Vietnam lacks system to nurture its 1 million autistic people

That belief came through clearly during the meal. Eating an excellent roasted chicken there changed my assumptions.

The greetings were not always clear, and some gestures felt awkward. But their commitment to professional standards impressed everyone at the table.

This was not a charity project. It was a humane ecosystem that empowered vulnerable people to become useful members of society instead of pushing them to the margins.

Vietnam faces a far larger challenge.

The country is estimated to have more than one million people on the autism spectrum, and the number continues to rise. Roughly one in every 100 children is born with ASD. But despite this reality, public awareness remains limited. Many parents, and even some medical professionals, still view autism as a sickness that requires medication.

Stigma pushes families to hide their children. As a result, tens of thousands lose the golden window for early intervention.

Autism, however, is not a sickness. It reflects a difference in neurodiverse development. History offers many examples. Figures such as Albert Einstein, Mozart and Elon Musk are widely believed to fall somewhere on the autism spectrum.

They perceive the world differently.

When education places them in the right environment, those differences can turn into excellence.

Awareness alone is not enough. A deeper gap separates Vietnam from many developed countries in terms of resources. The United States, for example, stands about 60 years ahead in special education. With a population of 350 million, it has around 75,000 behavioral therapy specialists for children with ASD and related developmental disorders. Vietnam, by contrast, has only four IBT specialists for nearly 100 million people, according to the International Behavior Analysis Organization.

The system also lacks coherence.

Vietnam still does not have a unified guideline for designing and implementing individualized education plans for children with autism.

In mainstream schools, a 2021 report from the Ministry of Education and Training showed, most teachers had no formal training in special education.

Only about 35% had attended short courses on inclusive education.

This severe shortage cannot be solved through empty calls for action. The moment calls for a fair and practical partnership between the state and the private sector through public private partnerships. The state does not need to do everything. It must act as the chief architect and build a coherent policy framework.

In special education, public private partnerships should go beyond land or tax incentives; they must include service commissioning.

In this model, private providers deliver high quality intervention infrastructure, while the state standardizes diagnosis, supports costs and ensures access.

When both sides share the burden, specialized schools can move beyond isolated islands and become part of the national social welfare system.

Policy alone will not change social attitudes. Vietnam also needs a soft but powerful tool to support children with autism and dismantle prejudice, and that tool is art.

Art works as a decoder for disrupted neural communication. Instead of viewing autistic children through a medical lens, art allows society to see individuals with rich inner worlds.

Genuine community art programs give children with ASD the space to draw their own worlds, while the public learns how to read them.

When a single line in a child's drawing moves us, stigma fades without rigid propaganda.

My own path into special education did not begin with expertise. I entered as a father whose twin children were once misdiagnosed on the autism spectrum.

That experience quickly reshaped my understanding of education.

Education should not be a race for grades or achievements. A system obsessed with scores produces people with strong skills but weak humanity.

The Reggio Emilia philosophy urges adults to see children through the children’s own eyes, not through imposed expectations.

In reality, neighborhood culture and success pressure often turn children into symbols of family status.

For autistic children, comparison becomes the most toxic poison.

Without sincere purpose, even the best policies turn into hollow shells. In an era when trust erodes under false values, from opaque charities to social media's obsession with instant success, society must return to human dignity.

Sincere purpose means acting out of moral duty to the community, not for fame, profit or self-display.

"Know thyself," Socrates advised, and his words still resonate.

Only by understanding our strengths and limits can we set aside ego and work toward shared values. Without sincerity in education and policy, Vietnam will never create space for its Mozarts to emerge. The way a society treats its different lotus flowers reflects its level of civilization.

One autistic child may simply be a son or daughter within a family. One million autistic children represent the future resources of an entire nation.

When society no longer treats human potential as private property but as a shared responsibility, every child can finally live with true dignity.