More facilities required for autistic children in Oman, say experts

Muscat: Autistic children in Oman need additional facilities to assist in their development, if they are to be integrated into society.
According to Sabah Mohammed Al Bahlani, Chief Executive Officer for the Association of Early Intervention for Children with Disabilities, “We are the only centre that intervenes when a child is a baby and helps parents to integrate children in larger societies, either in schools or other programmes they can attend,” she said.
The association received government approval in May 2000, though it had been operating since 1998, and works to help children with disabilities until the age of six years.
“A majority of children, when they leave us at the age of six, are integrated into educational programmes. Every year, we have 20 to 40 children graduating from our centre,” she said.
“The early intervention is there, but when they reach the age of 14 or 15, they don’t have facilities to continue. This is the challenge we need to work on as a society.”
This was seconded by Barka Shahbal Al Bakry, Oman’s representative to the International Association for Volunteer Effort.
“The government has a policy in Oman in which they do not conduct any pre-school education, but they subsidise us, instead,” she said.
“In hospitals, the moment they feel a child has a disability, they will tell the parents to visit us. We then teach the mother a list of tasks her baby should be accomplishing. Currently, there are some 3,000 autistic children in Oman.
Expensive institutions
“It’s just that they are different,” Al Bakry added. “We need specialists, and that is what we are lacking now. The institutions that are trying to do something for autism are private and very expensive, so many parents cannot afford to send their children there,” noted Al Bakry.
At one clinic in Oman, for example, parents had to pay OMR45 for a consultation with a specialist, with an additional OMR180 for an IQ test and OMR100 every time a behavioural test is conducted.
“Children who are affected by autism don’t go to government schools because they do not have these programmes, so they go to special private schools that have these centres,” added Al Bahlani. “There need to be other organisations that we can work with in partnership, because we specialise in early intervention.
“We want to work with society and help them understand the pain, struggle and difficulties families are facing when they have a disabled child,” said Al Bahlani.
“This is in terms of a lack of services and an inability to find proper services for their children,. Since they don’t know whom to approach, some of them require counselling and some require technical and financial support.
“If you have a child with a disability, the entire family needs to work together and support each other, or there will be many social problems.” “People are being shamed by society because they have been told they have a disabled child, and some parents are ashamed of this, as well,” explained Al Bahlani. “This is changing in Oman, and especially younger parents are coming forward with their children.
“But there is still a stigma in society, and even if parents are accepting it, the larger society is not aware of this,” she added.
“Children in school need to be educated about children with disabilities and understand their limits so that they can learn to work with them.
“The thing we are lacking the most when understanding these children is communications, because they have their own way of communicating and learning things,” added Al Bakry.
“You may be disabled in some form, but it is never that everything will be taken away from you. Something will manifest in greater ways than others.”
Al Bahlani emphasized the need to create a conducive environment for those with disabilities.
“In a park, there should be facilities for children with disabilities,” she said. “They should have easier access to hospitals because an autistic child cannot cope with sitting for a long time in a hospital.
“We have to provide schools, provide services, provide entertainment, and not forget that you need to have facilities that everyone can participate in, otherwise the whole family will suffer.”