Al-Hadi Institution for Hearing and Visual Impairment and Language and Communication Disorders organized a seminar on “Autism Between Diagnosis and Early Intervention” in cooperation with Ghobeiry municipality, in the presence of the institution's director Ismail Al-Zein, the president of Ghobeiry municipality Mohammad Saeed Al-Khansa, and interested people.
The head of the psychiatry section at Hôtel-Dieu hospital Dr Sami Richa spoke about “autism as a pervasive developmental disorder”, pointing out “that rehabilitative treatment depends on each case individually, because its causes are individual and its symptoms are not generalized to all cases”.
He noted that “there is no conclusive medical cause for autism, and that there are probabilities and non-decisive possibilities”, hoping that those present and the parents would “keep away from the fallacies in the definitions of autism: it is not intellectual disability; rather the brain of an autistic person may be distinguished by individual stimuli and talents, and some autistic people may complete their university education and be creative in various matters”.
He explained that “there are studies indicating that the sensation produced by the five senses in a child with autism differs from that of ordinary people, and this matter must be realized and understood”, denying “the illusion that dominates some people that a child with autism attacks others”.
He called for “not measuring one autistic child against another, and that work with an autistic child may be confined to his self-reliance alone, taking into account the outcome of his capacities and his individuality”.
Afterwards Richa answered the questions of those present, followed by an intervention by the remedial educator at the institution Fatima Al-Zein on the factors of successful intervention with a child suffering from autism, the characteristics of team work and the individual plan for each case of autism separately. In conclusion, the president of Ghobeiry municipality affirmed his readiness to cooperate with Al-Hadi Institution in drawing up a strategic plan to be adopted by the municipality to support the opening of a centre for diagnosis and early intervention in the southern suburb.
