Amnia Ghareeb Al Qahtani, a researcher with a Ph.D from the United Arab Emirates University, college of education developed an autism assessment tool for pre-school (kindergarten) children. Which can be used by their teachers, since the majority of the tools used in the region are only a translation into arabic. 

Dr. Maria Efstratopoulou, Chair of Special and Gifted Education Department  at United Arab Emirates University who supervised the study highlighted that this pioneered research study works on covering a significant gap in the early autism detection process through developing a list for autism review in pre-school children (PAC) .Which is specifically designed to meet the cultural norms of the Gulf region. She also added that involving the cultural features of the Gulf region in the study adds depth and importance to the tool through the use of qualitative study approach and involving special education teachers in the experience, as researchers have demonstrated a precise approach to the tool development.

Form her part, Amnia Al Qahtani expressed “ being a mother to an autistic child, I felt the responsibility towards this category of society and have set the goal to support them. Believing in the importance of early intervention to reduce the severity of autism symptoms in children, and being fully aware of the important role the teachers play in identifying possible autism cases because of the time they spend with the children on a daily basis. I have decided to create an arabic tool for teachers to help them discover possible autism cases among children. This tool is considered the first of its kind in the Arab world whereas all the tools that had been used for this purpose in the country were developed in western countries, based on symptoms of their children and in their own region. No focus has been placed on an arabic case to generalize the evaluation tool on them, which may affect the evaluation results.” 

It bears to recalling that the (PAC) assessment tool was developed based on a sample of 381 Emirati children who were evaluated by their teachers across the country. Necessary studies were conducted to ensure the tools validity and effectiveness in assessing the risk of autism among children. (PAC) is an assessment tool that consists of 29 autism symptoms which have been verified to be effective for the use of pre-school (kindergarten) teachers. The higher the results a student gets using the tool the higher the possibility of developing autism spectrum disorder. Which requires teachers to refer him to a specialist to assess his condition and reach a final diagnose. 

Dr. Amnia has encouraged the development of more autism assessment and diagnosis tools for children in diffrent age gaps (from 5 to 12 years old) and adulthood that commensurate with the characteristics and culture of the local and gulf region.