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Today is World Autism Day. The Orange Foundation and “Arabkir” United Children’s Charity Foundation summed up the results of the project “Let’s Help Autistic Children” in “ArBeS” Health and Day Care Center. The project aims to improve early detection of autism in Armenia, to support autistic children and their parents in all related issues and to implement autism diagnostic and treatment modern tools.

In the scope of this annual large-scale project, launched since 2010, special courses were organized for the medical specialists directly involved in treatment processes, for the autistic children and their parents, in order to raise awareness of autism, as well as to implement the autism early detection modern method – the CHAT test. These courses aimed to provide a better understanding of autism to teachers and nurses, to present the symptoms of autism, reasons for its occurrence, spread, and in particular, to provide general understanding of psychological characteristics of autistic children, of the interests typical of these children, as well as of their concentration, perception and thinking peculiarities. 170 medical specialists, 340 teachers, 60 parents and 166 children from Yerevan and Kotayk participated in these courses. In the scope of the project the rehabilitation centers of “Arabkir” United Children’s Charity Foundation were furnished with special methodical games.

“For already 20 years France Telecom has been supporting the autistic children in many countries of the world. In Armenia, the Orange Foundation has been cooperating with “Arabkir” United Children’s Charity Foundation for already 3 years. We are happy for this partnership, as we are working with real professionals, who have many years of experience and do their best to ensure that the autistic children have good childhood and adolescence,” said Francis Gelibter, CEO of Orange Armenia.

Due to lack and load of the special rehabilitation centers, a new pilot project on community health and education was launched in 2012. N 9 polyclinic in Yerevan Malatia-Sebastia community was furnished and equipped with rehabilitation tools, and the whole staff of the polyclinic participated in special courses organized by the specialists of “ArBeS” Health and Day Care Center. In the scope of this project, already for the third time in June-August 16 autistic children accompanied by their parents/nurses and special teachers were hosted by summer recreation camp located on the bank of Lake Aparan.

In order to better integrate into the society and gain certain independence, the education of children cannot be limited to school only. That’s why part of the program was dedicated to a difficult process: vocational education of children with autism. The French-Armenian educational center was selected as partner. For the good implementation of this project two Armenian specialists visited France, in order to get acquainted with the experience of Rhone professional educations school (SEPR) and to study the model implemented there. Ms. Marlene Parod, responsible for education of disabled at SEPR, was invited to Armenia. Two teachers from the French-Armenian educational center worked at the summer camp during two weeks, in order to get to know and communicate with children.

At the invitation of the Orange Foundation one specialist of rehabilitative care and one children psychiatrist participated in the first international conference “Modern technologies for people with autism disorders,” held in Valencia, Spain. The main objective of participating in the conference was to get acquainted with the future technologies, discover new modern tools and analyze the best tools that can be used in Armenia. The ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) method was earlier implemented in Armenia by Swiss specialists. For its best implementation and accessibility it was translated into Armenian in 2012.

For the realization of the whole project in 2012 the Orange Foundation has allotted a total of AMD 25,869,000. The project will be continued in 2013, company’s press service reported.