’
Nuha has attended Mandiga since she was two, after her father discovered the school through Yayasan Autisma Indonesia (YAI), or the Indonesia Autism Foundation. He comments, ‘This school and therapy centre is like a blessing, otherwise I have no idea how we could afford even the basic education and therapy for Nuha.’ He added, ‘when I almost gave up hope of ever communicating with my daughter, one of the teachers at Mandiga managed to ‘unlock’ Nuha’s silence by teaching her to type with a simple device.’
YAI founder and chairwoman Melly Budhiman notes, ‘In Indonesia, all the therapies needed have to be paid for by parents. A middle-class family struggles to pay for the full range of therapy, since it is very expensive. No insurance company is willing to take on an autistic child. The government has just begun to realize the needs of autistic children during the past two years, but nothing concrete has been done to help them yet.’
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