Research Proposal: Autism, Technology, and OT in Saudi Arabia

This research proposal outlines a qualitative study investigating the availability and impact of occupational therapy and technological services for autistic children in Saudi Arabia. The study aims to explore perspectives of families and healthcare staff, identify service gaps, and recommend improvements. The research will involve interviews with parents and healthcare professionals to gather data on service satisfaction, required changes, and limitations. The proposal provides background information on autism, the role of occupational therapy, and the integration of technology, particularly within the context of Saudi Arabia's healthcare system. The methodology includes purposive sampling, semi-structured interviews, and thematic analysis. The study's timeline spans from 2020 to 2023, encompassing literature review, data collection, analysis, and thesis submission. The findings will provide valuable insights for improving services and promoting the efficiency of available technology and services in Saudi Arabia.

Running Head : RESEARCH PROPOSAL

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Research Proposal
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Title: The exploration of the current state of the occupational therapist and Technology and
its impacts on autistic children in Saudi Arabia: A qualitative study
Proposed mode of research
The study will be conducted based on the data gathered through qualitative method. It is
the scientific method through which the non-numerical data can be gathered having focused on
the making of meaning. It occurs often through the case study, the interviews, the introspection
and some other texts. The qualitative approaches of research are well employed across many of
the academic disciplines concentrating specifically on the human elements of the natural and the
social sciences. The sample size for this study will be 20 people from the parents group and 10
people from the health care staffs. The target the target population for sampling will be families
of autistic children in the countries are there in Asia along with the Healthcare staffs who are
working under health care system of the country.
Aims and objectives
The purpose of this study is to explore the availability of the occupational therapy and
technological services for autistic children in the Saudi Arabian hospitals and then evaluate its
impact on the autistic children.
The objectives of the research are as follows:
 To explore the perspective so what is the families in terms of satisfaction with the
occupational therapy services to recognize the changes required in this specific service
for supporting the children who are affected by autism.

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 To recommend some improvement in the provision of the service in order to address the
limitations which are found in the occupational therapy services of Saudi Arabia.
Research question
The Research question which guides this entire research project is as follows:
What are the occupational therapist and technological services available for autistic children in
the Ministry of health of Saudi Arabia?
Background and Synopsis
Autism and the world situation
The Autism spectrum disorder which is also known as Autism is one such kind of
developmental disorder which can lead to the neurodevelopmental abnormal 30 in early
childhood that is characterized by the communication connected with behavioral problems it is
hypervalent situation that is affecting children across the whole world. The statistics provided by
WHO shows that one child in every 160 children is affected severely by the ASD or autism
(World Health Organization 2018). It is indicated by an investigation that the acquisition of daily
life skills become extremely difficult for people with autism and the families of these type of
people face social stigma due to the disability of the children. It is also depicted by the past
studies that use of services ASD is low in many regions there are factors such as family
characteristics, service characteristics and child characteristics on the use of the services
(Samsam et al. 2014). The occupational therapy on the other hand is a type of service which is
focused on helping people to engage in daily life activities and achieve the true meaning of their
lives in terms of the treatment of people with ASD occupational therapist has a significant role to
play (Taylor 2020). It is found that in Saudi Arabia there are only few occupational therapy

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programs for the young children. Taken for example, the lack of essential services such as
occupational therapy the technological availability and education integration programs in the
country of Saudi Arabia (Moulton et al. 2016). It is further argued that occupational therapy is
required for promoting communication skills, the behaviors and improving the social skills
(Mroz et al. 2015).
The occupational therapy and technology
It is found that technology is one common element in the everyday human lives and the
primary goal of the occupational therapy is to increase and enable some meaningful participation
in the activities significant for the clients. Hence, technology is undoubtedly an important
component to provide the services related to occupational therapy across various fields. Notably,
the technology related assistance for the people with disabilities Act 1988 depict that the
definition of the assistive technology is used mostly as the regulatory language
(Legislation.gov.uk. 2020). In this bill, it is found that the assistive technology is usually defined
as being both a service and a device. The assistive technology device is one such piece of
equipment, an item or the product system whether it is modified, commercially acquired or
customized for increasing, maintaining or improving the functional capabilities for the people
having disabilities. The practitioners in general make use of the activity analysis in the process
of occupational therapy for meeting the clients’ demands in respective contexts. They also
consider the tools for meeting the demands of the occupation and considering the match between
the abilities and the skills of clients along with the tools. When these tools improve and maintain
the functional capabilities of a disable person, they acquire the definition of the assistive
technology. Also, the providing of the assistive technology services and devices for supporting

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people with the disabilities having minimized the barriers of function is a significant part of the
whole process of occupational therapy.
Synopsis
The speculations were made by the year 1960, the first studies on Autism had been
circulated and there were many severe types of Autism which were not recognized until the late
1980s (Babatin et al. 2016). Since that time there have been conducted many surveys on Autism
resulting in the fact that there is higher prevalence rates after that year. The reason can be
enhanced awareness by the Healthcare professionals the friends and family is autistic people and
also some modifications in Diagnostic criteria (Burton et al. 2017). There is a chance that this
prevalence stays underestimated because there are many cases of Autism which are undiagnosed
or unidentified in the society specifically the mild conditions (Bal et al. 2015). The lack of
awareness in the Healthcare providers and the public might be considered as the reasons Saudi
Arabia has been considered as a country where ASD has increased in percentage.
Considering the most recent update the prevalence of autism is 18 in every 10000 people
the Government of Saudi Arabia found to be engaging in different initiatives to advance services
of ASD and then improve the management of such conditions (Moh.gov.sa 2020). However the
primary drawback is that there is Limited number of services existing in Saudi Arabia (Cohen et
al. 2007). As per the investigation by Alnemari et al. the services of KSA show that there are
many children having autism fail to receive early identification before their 3 years of age in the
society .In recent years Saudi Arabia doesn't have any search criteria for specifying the children's
age along with the age group at which the early identification or early intervention is actually

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needed for children (Palaganas et al. 2017). There have been past researches on this topic but the
findings cannot be generalized for the whole country because the researches were conducted on a
limited group of people (Ellen Selman et al. 2018).
The significance of the future research in this particular area Autism in Saudi Arabia has
been realized and initiated this study. In order to address the gap in previous research the
research is aimed at exploring the current state of occupational therapists and Technology and its
impacts on autistic children in Saudi Arabia which will be a qualitative study. The above
discussion definitely highlights purpose for conducting research in this specific area through
using proper study design. The findings of this research can be helpful in identifying fields where
the Government of Saudi Arabia should provide more focus and efforts in order to promote the
efficiency of available technology and services in the whole country.
Proposed Methodology
Research Design
Founded on the key research objectives and the aim, it can be said that qualitative
research will be suitable for this study due to the fact that this method explores and understands
the aims of the research. In order to conduct the study, the rationale behind taking qualitative
method is that it is the most flexible approach appropriate for exploring phenomena and
perceptions of people having autistic child directly (Creswell 2013). The interview method will
help in evaluating the perspectives of the artistic families in terms of how they experience using
the services. Data Collection will be conducted having used the open ended questions in order to
receive detailed data about experiences. The interview method will also be helpful in evaluating

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the concerns the attitude the perception connected with the use of occupational therapy and
technologies in the country of Saudi Arabia.
Sampling
The target the target population for sampling will be families of autistic children in the
countries are there in Asia along with the Healthcare staffs who are working under health care
system of the country .In order to recruit the expected sample population, it will apply purposive
sampling strategy which will be a non-probability sampling method and this strategy is helpful in
focusing on specific characteristics of a particular population.
Sampling size
The sample size for this study will be 20 people from the parents group and 10 people
from the health care staffs. The reason behind keeping the sample size low for the interview
method is that to save time and collect useful data about experiences having use detailed
interview questionnaire (Schreier and Flick 2017). It is expected that the interview will take 15 to
30 minutes and small sample size will help in analyzing the findings within limited time.
Application of the interview method is appropriate when nothing is known regarding the topic to
become explode.
The data collection method
The data collection method that should be used for this research is the semi-structured
Interview method. This is the tool which will collect data on the demographic details, the number
of occupational therapy services, the work experiences and the areas where it is available along
with the number of therapists working in those services (Zorlu and Duman 2018). Open ended
questions of the interview will collect data connected to the frequency of using services

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occupational therapy the benefits of using those services along with the challenges identified in
terms of accessing the services. The responses of the interview will be recorded and transcribed
by the research staff. Additionally, the interview analysis content will be done having used the
thematic analysis process having identified the things from interview responses and making use
of the theme to come to some conclusion regarding the research. Thematic analysis is one
common data analysis method in the qualitative research that's a force supports the identification
of patterns and evaluation of remaining from research data (Sulaimani and Gut 2019).
Resources
The data collection equipment as the video camera, the iPad, the transcription costs for
the interview data.
Timeline
For 2020:
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Research
Proposal
Project
Meetings
Systematic
Review of
Literature
Preparation
and
Drafting of

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Systematic
Review of
Literature/
Literature
Review
Ethics Pilot
Develop
training
Program
Recruitment
For 2021:
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Systematic
Review of
Literature/
Literature
Review
Data
Collection -
Pilot
Ethics Main

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Recruitment
Data
Analysis
Pilot
Prepare
Publications
Data
Collection
Main
Thesis
Write up
For 2022:
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Systematic
Review of
Literature/
Literature
Review
Data
Collection -
Main

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Data
Analysis
Main
Prepare
Publications
Thesis
Write up
For 2023:
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Submission
of Thesis