Help Autism Association, in partnership with the General Directorate for Social Assistance and Child Protection Sector 3, Bucharest, announce the completion of the project "Campaign for early diagnosis of developmental delays". The project, implemented from April 2016 to April 2017, has been a pilot project in Romania aimed at increasing awareness and access to social services in order to facilitate the early detection of children with development delays (language delay, autistic spectrum disorders and associated disorders) by creating the first Autism Help - DGASPC Sector 3 joint service.

The campaign comprised of the psychological evaluation of 613 children aged between 1 and 3, from the district's nurseries and kindergartens, the provision of specialist services for 30 children identified with delays in development as well as conducting a campaign to raise awareness on the rights of children with developmental delays and a good practice guide to assist parents along the path of recovery.

The most important component of the campaign, as well as the novelty of the project, was the assessment of as many children as possible up to 3 years of age, in order to establish the basis of the national statistics on the incidence of delays in development. The results of the evaluation confirm the global incidence, both in terms of gender differentiation and in terms of the total number of children affected by Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

Thus, of the 613 children included in the project, 12 were diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, which is an alarming incidence of 1 in 51 children. The diagnosis occurred more frequently among boys, 1 in 40 than girls, 1 out of 84 but as a total over the world average of 1 out of 68 children diagnosed with this disorder.

At the final conference of the project, held on Friday, April 28, at the House of Arts in Bucharest, Daniela Bololoi, Help Autism President, Georgeta Terciu from DGASPC Sector 3, Cristina Cuculas from The National Authority for the Protection of Children's Rights and Elena Ungureanu, Project Manager traced the conclusions of a campaign that can become a model of good practice for early diagnosis and, at the same time, for the collaboration between the NGO sector and the state institutions.

Elena Ungureanu, project manager, spoke about the nationwide expansion of the results: "We have to continue this process because nurseries and kindergartens in Sector 3 represent only a small part. A large campaign can provide us with more detailed information on the autistic spectrum disorder in our country and at the same time, besides a statistic, we can get a set of measures to ensure a wider range of free services for a larger number of children."

Georgeta Terciu, Director General of Social Assistance and Child Protection, Sector 3, stressed the importance of the partnership between Help Autism and DGASPC Sector 3 for families in the community and reinforced the need for a wider campaign: "It is one of the partnerships that has worked. At the beginning of this project, we already had the experience we have gained over the last 3 years in the Casa Soarelui Recovery Center, but this campaign is a national alarm signal. The incidence of 1 out of 51 children is very high, that is the reason we will take steps alongside Help Autism to initiate a national campaign. Parents should understand that any problem should be assessed by specialists because the chances of the child depend primarily on their open-mindedness and the faster they intervene the better."

On the support for parents and the need for information at the level of society, Daniela Bololoi, the president of the Help Autism  Association, said: "I think it is not anyone's fault for the worrying situation that we are talking about today, but there is a lack of education that we are unfortunately confronted with. Seven and a half years ago I wanted someone to tell me that the diagnosis was not my fault but that my child needed help, I was among the few parents who did not deny the diagnosis but tried to find a solution. This is the advice I give all parents, not to try finding the guilty but act and embrace the decisions they make about their children. I am happy that today we are succeeding to educate, through such projects. We manage to provide information to doctors, teachers, parents, thus helping children get a diagnosis in time and have the chance to recover. "

In Romania, there are about 30,000 people suffering from Autism Spectrum Disorders. In the world, 1 out of 68 children suffer from this disorder. Autism can occur in any family, regardless of race, ethnicity, geographical area, level of education. Autism can not be cured, but with early diagnosis and intensive early intervention, up to 47% of the children with autism can live an independent life. Without therapy, the symptoms of autism and the dysfunctional behaviors worsen over time.

The project is co-financed by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Contribution to the enlarged European Union and has a total budget of CHF 83210.50. The grant is CHF 74889.45 and co-financing provided by the executive agency is CHF 8321.05. For more details on the Swiss-Romanian Cooperation Programme, please visithttp://www.swiss-contribution.ro.