A special education school in Liaoyang City, northeast China's Liaoning Province has become the hope for autism children as the teachers there have devoted themselves to exploring innovative and unique teaching methods for the children of the stars.

At 08:00 on a Thursday in late March, Li Ziwei, head teacher of the autism children's class in the special education school, was waiting outside the school gate. After all the children in the class arrived, she led them into the classroom together.

Her class has a total of 13 students and all of them are boys with severe autism. The oldest student is nearly 18 years old, while the youngest is under 9 years old. The student who studies in the class the longest has been there for a decade.
"I love French fairy tale story The Little Prince very much. I feel that these children are like the little princes from another planet. They are innocent and pure. That's why I named our class the Manda Star. Our children are also known as the children of the stars, beautiful from afar but distant from people," said Li.

Li launched the roller skating course at the school several years ago. The sport is more than just playtime. It is a sensory integration therapy activity for autistic children that can help them focus and behave better and lower their anxiety.
"Roller skating can train their sensory integration capability, which is related to the vestibular system. Many children with autism struggle with balance, poor attention, and timidity. Roller skating can develop these abilities, allowing them to improve their balance, coordination, and become braver," she said.

However, the school's physical education teachers were very surprised when they first heard that Li would teach these autistic students roller skating.

"We used to think that children with autism sometimes had difficulty in walking and couldn't even stand steadily on roller skates. However, through Li's gradual efforts and dedication, these children achieved excellent results in the provincial Special Olympics. This brought a lot of inspiration and confidence to us physical education teachers," said Liu Peng, a physical education teacher.

"I always say that our children are like little snails. My daily task is to take these little snails for a walk. At first, we might be laughed at, but in fact, because of the slow pace, I can appreciate a kind of life scenery that others rushing by cannot experience," said Li.

When Li started to work at this special education school 17 years ago, few children with autism were receiving education at the campus.
"These children didn't have the opportunity to receive education before. Ziwei believed that these children should have the same right to education, but they didn't have the chance to enter a school. So, she volunteered herself," said Mao Tong, the principal of the school.
Mao supported Li's idea, and they opened the first class for autistic children in 2009. The school now has 10 classes for autistic children.
"At that time, there were probably very few schools (for children with autism) in Liaoyang or even in the whole province. I think that these children also have a need for education. After studying special education for so many years and becoming so professional, I believed that I could handle it. But when the children came, I realized that not a single child resembled what the textbook has described. Each child was unique. The teaching methods I designed and thought about for so long worked for the first child, but when the second child came, they didn't work anymore. Then I had to come up with a new method to educate the second child, which could not work on other children either," said Li.

In order to teach autistic students how to write and recite poems, she found Li Yanping, an inheritor of traditional Chinese performance art kuaiban, or clapper talk, which is an intangible cultural heritage of Liaoyang City.

"She told me that she wanted to teach the children kuaiban, and I questioned whether the children could learn it. Even for us, it can be challenging to learn, as learning kuaiban requires the coordination of gestures, the eye expression, body movements and the gait. Actors have to express emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, fear, and surprise," said the kuaiban inheritor.

By taking kuaiban course, just in a span of three years, the students have been able to recite over 40 traditional Chinese poems and around five fables.

"Before my son went to school, I, his mother, was the only one who could understand what he said, and others could not. In the language teaching, Teacher Li taught them to recite traditional Chinese poems, children's songs, and play kuaiban. Four pages of kuaiban, each page has more than 20 sentences, he can perform it exceptionally well," said the mother named Ha Le.
Li has kept exploring educational methods and approaches for children with autism. In addition to roller skating and kuaiban, she also established an African drum performance team.