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Tamil Nadu
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Chennai
CHENNAI: For S. Gopal, a chirpy 10-year-old, the word ‘school’ is synonymous with torture. Not because he hates his subjects or his teachers. He likes his ‘miss’ and promptly shows off his drawing and colouring skills to her for that one word of appreciation she never fails to give. However, there is another aspect about him that she does not recognise — his learning disability. His teacher has not heard of learning disabilities. She sees his poor reading and writing skills as manifestations of laziness and not of dyslexia, a common learning disability. A neurobiological conditionDyslexia, a learning disability, is a neurobiological condition. It is not the same as being a slow learner. Reading, spelling and, sometimes, mathematics, are challenge areas for children with this disability. They tend to swap similar-looking letters such as b and d, and p and q. Some of them tend to reverse numbers too. However, a learning disability is in no way connected to lack of intelligence. With appropriate intervention, such children can do as well as and, perhaps, even better than their peers. Most of them are highly creative and excel in their area of interest, special educators insist. Gopal, who goes to a government-aided Tamil medium school, is not the only one being branded ‘lazy’, ‘adamant’ or ‘a slow learner’. Several children with learning disabilities are being penalised for no fault of theirs. And the penalty could range from being made to stand outside class to tedious impositions. Actor Aamir Khan’s film ‘Taare Zameen Par’, a runaway hit looks at this issue through the touching story of little Ishaan, a child with dyslexia. Poor awarenessMany school teachers are still not aware of learning disabilities and often tend to mistake them for laziness. Very few private schools have cells dedicated to help such children. The plight of children going to government or aided schools, particularly Tamil medium schools, is still worse. “He is so naughty and talkative in class. Don’t pamper him...he needs a whack and he’ll be fine,” a teacher handling class VI at an aided Tamil medium school recently said about a student to his mother K. Shanti. “Initially, when he mixed up letters and resisted writing, even we thought he was playing the fool. It was only when a doctor pointed this out, we understood he was dyslexic. Till then, we had had not heard of such a condition,” Ms. Shanti says. Clinical neuropsychologist B.S. Virudhagirinathan says awareness among teachers is rather low. At a workshop that he addressed, nearly 1,000 teachers confessed that they had not heard of learning disabilities. “There is no detailed chapter on learning disability in teacher training modules. The result, students are being put through enormous pressure,” he says, adding, “Lack of training is the reason teachers call such students low IQ students or indifferent children. There is an urgent need for awareness,” he points out. Subha Vaidyanathan, academic coordinator of the Madras Dyslexia Association agrees. “Hundreds of children from different schools were brought to us over the last four months. Only governmental intervention can help raise awareness,” she said. The State government has been giving dyslexic students examination concessions such as extra time, but awareness among teachers is shockingly poor. Intervention at the right time could make a world of difference to these children, special educators emphasise. “The government could consider pull out programmes for these children. Once their basic skills are in place, they can be mainstreamed again,” Ms. Vaidyanathan added. In fact, the Karnataka State Government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan wing approached the MDA and experts have been training master trainers who will, in turn, train other teachers.
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