Dyslexia, ADHD, and Learning Disability Evaluation in Saudi Arabia

Your child's teacher has flagged concerns. Or maybe you've watched the signs accumulate for months — the letter reversals, the attention drift, the homework that turns into a two-hour ordeal. Now you're sitting in Riyadh or Jeddah wondering how to get a proper evaluation in a country where the assessment system operates primarily in Arabic.

This is one of the most common situations expat families face in Saudi Arabia, and the pathway through it is not obvious. Here's how it actually works.

Why Public School Evaluations Won't Work for Expat Children

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Education (MoE) runs evaluation centres through the General Directorate of Special Education. These centres use Arabic-language psychometric tools — standardised to Saudi norms, on Saudi populations. For an English-speaking expatriate child, an assessment conducted in Arabic produces invalid results. The cultural and linguistic bias makes the scores meaningless for diagnostic purposes.

This isn't a criticism of the Saudi system — it's a structural reality. The state evaluation pathway is designed for Arabic-speaking citizens in public schools. Expat children are legally funnelled into international schools anyway, so you'll need the private clinical route regardless.

Where to Get a Genuine ADHD or Dyslexia Assessment

For any evaluation to be useful — both for diagnosis and for securing accommodations at an international school — it must use internationally normed, English-language tools. The assessments you need include:

• Cognitive testing: WISC-V (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) or similar
• Academic achievement: Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement or WIAT-III
• Dyslexia-specific: phonological awareness subtests, reading fluency measures
• ADHD: Conners rating scales, continuous performance tests, clinical interview

Where to find qualified assessors:

• King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (Riyadh and Jeddah) has English-speaking neuropsychology staff. Waitlists can be long — ask specifically for a paediatric neuropsychologist.
• Private bilingual clinics in major cities: the ABC Center (Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam) employs internationally credentialed psychologists and offers speech-language pathology alongside psycho-educational assessments.
• International school referrals: The learning support coordinator at your child's school often maintains a shortlist of private psychologists they trust and whose reports are formatted correctly for school use. Ask for this list before you start searching independently.

For ADHD specifically, a paediatric psychiatrist or developmental paediatrician can make a clinical diagnosis, but for school accommodation purposes you'll want a full psycho-educational evaluation rather than just a medical letter.

ADHD Medication: What You Need to Know

If your child is already on stimulant medication (Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall), know that regulations in Saudi Arabia are strict. These are controlled substances. You'll need to bring a sufficient supply for your assignment and have documentation from your home country prescriber, ideally translated into Arabic. Sourcing ADHD medication locally requires going through a licensed Saudi psychiatrist — build that relationship early, don't wait for a prescription to run out.

What Dyslexia Support Looks Like in Practice

The word "dyslexia" is increasingly recognised in Saudi international school settings, but support quality varies significantly by institution. The better-resourced schools — AISJ, BISR, ISG Dhahran — have learning support coordinators who understand structured literacy intervention and can implement small-group or 1:1 pull-out sessions.

However, none of these schools employ reading specialists at the level a specialist dyslexia school in the UK or US would. Expect to supplement. Private dyslexia tutors trained in programmes like Wilson Reading or Barton operate in Riyadh and Jeddah — the expat compound community (WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups like "Riyadh Special Needs Support") is the fastest way to find vetted recommendations.

Turning an Evaluation into School Accommodations

Once you have a comprehensive psycho-educational report in English, the next step is presenting it to your school's learning support team and requesting a formal Individual Learning Plan (ILP). This is the Saudi international school equivalent of an IEP — it's an internal document, not a state-mandated legal contract, but it's the mechanism through which accommodations are delivered.

Standard accommodations available at most international schools include:

• Extended time on tests (typically 25–50%)
• Preferential seating (near the front, away from distractions)
• Reduced copying tasks and access to notes
• Instructions broken into smaller steps
• Use of assistive technology (spell-checkers, text-to-speech)

If the school is resistant to implementing accommodations despite a clear evaluation, you'll need to understand how to position this request within the Saudi cultural context — which means relationship-building first, documentation second. Aggressive demands rarely work; demonstrating that you're a collaborative partner in your child's education does.

Preparing for Qiyas Standardised Tests

As your child approaches secondary school, they'll encounter Qiyas assessments — Saudi national standardised tests that are the gateway to university. In a significant policy shift, the Saudi Council of Universities now exempts eight disability categories from standard capability and achievement tests. This includes students with learning difficulties, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder. Securing this exemption requires submitting updated clinical diagnostic reports through the official Qiyas portal — your psycho-educational evaluation is essential documentation.

One Step at a Time

Getting the right evaluation is the foundation of everything that follows. Without an accurate, internationally valid assessment in hand, conversations with schools become guesswork. With it, you have a document that names the specific challenges, quantifies the gaps, and gives you the language to ask for exactly what your child needs.

The Saudi Arabia Special Education Blueprint walks through how to use an evaluation report inside Saudi international school meetings — including what schools can and cannot refuse, how to frame accommodation requests effectively, and the cultural dynamics that determine whether a conversation goes well or goes nowhere.

Quick Reference: Getting an LD/ADHD Evaluation in Saudi Arabia

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