Abu Dhabi: The kids at the Abilities Development Centre for Special Needs in Abu Dhabi demonstrated their skills to a group of visitors from Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) yesterday.
The kids who can only be described as differently "abled" and at different stages of mental growth, seemed overjoyed by the visitors and demonstrated their skills ranging from playing musical instruments and acrobatics to the recital of the Quran and prophetic traditions, said a statement issued by ADFCA.
The ADFCA staff visited the centre as part of the "Aun" project, a charitable and social service initiative. The project is sponsored by the Authority, using a fund earmarked for the purpose in its annual budget.
The director of the centre, Samira Salim, is the mother of a 15-year-old autistic child and as such knows her pupils and their situation well. Welcoming the ADFCA delegation into the centre, she said it was support from the community that helped her sustain the centre.
Autism is not a form of mental retardation, although many autistic people seem to function as retarded," she said. "They are often very intelligent. It is a development disability of the brain and need to be addressed in its specificity, rather than treating it as one of the many forms of mental retardation," Salim explained.
"What we are trying at the centre is to identify the areas in which the kids tend to excel and focus full attention on developing those areas," she told the visitors, adding that the approach of the society to these issues did change drastically over the years.
The centre is in dire need of material support in order to expand its services to include more kids from financially disadvantaged sections of the society.
