Mahmoud Al-Shayyab

Mahmoud Al-Shayyab is one of the pioneers who helped establish and localize Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) standards in Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. His career grew out of a passion for empowering children with autism spectrum disorder and developmental disorders through intervention plans grounded in rigorous scientific evidence rather than guesswork, improving the quality of life of families and communities.

He has successfully led major government and institutional capacity-building projects, including training programs and the establishment of specialized care centers for the Zayed Higher Organization for People of Determination in the UAE, clinical capacity-building programs for the Ministry of Public Health in Qatar, comprehensive rehabilitation programs for the Ministry of Social Development in Oman, and wide networks of special education centers in Saudi Arabia.

Alongside his extensive training work, he has supervised the Arabic adaptation of some of the most important behavioral assessment tools, most notably the VB-MAPP and ABLLS-R protocols, helping hundreds of Arab practitioners measure children’s language and behavioral skills accurately in their mother tongue.