The Hindu : New Delhi News : A new ray of hope for dyslexic children

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Tuesday, Jan 08, 2008
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New Delhi

A new ray of hope for dyslexic children

Parul Sharma

A DU professor has developed tests to identify and address the problem

Ready reckoner: Aamir Khan’s “Taare Zameen Par” has made the parents and teachers try to understand the learning disorder among kids with a sudden renewed interest.

NEW DELHI: With Aamir Khan’s directorial debut in “Taare Zameen Par” being lapped up by critics and masses alike, the movie’s theme -- dyslexia and children suffering from it -- has made people sit up and take notice, as parents and teachers try to understand the learning disorder with a sudden renewed interest.

The manner in which Aamir helps the protagonist in the film deal with his disorder left many in the audience thinking about dyslexia and the means of curing it.

A Delhi University professor who has been working in the field of dyslexia for 15 years has for the past one year been using a comprehensive package of assessment and intervention programmes evolved by her for such children in the city.

As part of her research project funded by the University Grants Commission, the Head of Psychology Department at the University, Ashum Gupta, has developed a package of tests and procedures for identifying dyslexia in children, assess their language (both Hindi and English) understanding and then address relating problems.

For the past one year, she has been holding workshops in schools and some non-government organisations to sensitise people about dyslexia.

“About 10 per cent of children in this country suffer from learning disabilities of various kinds. Nearly 3 per cent of them are dyslexic. The awareness about dyslexia is growing but more needs to be done. I have developed an assessment battery comprising different tests in Hindi and English to assess the exact problem with the child. The tests include reading, writing and spelling. The tests are administered to children in schools or their homes,” says Prof. Gupta, whose research has been published in many journals.

“Apart from dealing with the child, we also take interviews of parents and children spread over about five sessions. Including parents is important because there are times they start labelling their children as dyslexic because of some perceived symptoms. But they could be wrong,” she added.

Based on this assessment, an intervention package is put to use at the level of children as well as parents and teachers according to the nature of the problem.

“There are different types of disorders in children. For instance, some children have more of a reading problem than writing; there are others who find memorising things more difficult. Different strategies are employed in the intervention package. We enhance their reading ability by recording their sessions and then playing it again for them to understand where they made a mistake.”

“Phonological strategies are also employed that helps a child to understand different sounds. We use computers too as it always catches their fascination. There is emphasis on using images to make them understand the meaning of a word. Long words are broken into segments, written in big size and pronounced loudly. It is quite a laborious process,” Prof. Gupta points out.

The entire intervention process takes at least a year and the training has to be assiduously followed by parents and teachers till the children are mature enough to devise their own methods to augment their learning.

“We tell caregivers that they need to cultivate patience with such children. The package definitely benefits the children, but takes a lot of time. The rate of improvement is slow. They must not compare different children and not have negative perceptions about their wards,” she said.

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