In cooperation with the Association of Families of Autism in the region, Asharqia Chamber organizes an open meeting on the integration of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders in the society.
In cooperation with the Association of Families of Autism, Asharqia Chamber, represented by the Businesswomen's Center, organized a meeting on Tuesday, 17 April 2018, on ways to integrate people with Autism Spectrum Disorders in the community. Nayef Al Saqer, Training Consultant, and Qassim Qahl, a Psychologist, were the speakers and Sami bin Thabit Saleh, a Specialist in speech and swallowing difficulties, was directing the dialogue. They all stressed the difficulty of recovery from autism, but early detection and accurate diagnosis can reduce the incidence of the disorder and cause improvement and progress in treatment. They pointed out that the integration is carried out through a set of special controls that begin to prepare the community to accept them while providing the appropriate environment for them.
Dr. Sulaiman Al-Saqer pointed to the importance of early intervention in improving autism. He stressed that early intervention should be even before marriage through intensive courses-for those who are willing to marry-in how to deal properly if they noticed one of their children with signs of autism. The parents' denial of the injury to their children is resulting in several disadvantages, e.g., the delay in going to specialized centers, which makes the situation worse.
On the integration of people with autism into society, Alsaqar said that the integration is going to be a social and an educational integration of children with disabilities with ordinary children. But, it should be carried out in accordance with special controls and regulations, particularly with regard to the integration of the school. Also, providing the factors that are contributing to the success of the integration process would help and ease this process. For example, the acceptance of the ordinary students to students with disabilities could be done through preparing them psychologically to accept the differences. In addition, the presence of special education teacher next to the teacher of the regular grade is going to be mandatory, which the teacher must be well trained to work with all cases in order to facilitate the delivery of information to them. They must consider the accurate choice of persons with disabilities, who will be integrated into regular schools after a comprehensive study of their different abilities, and the accurate preparation of the surrounding environment such as classrooms and all needs and supplies.
Mohamed Qahl spoke about diagnosis and early intervention. He said that proper diagnosis accompanied by early intervention leads to a smoother integration of people with autism in society. He pointed out that the diagnoses are of three scales according to the criterion of comparison (Dsm-iv), which are: communication, social interaction, and typical behaviors. According to the standard (Dsm-v), there are two variables, which are communication and social interaction.
He stressed the need to keep the family away from the state of denial, which results in a significant delay in the provision of treatment. He pointed to the importance of early detection in improving the state of autism, which requires sufficiency in specialists and team work with adequacy in tools and standards, as well as family responses and objectives in order to identify the type of disorder and associated disorders, as well as the child and the characteristics of dealing with it.
At the end of the meeting, Anoud Al-Ramah, a member of the Board of Directors of Asharqia Chamber, gave memorial shields to Mr. Nayef Al-Saqer, Training Consultant, Mr. Qassim Qahl, Psychiatrist, and Professor Sami Saleh, Speech and swallowing Difficulties Specialist.
