China's 2nd basketball team for autistic kids forms in Shanghai

One year after establishing the country's first basketball team to help autistic children boost interpersonal skills, another team for young children was set up in Shanghai on Sunday, one day ahead of World Autism Awareness Day.

Six children approximately 6 years of age formed the first group of players on the young team. Monthly training will be organized for them by the Shanghai-based Children's Hospital of Fudan University, which set up the teams as an effort to help the children communicate and become more integrated into society.

So far, all the players are boys. According to Xu Xiu, a leading expert in autism with the hospital, the ratio of boys and girls suffering from autism spectrum disorder is roughly 4 to 1, and boys may be more inclined to participate in sports, so parents signed them up for the teams.

China has more than 10 million children with autism. Their symptoms include differences and difficulties in areas including social communication skills, motor skills and sometimes intellectual skills, as well as the usual responses to sensory input, such as an unusual sensitivity to sound and light, Xu said.

She said sports are widely acknowledged to help autistic children relieve negative emotions and boost their communication skills and self-confidence.

"And we chose basketball because it requires the players to learn rules, collaboration and competition, which fits what these children need most," Xu said.

Xu said the team that was established last year, which involved 15 children aged 10 to 12 years, proved successful. Most of the children have mastered how to line up, warm up before exercise, catch the ball and shoot hoops, which are quite difficult for them.

"For teams of young children, most of them are challenged with discipline and attention difficulties at school and we want to see whether the sports exercise will help them," she said.