Alqunaysi Rayan, Meadan Hedda
Department of Special Education, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia.
Department of Special Education, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 Oct 24. doi: 10.1007/s10803-024-06611-z.
The experiences of special education teachers in Saudi Arabia are quite different from the experiences of their counterparts from other countries as they work in a unique culture and educational system. The educational system in Saudi Arabia is gender segregated, and the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education (MoE) provides an equal budget, salaries, and subsidies and implements the same policies and uses the same curriculum regardless of the location, size of the city, or the number of students. This country's unique characteristics may influence special education teachers' experiences, which raises the need to investigate and understand the experiences of Saudi special education teachers. We sought to understand the experiences of special education teachers in Saudi Arabia, focusing on teaching communication skills to autistic students. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 Saudi special education teachers to gain deeper insights into the experiences of these teachers within the Saudi context. The themes that emerged from the interviews revolved around evaluating and teaching communication skills, the role of the Saudi MoE, and the perceived challenges and needs related to teaching communication skills. Building on our findings, we propose a set of recommendations for special education teachers and the Saudi MoE.
沙特阿拉伯特殊教育教师的经历与其他国家同行的经历截然不同，因为他们在独特的文化和教育体系中工作。沙特阿拉伯的教育体系是性别隔离的，沙特阿拉伯教育部提供平等的预算、薪资和补贴，无论地点、城市规模或学生数量如何，都实施相同的政策并使用相同的课程。该国的独特特征可能会影响特殊教育教师的经历，这就引发了调查和了解沙特特殊教育教师经历的必要性。我们试图了解沙特阿拉伯特殊教育教师的经历，重点是教授自闭症学生沟通技能。我们对13名沙特特殊教育教师进行了半结构化访谈，以更深入地了解这些教师在沙特背景下的经历。访谈中出现的主题围绕着评估和教授沟通技能、沙特教育部的作用以及与教授沟通技能相关的感知挑战和需求。基于我们的研究结果，我们为特殊教育教师和沙特教育部提出了一系列建议。
