Integration Of Autism Child In Public Schools In Saudi Arabia Is Crucial.

Discuss about the Role Of Integration Of Autism Child In Public Schools In Saudi Arabia.

Overview of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Autism Spectrum Disease (ASD) is a variety of conditions that is characterized by decreased social behavior, language and communication related issues, and several specific type of activities which is unique to the individual (Neale et al. 2012). The symptoms of autism can be observed from the early childhood and after that those symptoms and associated activities persist up to adolescence and adulthood. The primary aspect of autism spectrum disease is that its co-occurrence with a wide range of secondary disorders such as epilepsy, anxiety, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (O’Roak et al. 2012).

While discussing the epidemiology of ASD, it should be discussed that ASD is a wide spread disease that affects people all over the world. Every 1 in 160 children is affected with this disease and the prevalence has been observed in low and middle income countries more than any developed or high income countries (Baio 2012). The occurrence of disease has been increased in past 50 years and the primary reason behind this as people has become aware of this disease and are reaching to healthcare facilities to diagnose this disorder and utilize intervention related tools. In spite of this increased social awareness, there are several prejudices in the society that affects the fundamental needs of children affected with this disorder (Christensen et al. 2016). One relevant issue related to this is the educational need of children affected with ASD. To overcome the issue, several special schools have been prepared in each country of the world, however that does not serve the purpose of keeping these ASD affected children at the same level with children with no disabilities (Neale et al. 2012).

Mainstreaming is a term that is quite relevant in protecting the fundamental development and educational rights of children affected with any disability. According to this, the mainstreaming process puts a children affected with disability in a classroom where other children are not affected with any disability (Brecko, Kampylis and Punie 2014). This process help the children with disability to understand the needs of a proper classroom and enhance their ability to cope up with the situation by adjusting to it. Further the less restrictive environment helps them to develop their mental strength and ability (Barton and Tomlinson 2012). However, according to the rules of this strategy, the disabled children are kept with other peers and after that session they are transferred to a self-contained classroom. Therefore, through this strategy the governments try to fulfill the right of disabled children related to their education, growth and development (Nasibullov and Kashapova 2015).

Epidemiology of ASD

However, such classrooms requires the presence of several healthcare professionals, therapists and nursing professionals as in such restricted situation, the disabled patient might require medical assistance (Chase et al. 2012). Therefore, an occupational therapist is an important aspect of mainstream schooling. Occupational therapists are trained to understand the situation, the person, and his social, mental, behavioral and physical needs and understand the impact of such situation in the life of disabled children (Falkmer 2013). Therefore, in such setting they are required to develop these children’s personal skills and abilities, recommending and providing equipment, teaching them new techniques and so on. Therefore, through these roles in an educational settings, occupational therapists helps to modify the environment for disabled children and changes the way it the task should be done in schools (Missiuna et al. 2012).

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a developed nation and has adequate means to help people affected with ASD. In spite of that the rate of AD is higher in Saudi Arabia and every 18 per 10,000 children are affected with this syndrome. There is very less information regarding the autism spectrum disease and education of such children in Saudi Arabia (Falkmer 2013). The government has already taken tremendous steps in the field of education and research of children affected with ASD, however, the social and mental prejudices of people has persisted and hence, very little information about them has been found (Amr et al. 2012).

The primary aim of this assignment is to understand the state of autism in Saudi Arabia in related to children’s education and providing relevant information so that the link between autism spectrum disease and mainstream schools can be formed. To achieve the aim the objectives has been prepared which are:

• To collect relevant information regarding ASD in Saudi Arabia and governments policies to improve education system will be discussed.
• To understand the effectiveness of mainstream schooling, their role for autism children will be discussed.
• To understand the level of intervention, it will be compared with the educational intervention of the United Kingdom.
• A critical review as well as a literature review will be conducted to understand the effect of integrating autism affected children in public schools of Saudi Arabia.
• To understand the changes that will be required to modify the public schools adequate for children with ASD.
• And finally to recommend several provisions, and services that will be useful in this section.

The government of Saudi Arabia has devoted a considerable amount of its financial and human resources to create an environment that will supposed to help in achieving the goal of education for all (Al-Jadid 2013). In this goal, the inclusion of special schools and mainstreaming schools were also included so that fundamental development of those children can also be made possible. The act related to this policy was enacted by the Saudi Arabian government in the 2001 with the name of “regulations of special education programs and institutes (RSEPI)”. In spite of these, there are several issues that remains unaddressed by the government (Al Mallakh. and el Mallakh 2015). The primary within that is the attitude of educators in mainstreaming schools. Therefore, inclusion and integration are important factors for educational needs of children with ASD as the primary goal or aim of mainstreaming is to develop a balance between regular educational practices and special classes so that the students are aware of the skills and techniques that will help them to grow and adjust depending on the situation (Perna et al. 2014). Further, being at a regular classroom helps to socialize, they will be encouraged to help each-other, develop empathy and stay active. Therefore, the government of Saudi Arabia has focused on these aspects of education and has developed several mainstreaming institutes for the benefit of these children.

Mainstreaming and Education of Children with ASD

To investigate the Saudi Arabian inclusive educational policies strengths and weaknesses, the policies and guidelines should be compared with a developed countries mainstreaming policies (Ball 2012). For this purpose, the educational policy of kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be compared with the United Kingdom. In UK, the entire emphasis of education system is on special education needs and inclusion. These two support system are interactive and people can apply for these supports so that their educational, healthcare plan can be prepared and their progress can be reported. Whereas, the educational policy for special children in Saudi Arabia is differently sectioned (Cook and Odom 2013). In section 1, children are having physical disability, learning disability, poor vision and behavioral disparity has been placed and in group 2 children who have taken education in special educational system are included (Chitty 2014). The education ministry of Saudi Arabia has clearly mentioned that the free primary education will be provide to each children including children with disabilities and for this inclusion purpose, it has implemented the international model and started identifying issues related to education of disabled children from twentieth century when in 1960, the first blind school namely the Al-Noor institute was developed. However, it was not able to remove the thoughts related to inclusion of disabled children in primary education stream (Alharbi and Madhesh 2017). Likewise in USA and UK, the education system started reforming and depending on the United Nations Rights of the Child, this countries started preparing legislations as discrimination of a children based on its ability, race ethnicity was termed illegal (Alexander 2012).

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO also determined the effectiveness of the regulation and further it was observed that Saudi Arabia also developed legislations such as the Disability law of Saudi Arabia (2000), the special education policy of Saudi Arabia (2016) and the general educational policy of Saudi Arabia (1995). Whereas in USA, the educational law was developed by the federal government and sections such as 504 according to which, people with disability possess each right to perform activities at public or private forum as well as created an act namely the “Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)” (Alexander 2012). On the other hand, in UK, modifications were done to the SEN and disability law and a regulation related to the special education needs (personal budget)regulation was created in 2014 and this law was backed by the education act 1996, The SEN code of practice 2001 and the equality act 2010. Therefore, while comparing it was observed that the governments have prepared legislations related to the educational inclusion, however the people of the society are unaware of these facts and hence, their approach towards this critical issue is negative (Cook and Odom 2013). 

Occupational Therapists in Educational Settings

The primary thing that the Saudi Arabian society should learn about is the wide array of disability. When the first disability institution was developed in Saudi Arabia, it was for blind people and hence, all the other disabled people were excluded from the educational system (Ball 2012). This perception still affects the society and therefore a new law related to educational inclusion was developed. This law helps the other disabled group to take part in the regular education system but the numbers are still very less (Alharbi and Madhesh 2017). Besides this the perspective of teachers regarding the children achieving special education or taking part in mainstreaming is a major concern. If the education system of United States and United Kingdom are compared to that of the Saudi Arabia, it can be easily identified all the teachers in these countries starting from primary to higher education are being trained to be able to handle both normal and disabled children. They possess the skills that will be required to help children with disability and take them forward in the education related field (Al-Jadid 2013). Further, training the teachers with special education needs provide the teachers with the opportunity to take part in the education system reform and making it more student oriented. However, in case of Saudi Arabia, during the time of development of special education, not a single teacher was trained and therefore they were not being able to take part in the education policy making or learning plan development (Al-Haj 2012). The government is taking steps to amend the issue and in 2016 has passed a regulation in the special education policy and in which, the government has assigned several important tasks to trained teachers so that they can take part in policy making and education planning process. Further, the Saudi Arabian government should take good points of the United States education system, according to which, the federal government emphasizes on the organization of public campaigns so that the social norms related to special education can be overcome and parents feel safe to send their children in mainstream schools for the children’s educational rights. The government of Saudi Arabia has already started providing regulation sot the schools and colleges to start proving education to the special children (Marsh et al. 2013). The educational institutes are asked to organize campaigns in places where the number of children with special needs are higher and resolve the queries of people related to mainstream education of special education so that the number of disabled children taking regular education classes can be increased (Berliner and Glass 2014). Hence, these are the things that the education ministry of Saudi Arabia should take from the education related policy of United States or the United Kingdom so that a compact and cumulative development enhancing regulation can be achieved for the children with ASD or any other disability (Arar 2012).

Educational Policies for Autism in Saudi Arabia and Developed Countries

To achieve this purpose, this section is destined to provide a literature review that will provide a clear and concise idea regarding the special education and mainstreaming in kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The first research this section will be discuss will evaluate the knowledge of people regarding autism spectrum disease and the right of a children affected with autism. Alnemary et al. (2017) conducted a research to understand the mindset of parents of children affected with ASD and the type of disparities they had to face while proving their children with proper treatment. For the purpose, the researchers conducted an online survey as the government do not provide a cumulative data of children affective with LSD. This data collection system was authentic as more than 60% population of Saudi Arabia uses internet and hence, the data was collected from April to June 2014 and associated groups such as local parent support groups and colleagues were involved in the recruitment process. In the survey informations such as, information of the family, information of the child, the services the children is provided with, including religious and cultural interventions, non-medical interventions, speech therapy, sensory and auditory integration therapy and biomedical interventions such as craniosacral therapy, diet and nutritional therapies (Murry and Alqahtani 2015). Further a questionnaire related to the parent’s information related to autism was also asked to fill as it would provide a concise social concept. In this survey total 238 parents took part and it was found that only 50% parents had completed their higher education and only 36% had prior knowledge related to autism. Most of the children were taking non-medical services (94%) (Weber and City 2012). It was also found that those parents were not aware regarding the mainstreaming and inclusive education as only 42% of disabled children were taking admissions in private schools, whereas 45% children were taking education at their home. Another research was conducted by Alhabri and Madhesh (2017) to understand the Saudi Arabian inclusive education policies and laws and the reach of these laws into public domain. Further the paper reviewed the educational system with “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” or WPR approach as it an important tool for policy analysis and investigation (Shin, Lee and Kim 2012). This paper finds the approach of government towards disability destructive as sectioning disability in several sections affected the policies and regulations. Prior the year 2000, the definition of disability if Saudi Arabia was different and only education for blind disabled people were available. However, the government has currently changed their policy and have included other disabilities in their special education lists. Further the government is providing educational scholarships to 8000 disabled children within which only 10% is for children with ASD. In an another research conducted byAl-Zoubi and Rahman (2016) was aimed to identify the obstacles that the children with disabilities and ASD faces while taking part in the mainstreaming education system further the research also identified the disability resource room issues by conducting a survey with 42 teachers at Najran in kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For this paper the research used descriptive analytical method and for participation total 63 teachers were decided and within that population 42 teachers of disabled children were included. The teachers responded to the questions and it was found that moderate level of obstacles were present in the situation. The education system had weak pre-service academic program and inclusive educational program or IEP was not effective further the teacher also accepted the fact the government did not provided them with enough opportunity to enhance their skills related to special education for disabled children. Another research, conducted by Alquraini(2012) was aimed to determine the teachers and their attitude towards including children with severe ASD or other disability in the mainstreaming education system. This research was very important as most of the children with ASD still do not go to private schools with proper mainstreaming affinity and hence, they lag behind the fast moving education system (Shin, Lee and Kim 2012). Therefore this study was designed to understand the role of teachers in making them integral part of this system. In this opinion related research total 303 teachers took part within which 161 males and 139 female teachers took part in the process. For the analysis of the results a two way analysis such as ANCOVA and one way analysis of variance or ANOVA was used with T test method for data analysis. After the analysis it was interpreted that maximum of the teachers had negative opinion regarding inclusion of children with ASD in the inclusive education system (Alquraini, 2012). Therefore, after going through these research articles it was observed that each section of the educational system had several flaws and it was the duty of government as well as the society to improve them to create an inclusive education system. 

In the previous sections, this paper has described the educational laws, policies and regulations of kingdom of Saudi Arabia and has compared those with United States and United Kingdom to understand the shortcomings and loopholes in the educational process. This section will describe the changes, the education system of Saudi Arabia would require to comply with the governmental regulation and forming an inclusive educational system (Alkhateeb, Hadidi and Alkhateeb 2016). This change can be of several types and will be directed to change several aspects of education system. These areas will be social changes, policy related changes, changes related to facilities, and changes in school system (public) so that maximum number of children with disabilities can take admission in such mainstreaming education system (Rieser 2012).

It has seen that majority of children who are affected with ASD in Jeddah, take admission sin private schools for their educational purpose or study at their own home, but generally avoid the public schooling system. This is because of the poor status of the public school system and increasing incidents of violence in those facilities (Aldabas 2015). The government has already confessed about their poorly performing public education system and has developed a 2030 development goals for the rebuilt and structural reform of educational system. Further, there are several public schools that has started implementing mainstreaming education system, however lacked important aspects of educational system such as occupational therapist, resources room for children with ASD, and healthcare facility for emergency purposes (Al-Seghayer 2014). Further it is also known that most of the public school teachers in Saudi Arabia are not trained to provide education to children with disability. Therefore, they might become reluctant or ignorant to the educational needs of children with ASD. It was evident from the research of Alquraini(2012) where maximum teacher responded negatively for incorporating disabled children in mainstream education system. Therefore, the government should change this aspect and provide training to all the primary and higher educational experts and teachers so that while teaching children with disability they can treat them equally and maintain their dignity.

Further there are several aspects of school, that should be changed other that facilities to make it mainstream ready for children with disabilities (Alnahdi 2014). These include the school climate, formation of curriculum, instructions and evaluation or assessment processes, teacher’s knowledge, educational skills and attitude towards children affected with disability. The school climate should be changed in such a way that it promotes diversity, positive relationship between all the students, and the school should provide awareness to all the facilities, tutors, parents and students so that a base of inclusive education can be formed in the school facility. In the research conducted by Al-Saraj (2014), 73% teachers admitted that the role of school environment is an important factor in building students and teachers attitude in building inclusive education and hence, the government and school facilities should take important steps to change this aspect of public schools to make it mainstream ready. Besides this, the school also modifies its curriculum, assessment and evaluation system so that the children with ASD can also take part in these processes while competing with normal children (Al-Seghayer2014). As well as, the teachers also should be aware of the portions of the curriculum which can be modified so that it can be easily absorbed by the children with disability. For this change, the government should provide instrumental, informational support and professionals developmental goals to the schools so that they can evolve the educational system by complying with the process.

 Teacher’s attitude is also an important aspect for making education system inclusive or mainstreaming. According to Alnahdi (2013), maximum teachers serving for public schools are not trained in teaching disabled children and this is the primary reason they do nit acquire proper attitude that will be helpful in solving problem of such children. Hence, this issue needs to be changed so that their knowledge regarding this can be upgraded (Alnahdi 2014). On the other hand, their knowledge and skills can also be enhanced. In a research the researcher identified that only 35% of teachers agreed that their skills are adequate for implementing inclusive education policy in their educational institute and rest needed skill development training for this purpose. Therefore the government should take proper action to enhance the skills of teachers so that mainstreaming school system can be developed and sustained in kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Al-Saraj 2014). 

Society is the pillar depending on which, the mindset and thinking of a community builds and persists till generations. Saudi Arabia is a country where social reforms are important as there are several prejudices in each aspect that hampers the life of common individuals. One such prejudice is related to the children affected with ASD and it is evident from the fact that most of the parents treat their children with cultural or religious interventions in spite of modern healthcare techniques (Darling and Author 2016). This prejudices does not stops at the healthcare system but also affect those children’s educational needs they are being taught basic education at their home. Therefore the government should effective steps to change this mindset. For changes in this section, areas where the number of children affected with ASD or other severe disability, the government should organize healthcare campaigns and should spread awareness related to educational and healthcare needs and rights of the children affected with ASD (Hodge and Runswick-Cole 2013). Further research also indicated that maximum of the governmental policies for inclusive education and mainstreaming are not known to common people. Hence, the government should take effective steps and change the process of making policies. The process should be modified in such a way that includes each disabled children’s educational and healthcare needs (Al-Saraj 2014).

All the changes mentioned in the above section requires a compact organizational policy and a strong leadership so that all these changes can be easily and strictly implemented in the schools. Bolman and Deal (2017), determines the importance of strong leader in change management related process and states that while going through structural or process related changes, organizations require strong leadership so that those changes can be implemented without any resistance from the teachers. It is important as while change in the process, teachers might face difficulties and therefore resist the change, however, in the presence of effective leadership, the resistance does not affect the implementation process and all the employees or teachers will be included in the change management process (Schleicher 2012). The primary leadership of schools are principals and hence, their activity, their reactiveness, their behavior and attitude towards negative situation is an important aspect for making the education system better and improved (Fullan 2014). In a research conducted by Alhammad(2017), teachers who took part in the process confessed that their school principals are not proactive and are always reluctant to their demand of training for disabled children education strategies. Further, more than 60% teachers agreed to the fact the school administration have included the disabled inclusion system in their institute as a stressed or forced requirement and it has become difficult for them, to fulfill the need of disabled children as they are not being able to understand their requirements and needs. Further they also have included that their school does not contain any occupational therapist and hence, the healthcare related rights of those disabled children are also been violated due to the lack of a strong and ethically correct school leadership. As per Alabri(2017), the school principal of schools should encourage the inclusion education system and all the students should be provided with equal opportunity so that they can easily achieve their educational outcomes in school or pre-school life (Ofori and Toor 2012). Further, it is also the duty of school leadership to make policies for the teachers so that they cannot violate the dignity and respect related act of disabled people and without discriminating can develop a school system where normal and disabled children can study with cordial empathy for each-other (Alhammad 2017). 

In this section, few recommendations related to the policy, leadership and making the schools suitable for mainstreaming will be discussed. These three aspects are the area of interest in this discussion and for the children affected with ASK, these three is important to make the process in their favor so that they can get their educational rights equal to the normal children (Alnemary et al. 2017). The first recommendation will be provided in the leadership process and policy making of public as well as private schools for making their facility appropriate for mainstreaming process. The authorities of school should not implement changed process without discussing or taking feedback from teachers. Taking feedback from teachers or informing them will make them mentally prepare for the changed process and they will be able to conduct research on their own so that they can fulfill the demand of children with ASD (Alquraini 2012). Secondly, the teachers should be provided with detailed training, on job training and they should go through assessment so their understanding related to the process of teaching can be evaluated. For the social changes there are several recommendations that should be implemented by the government. The first recommendation will be proposing a health promotional campaign or promotional event so that the prejudices present in the society related to ASD can be changed and the parents of ASD affected children can use medical intervention instead of cultural or religious treatment process and mainstreaming education system for educational purposes (Murry and Alqahtani 2015). Thirdly, for the governmental law or policy related purpose, the Saudi Arabian government should review the world approach for disability education and remove the sectioning of disability so that in a cumulative effort all the educational rights of a disability community as a whole can be addressed. On the other hand, the process should be user friendly and strict laws should be created for disability discrimination, ethical consideration. Shin, Lee and Kim (2012) determined that government provides educational scholarship to 800 children affected with severe disability and within that only 10 percent is determined for children with ASD therefore, the government should increase this quota as there are millions of disabled children in Saudi Arabia and within them, proving educational help to only 10% is discrimination with other students who are not being able to bear their medicational expenses and want to pursue higher education competing with other children.

Conclusion

While concluding the paper, it should be mentioned that any type of disability is multidimensional as with the individual affected with that it also affects the family or the people and society attached with that person. Autism spectrum disease is such a disease that affects the entire family and the children affected with that becomes a liability for the family. The reason behind this is the person is unable to protect his own laws or claim his own rights and his parents need to do that for him. There are more than millions of children affected with ASD in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and every 1 in 160 children is suffering from it. The government has taken several important steps to protect the educational rights of those children. However, if the comparison of the mainstreaming educational policy is done with the educational strategies and regulations of the United States of America and the United Kingdom, it is observed that the educational system of Saudi Arabia has several loopholes such as educational training of teachers, the regulations or law related issues, lack of facilities in public or private schools for making them appropriate for mainstreaming education system. This paper also provided a detailed comparison of these three countries and find out the issues in the educational policy of Saudi Arabia. Further, it provided a detailed literature review with the reference of recent literature articles, which were designed to find out the core issues of special education system of Saudi Arabia. In this sections the issues that were identified were related to the knowledge of people related to ASD and the steps parents take to fulfill their children’s healthcare and educational needs and it was found that the society still believes that religious and cultural interventions with studies at home help the children to grow and compete with normal kids of the society. Further, in another research articles the teachers were seen to possess negative thoughts related to inclusive educational policy and determined that including the children affected with ASD in mainstreaming will affect their performance as teachers and also confessed that they do not possess the training so that they can fulfill the educational need of disabled children. Therefore, this section provided the changes required by the school system to make it applicable for mainstream education system. As well as it provided a clear idea of the leadership and the aspect of leadership it will require and the aspects of leadership the change management process will require for making it ASD affected children friendly. Finally, in recommendation section, recommendations for social reform, educational policy and curriculum reform and structural reform was provided. 

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