First Day at the Shafallah Center

Entering Doha

First day at the Shafallah Center today! I met the international evaluation team who will be working to identify the strengths of the center as well as producing recommendations for further development of programs and services. The international team of experts is made up of three Americans from the field of Applied Behavior Analysis, including myself, one from Saudi Arabia, one from France and one from Palestine. Each of us has been assigned a psychologist to work with and to assist with verbal and written translations as we review all units of the center. Our charge is to jointly create a document for the center to use to not only improve the educational system but to also evaluate and improve the related services provided to the students, which includes both in and out patient clinical occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, psychology and social work. I am honored to be part of such a wonderful endeavor that brings together individuals from around the world to work for the good of children, no matter our language or cultural differences. I am attaching a photo of one of the classrooms which I visited today. They, too, have the same rules regarding using photographs of children without permission so you will only see the face of the teacher and the backs of the heads of children. The classes are primarily gender specific but the teacher may be either male or female. Notice the sparseness of the classroom for children with mild/moderate disabilities. It is not for lack of funding but due to the understanding that it is best not over stimulate students with autism spectrum disorders. A generalization has been applied to all children with disabilities. I will be in touch again soon!

Classroom at the Shafallah Center

- Barbara Schwartz-Bechet, MS, EdD, is the associate dean for the Salus University College of Education and Rehabilitation