Autism in Egypt

Since The Egyptian Autistic society was established in 1999 I have met and diagnosed thousands and thousands of children. I meet at least 4-5 new families a week coming from all over the world but mainly from Egypt and the Arab world. Without realizing I noticed several patterns and had many observations. Very often I would catch myself asking the parents questions related to the patterns I found. This article is nothing more than my personal observations. It is not supported by any research by me (although some of the patterns after looking at literature seem to have been noticed and researched by others). -        The most “exciting” and baffling observation in my eyes, is the fact that so many of the children I see are a result of either IVF or at least their mothers had taken hormones to speed up pregnancy. I said “exciting” and baffling because of the implications this observation could have if it is indeed true that there may be a link between ho...

In 1995 I returned to Egypt after finishing my degree in Australia. I worked in a special needs school for four years as School Psychologist while I finished my Post Graduate Diploma in Dyslexia. I discovered my passion for Autism so I travelled one summer and took the TEACCH training. I came back and set up a classroom for children with Autism only using the TEACCH method.  By 1998 I realized that there needed to be an entity specifically for Autism (with no other disabilities) so I set up the Egyptian Autistic Society. I started by giving sessions to the children and advising parents on what to do at home. I trained staff and started doing day trips in the community and called it the 'Saturday Social Club'. Very quickly it became apparent that the children needed more than individual sessions so I set up a classroom and started the 'Head Start' full day program. I hired a Speech and Language Therapist who also started working with the children daily. I was approach...

I often see these cases where the children exhibit some Asperger symptoms and some ADD symptoms yet do not meet the criteria for either! These children are the hardest to diagnose and are often misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. They are usually floating around in mainstream schools usually struggling socially. Their ability to understand social norms is very poor. It is as if they just landed with a spaceship from another planet but were not given the manual for our society. Parents are often in disbelief at how simple concepts such as not grabbing other peoples food, not standing  so close to people when you talk to them can be so difficult to somehow who is academically quite successful. sadly these children suffer a lot; they suffer for many reasons. Primarily, the education system as a whole forgot them . They are too smart academically to be seen as an issue and too mild to be seen as a problem. however their inability to understand concepts such as making and keeping frie...

Wow what a year! Since March Fatima Mamish, Ingy Mashhour (two parents of children with Autism) and myself have been working on our dream project; establishing multiple comprehensive centers all around Egypt for special needs. On the 23rd of May we finally received a phone calling telling us that President Abdel Fattah El Sisi will meet with us and listen to our project. I was on the beach in Sokhna (outside Cairo when I heard) . I went numb and started to panic quietly. I was surrounded by atleast 15 of my friends and their kids but i saw no one. All i wanted to do was pack my stuff and hurry back to Cairo to revise the project. i also had to call the parents of some of my ASD students as i was informed I needed to take the children with me.  By the time I made it to the car the security check had begun, every two minutes we would receive a call asking for pictures of my ID, my drivers ID my license plate and the IDs of every single staff attending with me. I couldn't tell them ...

There are a lot of things in this world I don't know how to do such as fractions, read maps, count money, give directions or speak Chinese (Cantonese or mandarin ;) But I do know the language of Autism. For some reason I understand it. It makes more sense to me than a lot of other crooked things in this world. I have learned that to be able to understand a  child with Autism you really must allow yourself to think like him and perceive the world from his perspective …. then everything makes absolute sense. A young child with autism is primarily governed by two things; his needs and his senses. Needs ASD children are target oriented. They want someTHING rarely someONE and their entire mission is to get it. This need can either be for security or for reinforcement Security : ASD children need to understand what is about to happen in order to feel safe. They are usually poor at understanding language at a young age so rely on routine and structure to predict what wi...

This is a picture of Khaled on his graduation day from Arden College. Khaled was one of the first students i worked with and was fortunate enough to move to the UK and was therefore a given chance to go to college. Everything I pushed for regarding rights and services for ASD children was always inspired by the parents and the circumstances of the students i work with. I started pushing for kindergartens to accept them because they were 3 and needed  social skills and peers to imitate. I pushed for schools to accept them simply because they got older. I started trying to know people in the Army because we needed Military exemption for the boys . Oddly enough we got them exempted from military due to having "flat foot" not due to being Autistic !!!!!! as this "diagnosis " was not on their "list of reasons for exemptions!!" Anyway my point is this year I have a 12th grader who I'm sure will succeed if he is given a chance at college. Ahmed. My ...

My Journey with Autism My father was an Egyptian diplomat we lived in Prague the first four years of my life. I hardly remember anything about it and my memories are distorted by stories I heard by my parents mostly about how people stopped us in the street for my very curly hair and about how I acquired my life long nick name Dahlinka which comes from Inka (anything small and cute). We returned to Cairo where I attended 2 years of kindergarten at Victory College. Our next posting was when I was six and that was to Monrovia, Liberia. A lot happened in that posting; mainly a coup d’etat where the presidents head was chopped off in the middle of the street, soldiers barging into our houses at midnight to search and help them selves to food and drink and us crawling on the floor every time we had to walk past a window for random bullets being shot. However, this was not the most exciting thing I remember. The birth of Sarah. ….. O...