Cheered on by her classmates, 11-year-old Wu Ting-yu (吳婷諭), who has achondroplasia, climbed Hsuehshan’s (Snow Mountain, 雪山) 3,886m summit last month.
Eleven sixth-year students from Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Elementary School’s special needs class climbed Hsuehshan as a field exercise in their “mountain and wilderness education” course, whose challenge level was designed to incrementally increase as the pupils age, teacher and expedition leader Tsui Te-lung (崔德龍) said.
Wu’s congenital disorder is commonly known as dwarfism and she is just under 1m tall. She routinely experiences poor balance when walking, which made her ascent to the summit — which took four days and three nights — particularly challenging, Wu’s mother said.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Elementary School
“She spends twice as much energy and time as her peers,” Wu’s mother said about the climb, adding that her daughter had very close ties with her classmates and that she loves a good challenge.
“[Wu] came home and complained that she was tired and said that she is never going to climb another mountain again. However, as soon as she recovers from soreness, she will be all about taking up new challenges,” Wu’s mother said.
She said she was touched to learn that her daughter’s friends waited patiently for her and encouraged her throughout the expedition.
Mountain climbing has helped other pupils in the special needs class, parents said.
Siao An, another student in the class who has a mood-related disorder, has seen improvements in her condition thanks to climbing, developing her tolerance to frustration and her ability to stay on tasks, while reducing her phobia of heights, her mother said.
Although she considered pulling Siao An out of the Hsuehshan expedition, she is now glad that her daughter soldiered on to reach the summit, Siao An’s mother said.
The students have a wide variety of developmental issues, ranging from Asperger’s syndrome to autism, epilepsy and mood disorders, with the lack of tolerance to frustration being the most common problem, Tsui said, adding that mountain climbing gave students a means to address them.
“I kept reminding them that they should think about things they are not good at and that Siao An is slower because her condition is unique,” Tsui said.
The expeditions start for the special needs students in their fourth year and the school this year gave commendations to all of its students for their successful ascent to Hsuehshan’s summit, Tsui said.
The school said that a mountain climber who encountered the students during the climb, has sent a photograph picturing them in front of the sign marking the summit.
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