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Autism Causes and Challenges in Egypt
Autism Causes and Challenges in Egypt
CAIRO, April 5 - An Autism Awareness session was hosted by the Global Health
Association at the American University in Cairo via zoom last Monday explaining autism and
Ghada Oraby is a doctorate degree-holder in Phoniatric Medicine from Ain Shams University
Oraby started the lecture by explaining the definition of autism, and stressed on how
sometimes we can misjudge a person to be autistic based on one symptom of autism, when in
reality a child should meet the "Triad of Autism'' to be autistic. The triad impairments include
“It is a combination of genetic and environmental factors,” continued Oraby to explain the
causes of autism. She listed different levels of autistic children with different levels of skills.
A high functioning autistic child has a good tendency for communication and learning;
Meanwhile, a low cognitive autistic child lacks communications skills, which makes it harder
Upon being asked about the solutions offered in Egypt, Oraby said that there are some
governmental institutions like University hospitals, National Research Center and Institute of
Children at Ain Shams that offer help for low prices for those who have financial difficulties.
There are also other more specialized institutions such as Egypt Institution For Autism and
The Egyptian Autistic Society that provide programs to help autsictic children.
“The problem is we stop at some limit; we don’t have the abilities to teach those with autism
better skills that would help them after their adolescence age,” added Oraby.
Moving on to the society’s role towards autistic patients is acceptance and understanding that
Engineer Mohamed Salem, one of the attendants, added his experience on the solutions
available for autistic patients “I have seen autistic people being treated in 20 minutes.” Salem
witnessed new treatment methods in Colorado University Institution, which includes using
Infra-Low Frequency Neurofeedback to listen to the patient’s brain waves and process them