Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

A ray of hope for dyslexic children

A dyslexia child learning to write at Vivek Institute for the learning backward in Visakhapatnam.

VISAKHAPATNAM: For nine-year-old Prashant the very thought of going to school instantly induces headaches and stomach-aches. Not because he dislikes his teachers or doesn’t have friends, but because he is repeatedly pulled up for his appalling spelling and grammar. He reads ‘was’ as ‘saw’ and gets confused between ‘b’ and ‘d’. His reading and writing skills are so poor that the teachers have almost written him off as ‘lazy’ and ‘inattentive’. Prashant has a learning difficulty called dyslexia — a developmental reading disorder.

Statistics show that about 10 per cent of school going children experience specific learning disability called dyslexia. Most schools do not have active resource rooms or counsellors to identify and offer necessary aid to deal with dyslexia. It was only recently that people starting taking notice of the learning disorder after Aamir Khan’s directorial debut “Taare Zameen Par” on dyslexia and children suffering from it became a hit.

“The problem is quite prevalent. On an average, five to 10 per cent of a class is said to have dyslexia from mild to severe degrees. Though the awareness about dyslexia is growing, a lot needs to be done to tackle the problem,” said neuro-psychiatrist Dr. C. Radhakant. He has been working for the dyslexic children from the past decade and also runs a school called Vivek, an institute for the learning backward. According to him, this learning disability is treatable through remedial education.

Through persistent research he has developed a package of tests and procedures for identifying dyslexia in children, assess their language understanding and then address relating problems. “We have individual sessions and monitor the classroom performance. The whole language approach is followed, which is a combination of sight-reading and phonetics. The Alpha-Omega method is used to teach them pronunciation,” he said. Special classes are conducted on Sunday mornings for dyslexic children.

Parents counselling is equally important because there are times they start labelling their children as dyslexic because of some perceived symptoms that could be wrong.

“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 used to handle the problem. Their reading ability can be enhanced by recording their sessions and then playing it again for them to understand where they made a mistake,” said Dr. Radhakant. Sometimes, dyslexia is accompanied by Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. “With good medication and behavioural therapy, the problem can be tackled,” he added.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

A ray of hope for dyslexic children
IGNOU joins hands with St. Joseph
Lack of amenities puts software industries in a fix
Revive POTA: BJP leader
Perceptible changes in rainfall pattern forecast
‘Women in science’ a big hit with academicians
ECoR Shramik Union plans stir
3 arrested in certificate racket
Port security to be beefed up
GVMC to build Rajiv memorial on beach road
EPFO offer
Nigerian national sent in 15 days’ remand
Visakhapatnam today

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu