Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Homs, SANA_ The 11-year-old child Abdul Rahman al-Asaad sings in Russian, English and Czech Languages and professionally draws paintings, despite that he did not learn drawing or languages in an educational institution but it is a special skill he possessed, which is a very rare case.
The story, as told by the father of the child Hassan al-Asaad to SANA reporter, started when Abdel-Rahman was a 4-year-old, where he began to write numbers and English letters in an orderly manner and pronounce them without any prior knowledge of it.
He said that his son possesses exceptional capabilities and a visual memory that enables him to recall the architectural form of the buildings and draw them on paper with extreme accuracy in addition to other capabilities in languages and electronics.
Abdul-Rahman’s condition made the father inquire and ask about the case of his son that specialists diagnosed as High-Functioning Autism (HFA), or Asperger Syndrome; it is a very rare condition in children.
The father confirmed that his child does not have any mental or health problems.
Abd al-Rahman’s entry to school, according to his father, stumbled over the past years, but in the year before last, he was joined to one of the private schools, on the initiative of the school owner.
Mayssam al-Hosaria, the specialist in autism and pronunciation, followed up the case of child Abdul Rahman six months ago and said that Abdul-Rahman’s condition is a rare one that, unlike Asperger Syndrome, it combines more than one type of intelligence.
He possesses a copier, optical, sensory and auditory memory that enables him to copy any engineering scene, a visual memory to draw what he sees with extreme accuracy and an auditory memory, as evidenced by the existence of a huge amount of vocabularies for a number of languages despite that he did not receive any kind of education or training on them.
Dean of Faculty of Architecture at al-Baath University, Dr. Nidal Sattouf, said that during Abdul Rahman’s visit to the faculty last year, we saw his drawings that demonstrate an exceptional phenomenon as he participated in the practical exam with the students.
Everyone was surprised by his two-dimensional and three-dimensional drawings using the so-called bird’s eye perspective in addition to his ability to draw an architectural building he sees it for seconds with a high accuracy to the extent that he notices the broken glass in the building.
Hussein Wannous, one of the faculty cadres said that, during watching Abdel Rahman’s drawings I thought that they are drawings by one of the university students, especially that such drawings are practiced by students academically according to a system of sciences.
On her experience with the child Abdul Rahman, Reem al-Buqai, an autism specialist, said that she worked a lot with the children of al-Rabee Autism Society in Homs, but the case of Abdul Rahman surprised everyone who met him.
His abilities and skills are much greater than the other cases in the society, she added.
A ministerial committee, includes specialists in autism spectrum, visited the child in his school and met with the educational staff, Director of Researches at Education Ministry Dr. Sebet Suleiman told SANA reporter.
She said that it was agreed to integrate him into the regular schools where he will continue his study in his current school.
As for his talent of drawing, he will be evaluated in his school by academics from Al-Baath University in coordination and cooperation between the Ministries of Education and Higher Education and Scientific Research as a developmental and educational plan to integrate the child will be put, she concluded.
Gh.A.Hassoun
