Article of the Week

Spare a thought for Kids with Learning Disabilities

‘If I can't learn the way you teach, will you teach me the way I can learn?' This is the one line requested by every child suffering from dyslexia.

Can you ever imagine that Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill are known to have encountered serious learning difficulties at school? It may thus be unwise to underestimate a person, as there is no knowing what he/she might achieve.

Of the many states, Maharashtra was the first state to implement provisions for children with dyslexia (Learning Disability) in 1995. Keeping true this commitment, the Mumbai High Court recently issued orders to allow use of calculators to XI and XII commerce students with learning disabilities. The need for calculators was felt as these students have a serious problem in computing rows of figures, due to visual perceptual problems, and thus lose marks although they know how to solve the problems.

Since what is being examined is not the ability to compute, calculators prove to be a useful tool. Everyday tasks, such as writing a cheque, are also a tough job for people with special needs. “Unfortunately, it is only the English speaking urban elite who benefit from these provisions at the moment,” said Kate Currawalla, President of MDA (Maharastra Dyslexia Association).

However, many of the students refrain from taking advantage of these provisions as they feel they are set aside from the rest of the students. Currawalla added that if the adults are not sensitive in handling these students, they tend to feel more depressed and stressed out.

Parents and teachers need to build up their self-confidence. Guidance in the right direction can help these children to improve. The teachers should use a multisensory approach in teaching and tackle the issue in a more sensitive manner. Sometimes it is due to peer or societal pressure that these students refrain from disclosing the fact that they suffer from learning disability.

“In order to cope up with the problem, the principal of the school in which my son studied had come up with a solution of allowing all student of the class to avoid writing notes,” Currawalla added.

In such cases, teachers become a support system for the students. They must be able to recognize the level of ability and disabilities in an individual. Outside, a certificate course for counseling teachers on these issues is being conducted. “The basic thing is that information processing is a challenge for them. They are intuitive thinkers”, she added.

These students go through a battery of tests that pertains to intelligence, psychological and educational tests. Family counseling, formulating an Individual Education Plan and remediation follow these tests. Awareness programmes and training workshops for the teachers and administrators in mainstream schools have also been conducted by this association.

No two individuals with dyslexia are alike as every individual has his/her own strength and weakness. People are born with their problems but they learn to handle it with passing time.

Currawalla added that even if they have difficulty with reading, spelling, understanding language they hear, or expressing themselves in clear writing, it has often been observed that these children excel in arts, painting, sports, etc.

Currawalla said that one has to understand that every child has the right to an appropriate education, so that they can find their place in the sun. “Our education system has to solve these problems from the grass root level,” she signs off.

Source: Shamal Gore, Spare a thought for kids with learning disabilities, 17 Aug 2006, The Free Press Journal, Mumbai