When memory fails a dyslexic

MY son AK is 16 this year and he goes to a regular school in a prime location in Kuala Lumpur. AK is a special child; he was diagnosed as a dyslexic when he was in preschool. I was flabbergasted for the first few days after this was revealed to us at two separate professional assessments, and that was a decade ago.

Since then, every day has been filled with trials and tribulations of various kinds while managing and dealing with problems AK encounters due to his learning disability.

We got him a personal tutor whose only job was to teach AK how to read and write. He made slow progress from week to week and month to month.

While children his age were counting their As in the school examinations, AK was still struggling to put letters together to make words and sentences.

Additionally, he grew overly self-conscious because being different from the others made him feel inferior. Apart from coping with his tantrums due to his limitations academically, we were often driven against the wall as we tried to get him out of the rut.

At age nine, he learned to read simple words. He worked himself into sentences from then on. Today, AK is fluent in English and reads and writes almost like a normal child. For some strange reason, however, his punctuation is still in a mess, which we are working on with him.

For dyslexics, learning a second language is a burden and hence at the advice of his special tutor we decided Bahasa Malaysia would come in the later part of his schooling. He speaks and understands Malay pretty well except that he is unable to cope with academic subjects taught in BM.

With his innate inability to grasp mathematical concepts easily, AK is far behind in this subject. He needs to work 10 times harder with 20 times more practice than a normal child to be able to grasp a simple mathematical equation, for example.

With all these looming over him like a dark cloud, AK is preparing himself for PT3 this year. AK has so much drive in him and has worked up his own goals. And as parents, we are supporting him in every way we can to achieve his goals.

Having said that, I have discovered something quite obvious in AK as he struggles through his school work daily. He has a major memory issue. At the point of learning, AK gets all enthusiastic and he grasps the lessons pretty quickly. The problem is his ability to retain.

As early as the next day, he forgets but all he needs is a little prompt before he gets on track again.

I would like to ask the Examination Syndicate if an exception can be made for special needs children like AK where they are allowed to bring in some reference materials. After all, as we progress into adulthood, there is little need for us to memorise anything in this day and age.

I am willing to get him clinically assessed to prove that his major disability stems from his inability to retain much in his memory.