Permata Kurnia Centre to work with relevant ministries to develop national plan for autism

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PUTRAJAYA: The National Permata Kurnia Centre, a centre specifically built for children afflicted with autism, will bring on board other relevant ministries to develop a national plan for the condition.

The prime minister’s wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor said the centre would also be working closely with the women, family and community development ministry to make it a centre of excellence, as envisioned by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak Tuesday.

“As First Lady, I have opened the doors. The wheels have been set in motion,” said the patron of the Permata programme when delivering her closing remarks at the International Seminar on Autism 2014 (Isam 2014) here at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre yesterday.

Officiating the seminar, Najib said the centre would be the first-ever project for children with disabilities, to be fully funded by the government, and would provide early intervention and early childhood special education to 300 children with autism, aged between two and six.

Rosmah said research and development (R&D) were important to make work regarding the issue evidence-based, and extensive research on the genetic basis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) had given opportunities for finding disease-causing variants and mutations, both de novo and heritable. — Bernama