Research projects and graduate studies in the State’s universities to support autistic persons

“World Autism Awareness Day” is marked on the second of April each year, and it aims to identify “Autism” and direct attention to the unacceptable mistreatment, discrimination, and isolation that autistic people suffer from. As highlighted by the “Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities”, autistic people are equal citizens, and they should enjoy all the human rights and basic freedoms. The “General Assembly of the United Nations” named this day by the end of (2007).

Some of the characteristics of this disease are: social interaction deficit, difficulty in verbal expression and other expressions, and following a specific and frequent pattern of behavior, interests, and activities. The spread of Autism and the high rates of Autistic persons result in developmental challenges in the long term, and significantly impact the children, their families, and their local and national communities. Therefore, those children and their families have been receiving full attention and care from the State, represented by the wise leadership, which requested all the authorities concerned to work on raising the awareness of community members to pay more attention to this category, through increasing the number of awareness campaigns and programs for the community, especially university and college students. This was translated into reality through the achievement of three female students from the Electrical Department at the “College of Engineering” at the “UAE University” in their final year, who conducted a research project to help autistic children. In addition, most of the Art and Social Sciences Colleges at the universities organize different seminars that focus on autistic and special needs persons, and others, in order to help improve the educational services provided to them and support these underprivileged segments of the society.

The “5^th Annual Autism Around the World Conference” was organized by the “Child Early Medical Intervention Center”, in cooperation with “Dubai Health Care City”, the “Ministry of Health”, and “Dubai Health Authority”, and was held on the (20^th - 21^st ) of February (2014), under the theme: “Communication and Language Development for Individuals Affected with ASD”, where there was an exchange of experiences between the specialists in the field of language and speech, who are interested in “Autism” and the development of communication. The State also seeks to train and develop the skills of the cadres that work in the field of rehabilitation of autistic children, and empower them to obtain graduate studies, and encourage the graduates to specialize in this field, which will positively reflect on the quality of service provided for this category, and qualify them to be integrated in State schools.

The “Federal National Council” agreed on the recommendation for the establishment of centers for the care and rehabilitation of disabled and autistic children, which are equipped with all the medical and technical devices, in order to deal with all kinds of disability for all ages. “ABILITIESme” congress and exhibition has recently launched an initiative, concerned with the corporate social responsibility, which aims to support special needs persons, and seeks to promote the participation of the governmental authorities and civil society, in order to improve the social integration of autistic young persons.