Organizing Body: Supreme Council for Family Affairs, Special Needs Committee

Date: 28^th – 30^th April 2002

Seminar Motto: “Rights of the Deaf in the 21^st Century”

Seminar Sessions

First Session: The Medical Theme

1.      Installing Electronic Hearing Aid : the Qatari Experience

2.      Installing Electronic Hearing Aid : the Saudi Experience

3.      The Right for Restoration of Hearing by Developing Hearing Aids and Rehabilitation

4.      An Epidemic Study on Hearing Defects Among Saudi Children

Second Session: The Educational Theme

1.      Methodology of the process of discovering hearing disability associated with mental disability

2.      Early intervention and development of concepts and basic skills among hearing disabled children

3.      The hard of hearing between seclusion and inclusion and their impact on the hearing, articulatory and educational aspects.

4.      The hearing disability and its impact on the level of illiteracy

Third Session: The Psycho- Educational Theme

5.      Present- day trends in family counseling for special needs persons

6.      Training teachers of the deaf to assess 1.Q. and evaluate social adequacy

7.      Inclusion of the hearing disabled in pre- school stage

8.      Strategies of psychological health as a functional approach for deaf persons care ( identification, estimation, intervention )

The Rehabilitatory, Educational, Social and Psychological Theme

1.      Urging and encouraging the private sector to participate in offering educational, teaching and rehabilitatory services to persons with hearing disability.

2.      Caring for raising the level of national cadres who work with the deaf staff like doctors, specialists and teaches, etc.

3.      Holding training courses and programs on reign language through the societies concerned with the inclusion of the deaf in the teaching and educational institutions, taking into consideration good and well organized preparations.

4.      Increasing care and attention by selecting specialized teaching staff according to standards based on efficiency of the teaches and the staff working in the deaf area.

5.      Pinpointing the educational approach that suits abilities and capabilities of the deaf according to necessary requirements, laying out advanced rehabilitatory and training programs for kindergarten teachers; and adopting a policy for the in elusion of deaf children from early age as an educational and teaching policy.

Technology of Teaching Theme

6.      Using and promoting technology of teaching in designing teaching programs for the deaf at all teaching stages.

7.      Working toward making available hearing aids free of charge with ensuring constant maintenance of them.

8.      Facilitating the tools of using modern technology which aid persons with special needs.

The Media Theme

• The necessity that Arabic media plays an instructive and educational role through its presentation of the hearing disability issue by means of well-thought previously-prepared programs.

• Working toward recruiting special needs persons in the different audio-visual media.

Fourth Session: Rights of the Deaf Theme

1.      Rights of the deaf in legal legislations.

2.      Rights of the deaf in the twenty-first century.

3.      Rights of the deaf and the relation between the deaf and the interpreters.

4.      Disability and sign language.

5.      Achieving communication with the deaf to raise their educational, learning and psychological capabilities by means of training the teachers of the deaf to us sign language.

Fifth Session: Rehabilitatory Educational Theme

1.      Teachers of the deaf: Difficulties and methodology of developing performance at advanced educational stages.

2.      Schools of the deaf and the twenty – first century challenges.

3.      The inclusion of the hearing disabled in kindergartens between theory and practice.

4.      Confirming the creating of classes for teaching the deaf in kindergartens to achieve the partial inclusion with the institutions of education.

Recommendations of the Seminar

The Medical Theme

1.      The commitment of all the specialized medical bodies to check newly born babies instantly and follow-up their welfaring after birth and conduct the necessary medical check-up to define the disability and its acuteness.

2.      Paying attention to medical care programs for pregnant mothers and the family and awareness-raising about primary health care.

3.      Providing centers for hearing aids installation with developed equipment and the necessary facilities for patients and their families, and follow-up each case after conducting the surgical operation.

4.      Making sure of conducting pre-marriage medical check-up in order to curb hereditary disabilities.

5.      Promoting social and familial awareness of hearing aid installation and training well qualified cadres to execute the programs and making use of developed countries' experiences. 

6.      Confirming the necessity of conducting national surveys to know the ratio of hearing defects victims among children and the reasons which lead to these defects.

7.      Adopting and preparing a uniform media strategy which combines flexibility and creativity aiming at awareness–raising about the rights of the hearing needs persons.

8.      Stressing the necessity of expanding the media scope to cover the flexibility and creativity aiming at awareness-raising about the rights of the hearing needs persons.

9.      Issuing publications and magazines and other educational and cultures means about persons with hearing needs, besides issuing visual educational materials that may lead eventually to educate persons with hearing needs in the different areas.

The Rights of the Deaf Theme

• Stressing the availability of a comprehensive Arab strategy for care of persons with hearing needs in their diverse medical, rehabilitatory, educational, psychological and social areas. This strategy must be transformed into executive rights easily implemented and practiced as part of the rights of the Arab deaf.

• Involving the deaf in discussing the legislations and laws and their participation in decision making.

• Stressing the importance of communication, cooperation and sharing experience among the different societies, institutions and corporations working in the area of the deaf in the Arab world.

Deaf Women Theme

• Offering health assistance and medical care to deaf women and providing them with sign language interpretation at the medical clinics.

• Making available the educational visual means that help deaf women understand their religious and marital duties and rights.