KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 – Over the past ten years, the number of children diagnosed with autism registered with the Department of Social Welfare (JKM) has been steadily rising, from 6,991 children in 2013 to 53,323 children in 2023.
The figures for each year were provided by Minister of Women, Family and Community Development, Nancy Shukri in her written reply to parliament last July 3, as follows:
Nancy was responding to Kuala Nerus MP Alias Razak, who asked for the statistics of children diagnosed with autism in that period.
Alias also wanted to know how the ministry plans to support state governments and the private sector in establishing more autism centres.
“There have been 19,710 disabled people involved in 564 community based rehabilitation (Program Pemulihan Dalam Komuniti, PDK) programmes throughout the country since May 2024,” responded the minister.
She added that since 2024, the allowance for PKD trainees have been raised from RM150 per month to RM300 per month, equivalent to RM3,600 per year.
Additionally, there are 10 institutions for the disabled managed by JKM throughout the country, said Nancy.
“Seven of them are Taman Sinar Harapan (TSH), which provides care, protection and rehabilitation to children with disabilities in the learning disabilities category, including autism; two empowerment workshops that provide job opportunities for disabled people with learning disabilities, including autism; and the Bangi Industrial Training and Rehabilitation Center (PLPP), which provides training for disabled individuals, including those with autism to prepare them for competing in the workforce.”
Nancy added that JKM operates 11 disabled child care centres (TASKA OKU) that provide services to six categories of disabled children including Down syndrome, autism, vision, hearing, physical and learning disabilities.
There are currently two early intervention autism centres operated by the Ministry of Education, which are the PERMATA Kurnia Center, Kuala Lumpur and the Early Childhood Education Center PERMATA Integration, Putrajaya.
“Various programmes and initiatives have been and are being implemented by the government to create autism centres throughout the country, involving the cooperation of state governments, the private sector as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs),” said the minister.
“Among them is the ANIS Centre (which provides early intervention services for special children born in Selangor) in collaboration with the Selangor state government and also the One Stop Early Intervention Center in collaboration with the Sarawak state government.”
