Rawan Alhawamdeh, ALM 2021

I was born and raised in Jordan. My father was the first doctor in his town, Assamu in the south of Hebron, Palestine, after going to Russia when he was 12 years old and the US later on to study there. I studied occupational therapy (OT), and I was part of the first batch of students in Jordan to study OT as a bachelor’s degree. I was so passionate about occupational therapy because my father is an MD and surgeon. I actually used to read his medicine books when I was in second grade, so I was in love with all these medical questions and answers. I also loved to be with him in the clinic and play with his medical tools, so I decided to study a medical profession.

Occupational therapy is one of the most creative parts of medicine, because you get to apply medical science and research into helping people who are injured or who need rehabilitation after injuries. I was especially keen to help children, so I specialize in pediatrics and work with children with autism, ADHD, and the gifted.

Throughout my career, I worked and co-founded about 30 Rehabilitation centers in Jordan and the Gulf region including Saudi, UAE, and Bahrain. Furthermore, I studied at the USC postgraduate sensory integration certificate program. I like the science and theory behind sensory integration, how the brain is affected by using the senses and how you can wire your brain to make certain decisions about life. I continued working in Dubai and came across the Harvard Division of Continuing Education and the program in psychology. I was able to innovate a new therapy approach for treating children who suffer from autism and ADHD as well as for the gifted. In my capstone project, I designed a whole treatment approach from A to Z with assessments and therapy sessions. The program is all evidence-based, and it actually helps these children build their attention span, give adequate eye contact, understand other’s emotions, and control their own hyperactive behavior. I also innovated the first epigenetic-based play center for children in the world, and I wanted to develop it even more during COVID-19 because children need new places to play, develop, and reach their maximal potentials.

I work so much hands on for thousands of hours on the ground with children, and I’ve done this for more than 10 years. I’m always with them. I know what their brains need, what they are interested in, so I have this unique interaction that will make a change. I am passionate about what I am doing, because it really helps children and I can achieve developmental shifting and overcome their atypical symptoms.

I have seen it in their eyes when they cannot give you eye contact and they gradually start to look at your eyes and you feel like they woke up from a “social coma”. They start to respond, to call my name, and I really am in tears when they call my name. It means the world to me, and their parents are so grateful.

During COVID-19, children have been really impacted. The pandemic of COVID-19 contributed to depriving young brains from developing through natural play, so they cannot wire their brains properly like their typical peers. I’ve seen a lot of children who have lost language and communication skills, have anxiety disorders, or are sleep-deprived. A lot of them started to develop insecurities and social anxieties or do not want to talk to other people, even if they are capable of doing that. I’ve seen more addictive behavior from children who have ADHD with lots of screen time spent on video games. Our center is very helpful as we give them only one hour of high-quality content screen time per day, and the rest of the time they are interacting with tools and other equipment that is child-friendly. We help to rebuild the gaps in their development and catch up with their peers, whether it be crawling on time or give an adaptive response.

There’s a huge gap between the US and the Middle East in attitudes towards children with autism, ADHD, and/or who are gifted. People in the US read more research because they are exposed to it and have many more sources in English, but here it’s not that common to have read these articles by significant groups of the community. Now people started to learn about Google Scholar and read, but the problem is that a lot of people in the Middle East think autism is an unknown disease - we do not know its etiology. But this is not true, research has shown that autism has genetic and epigenetic factors as clinical evidence. I’m struggling to convince doctors here that this is evidence-based. The people, however, are so supportive to the children, caring and loving, and that is a vital emotional support that is rare to find in other communities. Nevertheless, when it comes to the applied practices, it’s so different; most practices are behind in applying updated evidence-based approaches that the children need.

Children with autism have more chances in therapy and learning in the US than children here. I mean, at our graduation ceremony at Harvard, I was so impressed because one of the graduates has autism and used augmentative technology to graduate with us. I wish this gap could change in our region. I want to pursue social media soon and educate people about this, to spread awareness and lead governments and policymakers to make a change.

Through the center, I want to offer a lot of free workshops. I also have a training company I established through my study called Mind Brain and Behavior of the Middle East, based in Dubai, and I want to start online courses for people to come in and learn more. I would really love to engage with governments and policymakers. At the same time, I’m working on applying for a PhD in clinical psychology, so I can do more research in this region and found the first pediatric epigenetic research hospital in the world. There’s a lot of potential for change, and my professors at Harvard gave me a lot of insight on how to do research and how to innovate and bring change to the world.

Cynthia Meyersburg is an amazing professor on teaching me how to treat patients in clinical psychology, and she really impacted my way of thinking to construct a new therapy approach based on the DSM-5 essentials. Dr. Pace-Schott is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and he is so proficient as a neuroscientist. He opened my eyes on how to treat the brain during sleep. You can really help these children big time then. Dr. Shelley Carson is the third professor I loved so much - she specializes in genius and giftedness, and I learned a lot from her about how to construct my program and capstone, so I could expose children at critical stages to unlock their potentials. To be honest, I was just so happy when I came to Harvard because I found a lot of my own characteristics in my colleagues and classmates. Before, I had really felt alone because a lot of people did not understand my scientific theories easily, but the professors really understood me and there were so many common interests with my classmates. I always felt belonging at Harvard, and everyone was so welcoming and open to discussing my ideas and innovations - they all supported me big time, honestly. Harvard really translated the research and knowledge I had to become a clinical model and a therapy program.

I wish to connect with clinicians and Harvard alumni or people at Harvard Medical School who are interested in treating children with autism, ADHD, and/or gifted in order to do more research. I want to develop iConcentrate more and spread it to the world, so I’m also looking for researchers who are really interested to connect the US with the Middle East and help children more globally. Harvard deserves to be central to this process because of its scientific reputation and level internationally, and at the same time, alumni are the most important people to me to be involved in this.

The journey of Harvard doesn’t end with our graduation, it should really begin then because we are connected as alumni.

Rawan Alhawamdeh

ALM 2021 | Psychology 

Entrepreneur, founder, managing and clinical director, occupational therapist, and psychologist

Websites to visit and connect:

https://www.sensoryme.com

https://www.mbbme.com

https://www.genomicsme.com

E-mail: info@sensoryme.com

Interviewed and compiled by Felicia Ho