27/02/2018
Asharqia Chamber in its branch in Al-Jubail Industrial City and in collaboration with Fikr Women's Training Center organized a lecture entitled "Skills to deal with learning difficulties." Basma Mohammed Al-Omari, the supervisor of learning difficulties at Fikr Center, presented this lecture and explained that the causes of learning difficulties are still vague. She said that this is due to the novelty of the subject and that the studies have unanimously agreed to link learning difficulties with simple cerebral dysfunction caused by one or more nutritional and behavioral factors for the prenatal mother before birth.
She elaborated, "People with learning disabilities are not weak in all subjects, and they are not the ones who do not attend the classes or neglected doing the homework. However, they are the ones who have difficulty in learning reading, spelling, and mathematics." She called on each mother and teacher to identify the needs of people with learning disabilities in order to help them to reduce/ease their difficulties.
Al-Omari pointed to the importance of special education as a high level of educational services and programs. It includes special modifications in curricula or methods of education in response to the special needs of the total students who cannot meet the requirements of normal education programs. In fact, they are services parallel to the services provided to normal students.
Al-Omari added that the field of learning difficulties was not unified efforts by one specialization, but that different disciplines from different scientific fields have been involved in research and contribution in the field of learning difficulties. However, the scope and quality of the contribution vary according to the period of time the field underwent during its development.
She Pointed out that the actual start of this field in the Kingdom was way back to 1413 AH, when the path of learning difficulties was added to the plan of the Department of Special Education at King Saud University in order to prepare the teachers in this field. She considered the official launch of services for learning difficulties in the field starts only when the Department of Learning Disabilities was established in the year 1416 to supervise the programs of education and children with learning disabilities. The first programs were opened at the primary level in the academic year 1416/1417, and the first programs were opened in the intermediate level in the academic year 1427/1428.
