Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Riyadh: Over 1,000 participants and 44 international and national speakers are attending a four-day International Conference on Learning Disabilities in Riyadh to develop a system, which could impart better education for Saudi students with learning disabilities.
Prince Ahmed Bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Minister of Interior Sunday opened the conference at King Faisal Hall Sunday. The conference has been divided into a number of workshops and seminars with papers presented by some of the best international speakers from America, Europe and other Arab and Gulf countries.
Nassir A. Al-Mosa, Supervisor-General of Special Education, Ministry of Education, organizer of the conference said the event is very important since the Kingdom has established a system called "resource room program or RRP" which caters to the special education needs of the students with learning disabilities.
He said around five percent of the four million students in Saudi Arabia have learning disability and need special education. He said the number of RRP first established in 1995-96 has increased from 12 to 1,226 in 2006.
Al-Mosa said Saudi Arabia is the first country in the region to have pioneered by establishing special education for students with learning disabilities.
Learning disabilities ar a spectrum of disorders affecting people who have no sensory or mental deficiency by definition. Dyslexia or efficient reading is the most common learning disability among those diagnosed with the disorder, he said. "Children with learning disability are not classified as handicapped both physically or mentally," he said.
The learning disability is a behavioral disorder manifested by a significant unexpected specific and persistent difficulties in acquisition and use of efficient reading, writing or mathematical abilities, he said.
However, the public schools in Saudi Arabia don't isolate students with learning disabilities (LD) with the normal students. All the students attend the same classroom except a student with learning disabilities will be sent to attend a RRP for special education. "There are teachers, who specialized to teach students with learning disabilities," he said.
The major thrust is to achieve a 100 percent in imparting special education to the students of learning disabilities, which currently fall short of covering all five percent students in Saudi Arabia, he said.
According to international standard percentage of students with learning disabilities is five percent, he said. "So, in the case of Saudi Arabia the percentage is not alarming except we want to provide RRP to all students with learning disabilities." He said this is the first international conference on learning disabilities hosted in Saudi Arabia. After the deliberation in workshops and seminars conducted during the four days the conference will pass recommendations "and that will be transformed into projects to achieve better results in the future in this area."
American Dr. Eldin Ellis presented a paper on a topic entitled Optimal framework for providing special education to child and adolescent," while Dr. John Elkin spoke about procedure of identification and assessment. Ali Saber Mohamed presented a paper on Medical aspects of learning disorders: role of nootropic drugs.
By Shahid Ali Khan
© The Saudi Gazette 2006
