Biography:
Bariah is a leading expert in child health, with more than 15 years’ experience. She graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree from Damascus University School of Medicine in Syria, then completed her training in New York Methodist Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, obtaining certification from the American Board of Pediatrics in 2002. In 2005, Bariah transferred to Hackensack University Medical Center where she was part of a busy neonatology team providing care for extreme-premature and high-risk infants, as well as supporting the labor and delivery department. Bariah started her role as Consultant Pediatrician at American Hospital Dubai in 2006, providing care for premature newborns, inpatient care for all pediatric patients on the ward, emergency care and treatment such as biomedical interventions. She also assessed patients with ADHD and autism. Dr Bariah then joined Al Zahra hospital as a Head of the Pediatric Department in 2013 and was leading a team of 25 doctors providing care to high risk/ premature infants at the level III NICU; the well newborns in the newborn nursery and labor ward; the acutely ill pediatric patients admitted to the pediatric ward; and pediatric patients from 0-16 years old in the pediatric clinic for well-child checkups, vaccinations and sick visits. She also assessed and treated patients with developmental delay, speech delay, autism and ADHD. Bariah obtained Board certification in Integrative and Holistic Medicine in 2014. She established the first pediatric integrative medicine clinic in the UAE. She also completed a Global Executive Degree in Safety, Quality, Informatics and Leadership (SQIL) at Harvard Medical School in 2017. She is a Member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and an Associate of Harvard Medical School. She is fluent in English, Arabic, Spanish and French.
Abstract:
Sensory processing disorders (SPD) affect 5–16% of school-aged children can cause long-term deficits in intellectual and social development. Current theories of SPD implicate primary sensory cortical areas and higher-order multisensory integration (MSI) cortical regions.Over 90% of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) demonstrate atypical sensory behaviors. However, there are children with sensory processing differences who do not meet an ASD diagnosis but do show atypical sensory behaviors to the same or greater degree as ASD
What is the prevalence of SPD?
In a study of children born between July 1995 and September 1997 in the New Haven, CT area 16% of 7 to 11-year-old had symptoms of SPD-SOR (Ben-Sasson et al., 2009). That is the same as 1 in 6 children study in younger children (Ahn et al., 2004) found a prevalence of 5%, which is 1 in 20 children. Children with(ASD) experience high rates of anxiety, sensory processing problems, and (GI) problems; however, the associations among these symptoms in children with ASD have not been previously examined. Risk factors: history of major maternal stresses during pregnancy, fetal distress, jaundice, significant childhood illnesses including chronic ear infections, sleeping and eating problems, and an absent or brief crawling phase, language delays, and a lack of separation from parents and mastery of motor skills by age three.