Parents say facilities fail special-needs children

Expensive therapies for autism sufferers and a lack of insurance cover to pay for it force many families abroad for treatment.

Khawla Barley, who has an autistic child, says it is very difficult for Emiratis to get therapy covered by insurance. Delores Johnson / The National

ABU DHABI // An Emirati father claims he is being forced to send his dyslexic son to a boarding school in the United States because this country has no appropriate facilities.

A W’s 14-year-old son, Amaar, was found to be dyslexic only last year, despite struggling with daily chores and schoolwork for years. A W hopes boarding school will prepare him for college.

The father said he first spotted his son’s learning difficulties when he was nine years old, but experts from Abu Dhabi Education Counil could not diagnose the problem.

“From the first grade we knew there was something wrong. We thought he was slow. He was not reading or writing and although he was talking, he was way behind his peers,” said A W, 40, a father of five who works for the Government. “We could not pinpoint the problem. We were told we were lazy parents,” he said.

Last year the family were in the US, where Amaar was tested and found to be dyslexic. They were told treatment would last two years but because they could not stay there that long they came back to Abu Dhabi and started intervention and speech therapy at Taleem Training and Skills Development Centre.

“This year for the first time, I saw my son read in Arabic. Earlier, he was shy and he was not comfortable reading. His self-esteem is better now,” A W said.

But the therapy is not covered by insurance and costs A W between Dh150,000 and Dh180,000 a year. “I’m struggling to pay for my son. Our lives will be much easier if there is a boarding school for children with dyslexia in the UAE. We need a facility here,” A W said.

Expatriate parents of children with special needs said they also struggled with fees.

A B, 43, from Canada, whose eight-year-old son has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia said: “If your kid is that inbetween kid who doesn’t have autism and is not disabled, there really is nothing here.”

A B, who lives in Abu Dhabi, will return to Canada within a year or two so that her son can attend a special-needs school.

“I can get therapy here but my son needs a lot more than one or two hours a week. It’s about Dh150 an hour and six hours a day. I can’t afford that. It’s cheaper for me to separate my family and go back to Canada,” said the mother of three.

Dima, 39, a Jordanian expatriate living in Abu Dhabi, has two four-and-a-half-year-old twin boys who have learning difficulties. One of them receives therapy at the Taleem centre. “There are many institutes for speech therapy but they are very expensive. Free therapy or classes at school would help,” she said.

Khawla Barley, an American living in Abu Dhabi with an autistic child, said: “For Emiratis it is very hard to get therapy covered under Thiqa. They say it is provided, but practically it is not available.

“Because of the shortage of speech therapists in government hospitals you may be given appointments so infrequently it is of no use, [it is the] same with occupational therapists.

“Speech therapy and occupational therapy is not covered by Thiqa in private clinics.”