2 April marks the World Autism Awareness Day. To raise awareness of autism, the 2012 Autism Summit will be held by Heep Hong Society jointly with ESF, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, The University of Hong Kong and The Child Development Centre in March. Experts from Autism Speaks and the World Health Organization will present relevant research focused on the economic impacts of autism, the intervention costs, effectiveness and future economic consequences. Highlighting that by treating autism early, we can change young lives for the better and this will later save on special education and welfare costs.

Dr York Chow, Secretary for Food and Health of HKSAR will be the officiating guest. Apart from overseas experts aforementioned, members of education and non-profit communities from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland, such as Chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission of Hong Kong, will also gather at the summit to make speeches on various topics.  Mr Peter Au Yeung, Assistant Director of Heep Hong Society, will share the findings of a large scale survey on parental stress of children with autism conducted by Heep Hong Society in collaboration with The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and introduce the support services offered by Heep Hong Society to help relieve the stress of parents and enhance their coping ability.

Sponsored by Goldman Sachs, the Autism Summit will be held at 9:00am – 5:00pm on 31 March 2012 (Saturday) at ESF Centre, 25/F, 1063 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong with English as the medium of communication. Please click here for details.