[1] Since retiring from show business (partly due to her increasing deafness), she has become a writer and a psychologist, known for her work against child abuse.

Her famous work is "The Wandering Children" (1960) and this made her became one of the biggest teen idols in Hong Kong during the late 1960s, along with frequent co-star Connie Chan Po-chu.

Unlike many child stars, Siao made a successful transition to adult stardom, remaining one of Hong Kong's most prolific and popular actresses.

Having largely missed out on formal education because of her acting career as a child, Siao pursued her studies in later years despite her increasing deafness and the demands of raising a family (she has two daughters by her second husband).

During this time she made fewer films, but her output included highly praised work such as her award-winning performance in Summer Snow (1995) as a middle-aged widow trying to cope with her father-in-law's Alzheimer's Disease.