DAMMAM: The Ministries of Health, Education and Social Affairs should make concerted efforts to treat and rehabilitate people with special needs, an autism and behavioral disorder specialist has said.

The ministries will have to pay greater attention to proper diagnosis of the illnesses, training, rehabilitation, social awareness and educational programs for such citizens, Huda Haider said.

“The special education programs in our society have no clear vision, but are relied upon personal efforts and trends,” she said. There is a lack of integration services compared to the large number of the disabled people in the Kingdom, she added.

There is an urgent need to consider the quality, and not quantity, of the services provided for the disabled, Haider said.

“An integration mechanism for the disabled must be activated through community awareness to accept them as active participants in society, enrolling them in the schools with their peers and providing them with all required services,” she said.

Haider said the refusal to enroll children with special needs in regular schools has a negative impact on their families.

The integration system should be included within the education development plan in the Kingdom and the Arab world as well, under the supervision of the Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Science, she added.