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Dyslexia decoded
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Parents and schools are equipping themselves with knowledge on dyslexia
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A few years ago this condition would have been brushed off as the child's laziness to go to school and then labelled as lazy, stupid, dull or moddu
PHOTO: SATISH H.
CONFOUNDED Dyslexics can't differentiate between similar looking characters such as `6' and `9' and `b' and `d' photo: Satish h.
Eleven-year-old Giridhar is a cartoon buff. He likes writing storyboards for films as much as spending a few hours with the skateboard post school. "He is excellent in skating and very good with analysis and other school activities, except writing. He makes mistake in his work as he has a problem reading the letters `b' and `d'," says his father Venkat Reddy, a businessman.
Giridhar has a learning difficulty called dyslexia — a developmental reading disorder. About five to six per cent school children are identified with the disorder today.
"They have a high IQ. They have difficulty in following instructions, and make significant spelling errors. They cannot differentiate between similar looking characters such as `6' and `9' and `b' and `d'," says Shakila Naidu, consulting child psychologist.
A few years ago this condition would have been brushed off as the child's laziness to go to school and then labelled as lazy, stupid or dull.
And parents were not willing to accept remedial instructions. Not any more. Today parents are equipping themselves with knowledge on the disorder while working with the school on the child's improvement while schools have come up with special needs sections along with periodic seminars by psychologists.
While there are schools that have active resource rooms to identify and offer necessary aid to deal with dyslexia, others have counsellors in supportive units offering remedial instructions to children.
"We have individual sessions and monitor the classroom performance. The whole language approach is followed which is a combination of sight-reading and phonetics," says Leela Kondath, special needs teacher at an international school. Agrees Maya Sukumaran, a headmistress: "We call counsellors to talk to parents. There is a provision to help such students. For every hour during exam, the student is given 15 minutes extra. And the spelling mistakes are overlooked. This way the child fares well. We have a Standard XII student who has scored 76 per cent and another slow learner who is incredible as the class captain."
"About 75 per cent get over this by the time they are in 10+2. Early identification is the key," says Dr. Naidu.
SYEDA FARIDA
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