Autistic children are still struggling to get basic rights in health and education

Autism diagnoses have increased significantly across the world since 1970, with some estimates suggesting as many as one in every 23 children are identified as having the condition.

The last Saudi census estimated the Saudi population at about 18.8 million, meaning the number of citizens with autism could be around 820,000.

It is necessary for the General Authority for Statistics to record the actual number of people with disabilities, as this will contribute to drawing up appropriate plans to help them — with many still struggling for help, and people with autism in particular.

The Prince Mohammed bin Salman Autism Program, in cooperation with the Cleveland Clinic in the US, has overseen the establishment of centers in the Department of Defense’s military hospitals in Riyadh, Jeddah, Taif, Dhahran, Tabuk, Hafar Al-Batin, and Khamis Mushait.

However, autistic people are still suffering with regard to their basic rights in the facilities of the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education. I state this from the experience of a parent who tried to enroll his autistic son in a private Saudi school, but whose request was refused on the pretext that there were no specialists or suitable facilities to serve him.

When this father offered to bring in a specialist teacher, at his own expense, they still refused.

In contrast, the British and Finnish schools in the same city were willing to accept him.

It is necessary for the General Authority for Statistics to record the actual number of people with disabilities.

What is more difficult with regard to the Ministry of Health is that some Saudi doctors who have a reputation in the field of autism advise their families to use traditional medicine to treat them and give them camel milk. The above behavior indicates that they are treating autism as a disease, and this happens despite its inclusion in the National Disability Project. Yet, it is a broad and ill-defined disorder that has not reached the stage of a diagnosable and treatable disease, because its symptoms vary from one person to another, which explains why it was named Autism Spectrum Disorder in 1993.

The first recorded description of an autistic child dates back to 1799, but it was categorized as an early stage of schizophrenia. The word autism existed in those days, taken from the Greek word “otz,” meaning a person who is preoccupied with himself.

In 1981, Lorna Wing, a British doctor, simplified the characteristics of people with autism. The first of them was imagination deficit, meaning that the autistic person has trouble understanding metaphors and language with more than one meaning, does not understand illogical ideas, and does not understand banter or wordplay. The second is the difficulty in establishing relationships with others and making eye contact with them. The third is the delay in language development and verbal skills, all of which are common to most autistic people.

Perhaps the first introduction of autism in America and the world to a mainstream audience came through the movie “Rain Man,” which starred Dustin Hoffman with Tom Cruise, and was released in 1988. It earned revenues of $412 million, the highest in the world at the time. The movie contributed greatly to building current perceptions of autism, and is based on a true story, though it must be emphasized that it perpetuated a false understanding of autism and limited its narrative to autistic geniuses, or those with Asperger’s syndrome, attributed to the Austrian doctor Hans Asperger.

According to specialized studies, 70 percent of autistic people get below average scores on tests of intelligence and mental ability. Autism also needs to be taken into account on things such as university applications, and special exceptions made for autistic people when compared to others.

The state plays an important role. This group needs to be provided with opportunities, such as studying, jobs, treatment and recreation programs, with experts working on effective behavior modification programs, adopting proven and reliable methods of social interaction therapy, physical therapy for neuromuscular coordination, and nutritional therapy to compensate for the deficiencies caused by their dietary routine, especially since 89 percent of autistic people have digestion and nutritional issues.

• Dr. Bader bin Saud is a columnist for Al-Riyadh newspaper, a media and knowledge management researcher, and the former deputy commander of the Special Forces for Hajj and Umrah in Saudi Arabia. X: @BaderbinSaud