Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. I would like to start by saying how honored I am today to be speaking on behalf of families with special needs particularly autism in Bangladesh.
It’s been estimated that 1 in every 110 individuals, or about 1% of the world’s population, suffer from an autism spectrum disorder. What does that mean when a country like Bangladesh has a population of 162,220,762? Unfortunately, in many developing countries like Bangladesh we have no data for how many children or adults suffer from this lifelong debilitating developmental neurological condition. Needless to say this and many other scientic and medical questions need to be addressed urgently.