Dubai – 15 June 2011: Dubai Autism Centre (DAC) organized a workshop on ‘Improving communication skills' of children with autism through daily routines at the Dubai Knowledge Village. The workshop aimed to train special educators, specialists, and parents in order to deal successfully with children with autism and provide best practices in the field of special education.

In the workshop, Lama Al Ohali, speech therapist at King Abdul Aziz Medical City, discussed how to implement the Hanen approach which enables parents and caregivers of young children with autism or language delays to promote responsive interactions and conversations that help their child learn to use words and lay the foundation for early sentence use.

Dr. Mohammed Fteiha, head of speech-communication unit at DAC, said the workshop can help in providing the methods to building the social, language and early literacy skills of young children. And it will help educators learn to apply responsive interaction strategies consistently and across contexts in their day-to-day interactions with children.

“This workshop was to present the latest speech production disorders, therapeutic methods and provide the highest level of services to individuals with speech disorders." Dr. Fteiha added.

Dubai Autism Centre is a non-profit organisation, founded in November 2001 to provide various services for children with Autism. The Centre also works towards providing training workshops to professionals and parents as well as awareness campaigns.