Transition services for secondary students with moderate intellectual disability in Saudi Arabia: What parents and special education teachers say.
Saudi high-school students with moderate ID leave school with no transition plan because teachers lack training and the system has no roadmap.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Alshuayl (2025) asked parents and special-ed teachers about life after high school for Saudi students with moderate intellectual disability. The team ran open-ended interviews. They wanted to know what transition services exist and who is ready to deliver them.
What they found
Almost nothing is in place. Parents and teachers agreed: there are no structured transition plans, no job coaches, and no community work sites. Teachers said they were never trained to write transition goals. Everyone felt society expects very little from these students after graduation.
How this fits with other research
The picture matches Waldron et al. (2023), who found Saudi special-ed teachers rate their own inclusive-practice skills higher than general-ed peers, yet still call their training thin. It also backs van der Miesen et al. (2024) in the U.S., where students taking alternate assessments set much lower post-school goals, showing low expectations are a global pattern.
Mutabbakani et al. (2020) at first looks opposite: Kuwaiti mothers of young autistic children distrust inclusion and prefer separate classes. The difference is stage, not contradiction. Kuwaiti parents worry about preschool placement; Saudi parents worry about what happens after high school when services vanish.
Alrajhi et al. (2023) echo the same hole from another angle: Saudi mothers of autistic children list daily service gaps and give concrete fixes. Together the studies form a chorus—families see the missing pieces and can tell you exactly what to build.
Why it matters
If you write IEPs for Saudi teens, do not assume a transition page exists. Ask the family what adult day or work sites they know, then add goals that build those skills. Push for teacher training hours on transition planning; the data show it is rarely covered. Use parent quotes from this paper in team meetings to justify extra resources.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Over the years, policies supporting the provision of services that facilitate a smooth transition to adult life for students with intellectual disability (ID) have increasingly gained attention in the United States of America. However, the same level of importance placed on postschool outcomes for secondary students with ID has not yet been achieved in Saudi Arabia, despite it being a high-income country. The purpose of this study was to investigate the provision of transition services to adult life for secondary students with moderate ID in Saudi Arabia. Over 4 months, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 participants, including six parents of students with moderate ID and six male special education teachers who were teaching their sons. Five themes emerged from the participants' comments, including (a) knowledge about transition services, (b) familiarity with transition-related evidence-based practices, (c) the provision of transition services, (d) support needed to improve the quality of services, and (e) long-term outcomes expected from transition services. When considered collectively, four issues warrant discussion including (a) special education teachers' lack of pedagogical knowledge related to the transition to adult life, (b) a systemic lack of services that reflect pedagogical knowledge related to the transition to adult life, (c) insufficient infrastructure to establish and maintain services for transition to adult life, and (d) a societal lack of hope for long-term outcomes. The researcher discusses the findings, shares their implications, delineates the limitations of this study, and outlines recommendations for future research.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2025.105139