We need to rethink the way we apply ‘dyslexia’ label to so many children

IT IS a pretty extreme measure to have your child diagnosed with a learning disability for the sole purpose of gaining an exemption from sitting the obligatory Leaving Certificate Irish examination.

The Department of Education and Skills is now reviewing the criteria by which students can gain such an exemption, and rightly so.

This follows the revelation that while 3,851 students were exempted from Leaving Certificate Irish in 2016 due to a diagnosis of dyslexia, just over 60pc of those students were well able to sit for exams in European languages including French, German and Spanish.

There is quite clearly something amiss here.

Deceptive declarations of dyslexia are a huge disservice to those students who genuinely suffer from the condition.

It is also profoundly unfair on those students who to study Irish, even if it would not be their preference. The facts are that they have no choice in the matter.

This proliferation of dyslexia diagnoses also puts a huge and arguably unfair burden on teachers who may not be trained to deal with the needs of such children, certainly in such numbers.

The facts are that there are some parents who cannot and will not accept that their child may not be academically inclined. There is a temptation to ‘blame’ this on a learning disability, such as dyslexia, as a means of explaining it away.

Parents need to remember that while they personally may be relieved at such a diagnosis, a label on a child focuses on what is wrong with them. It sets them apart as being different for all the wrong reasons.

Clearly a faux diagnosis is not in the best interests of the child. If a child is receiving learning support for a condition they don’t have, it is not going to deliver a successful outcome for that child.

It is also a huge waste of precious educational resources in the form of extra tuition and dedicated resource hours. Such resources could instead be directed towards those students who genuinely need them.

Diagnosing dyslexia is not a scientific process. It is a matter of opinion by the assessing psychologist. Anecdotally the average charge for such privately sourced assessments is between €700 and €800. Clearly this option is only open to those who have this sort of money at their disposal.

Children who are poor timekeepers, have bad handwriting, suffer from poor concentration or have bad organisational skills can all be included in the dyslexia spectrum, it would seem.

This is utter nonsense and amounts to an attempt by sharpelbowed parents as a strategy to bag extra tuition for their child.

It is estimated that one in 10 now suffers from dyslexia.

We would have to question why this figure is now so high, given that it was around one in 25 two decades ago.

Many well-meaning parents also get unintentionally sucked into the ‘dyslexia industry’, which sells special colour-coded text books, special yellow glasses and any number of other expensive items of merchandise.

The facts are that structured phonics works for all children when learning to read and write, including those who genuinely have dyslexia. There is no magic formula. It takes hard slog to get results.

However, parents can also help their children themselves. I see toddlers in coffee shops swiping on their iPads instead of reading a book or drawing with a few crayons. Their parents are often busy checking up on their social media updates on their phones.

Is it any wonder that so many children find it difficult to learn to read and write when almost all their experiences take place in front of a screen?

Parents cannot expect staff at a Montessori or primary school to teach children the essentials of reading and writing with alacrity if they do not read books or newspapers at home themselves.

Most primary schools are top heavy with students and pupilteacher ratios of 1:30 or even 35 are not uncommon. There is only so much one teacher can do.

However, there are other benefits to be gleaned from a dyslexia diagnosis in secondary school and beyond that are significant.

While an exemption for Irish – which is perceived as a difficult subject – is the best known benefit, there are others. They include permission to use a laptop, which most children would leap at if they had half a chance.

There is also the matter of other ‘accommodations’. They include having a reader at State exams and a waiver of spelling, grammar and punctuation.

In third-level, a laptop is also included but longer time to complete the exam can also be on offer. This could give a student an opportunity to obtain higher grades if they do not in fact have a genuine learning disability.

It is high time the Department of Education and Skills ensured a level playing field on this issue. One option would be a small cohort of department approved and appointed assessors, who rigorously apply exactly the same criteria to each assessment.

Alternatively, the Department of Education could easily and dramatically reduce the number of dyslexia cases by simply removing the compulsory tag currently attached to the study of Irish.

If they really wanted to go the whole hog and truly bring the Irish education system into the 21st century, they would finally allow all students to use laptops for State examinations. The sweaty biro has really had its day.

A faux diagnosis of dyslexia is not in the best interests of the child