Wang Xia (second from left)and other doctors visit a welfare center for children in Shijiazhuang. Wang Ge / For China Daily

Whenever Li watches her 3-year-old son getting along well with other children in the kindergarten, she gets so emotional that tears well up in her eyes. Such scenes, which may seem normal to most parents, used to be beyond her wildest dreams until she met a doctor last October.

"My son was diagnosed with autism in September 2013. I felt at a loss thinking about his future," says the young mother from Zhejiang province, who only wants to be known by her surname Li.

"I could not even touch his hands," she recalls from those desperate days, adding that her son behaved differently from other children of the same age - he never smiled or expressed his feelings to anyone.

Through the Internet, she found out about Wang Xia, a doctor known to treat autistic children. Wang founded a children's rehabilitation center in Shijiazhuang Eighth Hospital in 2011.

Li quit her job and traveled north from Zhejiang to Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei province, to look for Wang in the hope of healing her son.

Half a year has passed and her son Tian Tian has progressed in leaps and bounds. He is now able to interact with his kindergarten friends.

"I thank the doctor for my son's huge progress," Li says.

"Though the cause of the disease has not been identified and there is a lack of a standard diagnosis and treatment methods, there have been some proven effective interventions for such children," she says.