Lighting up the "starry sky" for more than 1,500 families of children with autism

Correspondent Yu Lu, Reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network Li Chao

"Because we are a family, a family that loves each other..." At the beginning of this year, the members of Yangzhou University's "Light Up the Starry Sky" public welfare team sang on the same stage with dozens of "children from the stars", and the scene was warm and touching.

Chen Aiguo, a professor at the School of Physical Education of Yangzhou University, who sat on the stage, felt the responsibility and mission on his shoulders while watching the performance. This is the third year that Chen Aiguo's team has been associated with yangzhou young eagle child development center.

In 2018, under the guidance of Chen Aiguo, the project of "Lighting up the Starry Sky" Sports Rehabilitation Action for Children with Autism was officially launched, and a team of 23 doctoral and master's students covering relevant majors came into being, dedicated to the systematic development and practical application of sports rehabilitation programs for children with autism. In December last year, in the 6th Jiangsu Provincial College Students Sports and Health Industry Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, the project won the special prize.

At present, the project has been extended to 7 major cities in Jiangsu Province, the project team has reached embedded cooperation with 15 hospitals and rehabilitation institutions, and the sports rehabilitation program covers 20.9% of the children in the province, helping autistic children return to family life through scientific assessment, accurate rehabilitation, family guidance, follow-up and other forms, and lighting up the "starry sky" for more than 1500 families.

Focus on the "shadows" in the sun

Autism, also known as autism. According to the "Report ON the Development of China's Autism Education and Rehabilitation Industry III.", there are more than 10 million autistic patients in China, of which more than 2 million are children. According to the latest report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the overall prevalence of autism in 8-year-old children is 1 in 44.

"With unknown causes, no cure, high disability rates, and high morbidity, autism is an incurable and lifelong disease that requires lifelong intervention." Chen Aiguo said.

Since 2011, Chen Aiguo has always focused on the research direction of sports and brain improvement of children and adolescents, and has presided over more than 10 research projects such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Foundation of China, and published more than 60 academic papers in core journals at home and abroad.

"Scientific research should be oriented to the needs of the country, the 'China Brain Project' will include autism in the scope of research on new means of diagnosis and treatment of severe brain diseases, and the relief of autism has become a national livelihood project." Chen Aiguo said.

In 2018, after the launch of the "Light Up the Starry Sky" project, the team found through in-depth visits and investigations that the current rehabilitation treatment effect of autism is not good, and the lack of rehabilitation resources cannot meet the rehabilitation needs of children with moderate and severe diseases.

"It is difficult to treat children with moderately severe autism, there is little room for improvement, and the original lack of rehabilitation resources is more inclined to children with mild disease, making children with moderate and severe disease become the 'last shadow under the sun'." Liu Zhimei, the project leader and a doctoral student at the School of Physical Education of Yangzhou University, said that early intervention can greatly help children with autism recover, effectively reduce the intensity of demand for future care support, and reduce the long-term burden on families and society.

Since then, the team has embarked on the exploration and practice of key services for children with severe autism.

Independent research and development of sports rehabilitation programs

As early as 2016, Chen Aiguo created a multi-path model of sports to enhance the brains of children and adolescents for the first time in China. In 2018, under the guidance of Chen Aiguo, the team independently developed a sports rehabilitation program for children with autism based on this theoretical model and relying on the scientific research platform of Yangzhou University.

"Our project mainly includes four links: scientific assessment, precision rehabilitation, family guidance, and follow-up, of which sports rehabilitation program is the core content of precision rehabilitation." Liu Zhimei introduced.

"The traditional autism comprehensive rehabilitation training mostly takes a one-on-one approach, targeting single symptoms and focusing on static training. On the basis of comprehensive rehabilitation training, we have added a sports rehabilitation program based on small basketball, and built a multi-sensory participation training system of 'combination of dynamic and static'. Cai Kelong, a core member of the team and a doctoral student at the School of Physical Education of Yangzhou University, said.

Cai Kelong said that the small basketball sports rehabilitation program integrates the physical health training of autistic children, sports coordination ability training, sensory integration ability training and social game training mediated by small basketball sports, forming a scientific and systematic "sports rehabilitation prescription library" for autistic children.

After the start of the autumn semester every year, Liu Zhimei and her team members will go to Yangzhou Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Yangzhou Chick Eagle Child Development Center, Yangzhou Xinghang Child Potential Development Center and other hospitals and rehabilitation institutions to carry out systematic rehabilitation practices and continuously improve the rehabilitation program through a large number of practices.

"Our sports rehabilitation program not only improves the motor function of children, but most importantly improves social function in a rich, dynamic, group-based training environment, breaking through the core barriers of autistic children." Liu Zhimei said that the team for preschool or school-age autistic children, in the form of group teaching to carry out systematic small basketball sports rehabilitation training, each group to serve 6 to 8 autistic children, 5 times a week, 40 minutes each time, each training continues to carry out for 12 weeks.

Significantly improves core symptoms of autism

"Grandma and I together" "After class, goodbye teacher"... These words, which seem ordinary to ordinary people, made the family of the little boy Pan Pan shed tears of excitement.

Pan Pan, 4 and a half years old, suffers from severe autism, does not have language skills, and is very sensitive to the external environment. According to Pan Pan's specific situation, combined with basic rehabilitation training, the team formulated an optimized rehabilitation plan for him.

"Through one-on-one basic rehabilitation training, his language ability has been greatly improved, and in the group sports rehabilitation training, his language application ability has been effectively applied and generalized." Liu Zhimei said that from not being able to speak, unable to move independently, lacking the ability to actively socialize and interact, to integrating into a normal kindergarten, after a year and a half of systematic rehabilitation training, Pan Pan's communication barriers have improved significantly, which makes the family and team members feel happy.

"Thank you very much, our children are completely different." At the end of the training, Pan Pan's grandmother brought a box full of grass eggs from her hometown to give to the team's volunteers. So far, Grandma Pan Pan will keep in touch with Liu Zhimei every month, send the child's recent situation, and seek follow-up guidance.

From 2018 to 2021, the team carried out 6 sessions of sports rehabilitation training for children with autism, serving more than 2,800 children. Practice has proved that the sports rehabilitation program can not only improve the children's motor function, but also promote the improvement and improvement of social, behavioral, language and other aspects of ability, and the rehabilitation effect is remarkable, and the improvement rate of the core symptoms of the children is 89.2%.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the team has also made full use of the network to expand the scope of services, shooting videos, sending vibrato, doing live broadcasts, providing online home rehabilitation guidance for thousands of families, and serving more than 60,000 people.

"We hope to make sports rehabilitation an effective 'recipe' in the comprehensive intervention system for children with autism." Chen Aiguo said that at present, the team is standardizing and systematically supplementing and improving the "sports rehabilitation prescription library" for autism, further exploring the intervention effects of different exercise intervention projects and different exercise intervention intensities and frequencies on children with autism, and building exercise intervention programs suitable for children with autism at different ages and different disease levels.

Source: China Youth Daily client