This article first appeared in Options, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 1, 2019 - April 7, 2019

April 2 marks World Autism Awareness Day. Managing director of Selangor Dredging Bhd Teh Lip Kim speaks to Shalini Yeap about how her personal experience of raising a child who is on the autism spectrum led to the conceptualisation of the property developer’s DNA as well as CSR initiatives that support differently-abled people.

More often than not, in a parent-child relationship, the parent assumes a mentoring position with the child. But every now and then, there may be a reversal of roles and parents find themselves learning from the child, and something beautiful is born from this experience. Selangor Dredging Bhd (SDB) managing director Teh Lip Kim, found herself in this unique position when she discovered that her son Ming was on the autism spectrum.

“In 2006, my eldest son was diagnosed with autism and my whole world collapsed — personally and emotionally. I was thinking, ‘How can I cure him?’ My husband is a doctor but, with autism, there is no medical cure. It was quite a revelation as I had to be him. I had to read into what he was thinking. From every eye contact he made and every word he said, I had to think as if I was him and I had to see things through his eyes,” Teh says.

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