A sensory friendly room at a health centre.
Doha: Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), provides a wide range of services for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the community including an ‘EarlyBird Program’ for parents of pre-school aged children diagnosed with the condition.
Assistant Medical Director for Children and Adolescent Services at PHCC and National Lead for Healthy Children and Adolescents Strategies Dr. Sadriya Al Kohji said that screening for ASD is offered as part of the Well-Baby service package in PHCC. ASD screening is done at 18 months and 30 months in the child’s well-baby clinics visits. In 2022, a total of 23,473 screening tests were done for ASD.
Dr. Al Kohji also said EarlyBird supports parents in understanding their child’s autism, helps them facilitate communication with their child, and improves their child’s behaviour in their natural environment. So far, 438 parents are trained on EarlyBird in Qatar.
Sensory friendly rooms are now available at some PHCC health centres offered for children with disabilities with primary focus on ASD. The aim of sensory friendly rooms is to improve the health centre visit experience and help children feel calm and engage in an environment that is tailored to their sensory input.
Dr. Al Kohji also expressed her gratitude for the completion of educational sector’s training in public schools in Qatar on awareness of ASD. The training focuses on spreading and enhancing awareness of ASD within the educational sector, to include teachers, psychologists, social workers, nurses, and everyone involved with students and their parents in schools.
PHCC also seeks, through this training, to adjust the educational environments in schools to fit the capabilities and needs of ASD children. PHCC has also launched the Fast-Track service in all of its health centres. Fast-Track is a service designed to facilitate and accelerate the process of receiving care at PHCC health centres.
Dr. Al Kohji noted that PHCC celebrated the World Autism Awareness Day by organising a variety of activities and events at the corporation level.
