China's Top Departments: Child Health Care & Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Fudan University (Shanghai)

If you are a parent worried about your child's development — early autism red flags such as limited eye contact or not responding to their name, a speech and language delay, suspected ADHD, or growth and feeding problems such as short stature, underweight or extreme picky eating — the Department of Child Health Care (Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics) at the Children's Hospital of Fudan University, known to Chinese families as "Fudan Children's," is one of the most authoritative destinations in China for exactly these concerns, combining nearly 70 years of child health expertise with a nationally leading early autism program.

Department Overview

The Department of Child Health Care of the Children's Hospital of Fudan University (formerly a Child Health Group) was founded in 1954 and is one of the earliest units in China to carry out child health work. After nearly 70 years of development, it has become a professional department integrating child health clinics, child developmental behavior, and child nutrition & feeding across medical care, teaching and research, and it ranks among the leading departments nationally in child health and developmental-behavioral pediatrics.

Supported by the hospital's strong platform as a National Children's Medical Center, the department combines clinical and basic research and, in an interdisciplinary setting, focuses on two broad fields: child growth & nutrition and developmental behavior. The hospital has established six major clinical centers (including a Child Development and Rehabilitation Clinical Center) and six supporting platforms, with the Department of Child Health Care as a core force in its developmental-behavioral direction.

Hospital Background

• The Children's Hospital of Fudan University was founded in 1952. It is a budget-management unit of the National Health Commission and a tertiary (Class A) hospital, a comprehensive children's specialty hospital integrating medical care, teaching, research, prevention and management; a national key discipline in pediatrics; and a participant in the national "211," "985" and "Double First-Class" programs.
• Approved as a National Children's Medical Center in 2017; approved as the National Pediatric Quality Control Center in 2020.
• Scale: 651 physicians (including residents) and 848 nurses; 1,000 authorized beds; 50 clinical and technical departments; 246 special-disease clinics and 37 rare/complex-disease clinics; about 2.49 million outpatient and emergency visits and about 49,000 inpatients per year.
• Holds 18 National Key Clinical Specialty construction projects (including neonatology, critical care medicine, pediatric gastroenterology, traditional Chinese medicine pediatrics, pediatric surgery, clinical nursing, and the "improvement of diagnosis and treatment capacity for pediatric neurodevelopmental disorders").
• Houses three provincial/ministerial key laboratories; over the past decade it has undertaken 813 national key R&D program and NSFC key projects and published more than 2,100 high-impact papers.
• The hospital is a National Neonatal Distinctive Health Specialty Base and collaborates with 26 renowned medical institutions in the US, Canada and other countries/regions.

Research Focus

The department focuses on four main directions:

1. Early identification, diagnosis and intervention for autism and related disorders, their underlying mechanisms, and key technologies of machine-assisted systems for early autism diagnosis and treatment;
2. Multimodal EEG and neuroimaging research in children with developmental disorders;
3. Parent–child attachment;
4. Longitudinal research on child nutrition and gut health, and breast-milk composition and child health.

Services and Subspecialties

The department's clinical work spans two fields — child growth & nutrition and developmental behavior:

1. Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics

Diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), global developmental delay / intellectual disability, speech and language developmental disorders, learning difficulties and child behavioral problems, among others.

2. Pediatric Nutritional Diseases

Diagnosis and treatment of short stature, underweight, obesity and various chronic nutrient-deficiency diseases, as well as feeding-behavior problems.

3. Child Growth and Development Monitoring

Covering early childhood development, regular growth-and-development follow-up, feeding guidance and parenting consultation.

4. Early Screening and Intervention for Vision and Hearing

Early screening and intervention for children's vision and hearing, and the pediatric clinical application of brain evoked potentials, among others.

Distinctive Strength: Early Screening, Diagnosis and Intervention for Autism

The department carries out systematic early screening, early diagnosis and early intervention for autism and related disorders — a signature specialty in which it is a national leader:

• The first in China to introduce the internationally advanced early autism intervention model ESDM (Early Start Denver Model) and localize it, training China's first cohort of NDBI (Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention) practitioners;
• Introduced the Griffiths Developmental Scales and participated in their localization, revision and norming;
• Among the first in China to qualify for the internationally recognized autism diagnostic instruments ADOS and ADI-R;
• Currently over 30,000 outpatient visits per year, and over 30,000 person-times per year of various child health and developmental-behavioral specialty assessments and interventions.

Team

• Academic leader / Department Director: Prof. Xu Xiu (徐秀) — over 30 years in the medical, teaching and research work of child health and child development & behavior; specializes in autism spectrum disorder, early childhood development, learning difficulties and ADHD.
• Deputy Director: Dr. Xu Qiong (徐琼), chief physician.
• The team has 6 senior-title physicians and 3 intermediate-title physicians, plus a group of specialist nurses and therapists for assessment and intervention; most of the physicians have overseas training experience.
• Three outstanding basic-science PIs from the Pediatric Research Institute of the National Children's Medical Center have joined the team, supporting clinical-translational research and talent development through long-term deep clinical–basic collaboration.

Research Honors

• "Development of national urban norms for the 0–6 Child Intellectual Development Screening Test" — Third Prize, Ministry of Health Science and Technology Progress Award, 1998;
• "Mechanisms by which vitamin A nutrition affects children's immunity" — First Prize, Ministry of Education Natural Science Award, 2009;
• "Visual perceptual development and early intervention in preterm infants" — Third Prize, Shanghai Medical Science and Technology Award, 2015;
• "Promotion of appropriate technologies for community-based early screening and early intervention of autism spectrum disorder" — Third Prize, Shanghai Medical Science and Technology Award, 2019.

Clinics and Address

• Main campus: No. 399 Wanyuan Road, Minhang District, Shanghai
• Fenglin Clinic: No. 130 Yixueyuan Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai
• Gudai Road Clinic: 3/F, No. 805 Gudai Road, Minhang District, Shanghai
• Hospital phone: +86-21-64931990
• Website: https://ch.shmu.edu.cn/

If this department interests you, you may also want to read about pediatric internal medicine at Children's Hospital of Fudan University and our overview of pediatrics at the hospital.

Note: This introduction is compiled from the hospital's official website (Department Introduction — Child Health Care, and Hospital Introduction) and other public authoritative sources; all figures above are official ones, and no numbers have been fabricated.