Shafallah Center for Persons with Disabilities participated in the activities of International Education Day through a pavilion in exhibition organized by the Qatar Foundation under the title “Education is Everyone’s Responsibility.” It aims to build partnerships and cooperation between schools and families to improve the quality of education and student performance.

In addition, it aims to strengthen partnerships and cooperation between government entities, the private sector and non-governmental organizations, and All relevant parties to participate in the initiative aimed at localizing education and curricula for its role in strengthening national identity and belonging.

.In this context, Mrs. Maryam Saif Al Suwaidi - Executive Director of the Shafallah Center, pointed out the great interest in Qatar in caring for students with disabilities, out of its commitment to the principles of entitlement and ensuring education for all, and integration education, and maintaining international roles, practices and trends governed by agreements and legislation with regard to the rights of individuals with disabilities with the aim of promoting, protecting and ensuring their human rights and fundamental freedoms and promoting the principle of respect for their dignity like other persons.

She indicated that the Shafallah Center participated in the activities of the International Education Day, which is organized by the Shafallah Center, by presenting a group of social/sensory stories, as an educational method that is used with affiliates, displaying a set of worksheets that are applied within the classes and serves the educational goals, and a set of supportive educational methods that are used within the classes of the various educational departments will be presented, in addition to show the latest awareness films. many updated brochures and publications related to the center’s services will also be distributed in the Shafallah pavilion.

As some affiliates of the Shafallah Center have   visited the accompanying exhibition.

Al Suwaidi said that Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stipulates that states parties must take steps to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to quality, inclusive and free basic and secondary education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live. And do not to exclude persons with disabilities from the general educational system or free and compulsory primary or secondary education based on disability.

On the other hand, she stressed that the Shafallah Center has adopted the latest strategies, which are based on scientific foundations that have proven their success in educating people with disabilities. At the top of these strategies was the adoption of the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) as a scientific basis upon which the rehabilitation and training of people with disabilities within the Shafallah Center is based to understand the behavior, analyze its function, and then increase it if it is desirable through programmed reinforcement, or decrease it if it is undesirable by stopping its reinforcement. Here we point out that learning the skills is a type of behavior. verbal behavior has emerged from applied behavioral science, which is considered to be Language, communication skills, and social interaction are a type of acquired behavior that can be cultivated and developed in the same ways used with other behaviors. Maryam Al-Suwaidi said that, out of the Shafallah Center’s belief in the importance of this science (applied behavior analysis), the Shafallah Center sought to adopt the (VB-MAPP) curriculum, which relies primarily on verbal behavior with the aim of developing language and the various skills associated with it. This approach is considered at the top of the curricula on which it relies the specialists to evaluate and build their individual plan, taking care to use the effective methods evidenced by the science of applied behavior analysis in training on these skills and goals, such as using the method of separate attempts, task analysis, formation, and providing standardized assistance.

Al-Suwaidi indicated that the Center adopted the Portage Program as one of the useful programs in the early intervention in childhood stage, that is improving the child’s development in the areas of (social - cognitive - linguistic - motor and self-help), and this program has an advantage that it can be applied within the family with the participation of parents.

She confirmed that the Shafallah Center has adopted a Montessori program and activities for early childhood, which is based on the idea of educating the affiliate according to his inclinations through various sensory approaches, through a group of specialized activities that meet his needs and develop his potential within a specialized environment prepared in advance according to precise educational specifications and goals.

She said in addition to that, the Shafallah Center has adopted a behavioral program Verbal V.P. MAPP to suit affiliates with autism as well as those with mild and moderate disabilities. The center also modified and adapted the curriculum of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to suit this category. The center also adopted educational curricula aimed at developing the academic and professional aspect in addition to increasing the degree of adaptive and personal skills as in the curriculum as in academic career for normal Persons which is known as (FACES). For severe disabilities, the Center has specified the Verbal Behavior Program (V.P.MAPP), in addition to some informal check-off lists (a tool consisting of several items that include simple behavior subject to a binary yes/no assessment) as a means of evaluation and deriving goals to build the individual educational plan.