Dyslexia explained

Countries across Europe, including Malta, will next week see activities organised as part of Dyslexia Week, which is aimed at raising awareness of a learning difficulty estimated to affect about eight per cent of any population.

The European Dyslexia Association, which was established in 1987, explains that dyslexia, which cannot be cured, is not caused by mental handicap or emotional disturbance.

People with dyslexia experience difficulty in processing both written and oral language. Besides having serious problems in reading, writing and spelling, many confuse directions, sequences and letters, words and numbers that look or sound similar.

Despite intelligence and motivation, without appropriate support, children with dyslexia do not learn as other children do. However, when diagnosed early, they can be helped to learn with specialist teaching and a great deal of support and encouragement.

Because of failure at school, low self-esteem and other emotional consequences are often suffered by people with dyslexia.

On the positive side, many dyslexic people are good at architecture, engineering and other creative arts. They can also be good at acting and lateral thinking and often make good managers in people-related occupations.

If given the appropriate help for their areas of difficulty, there is no reason why a dyslexic person should not be a high achiever and/or gain a university degree, says the association.

In local schools, children diagonised with dyslexia are given the appropriate help and teachers are adequately trained to help them, said Alison Ellul, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Education.

"Parents with dyslexic kids are given help, but the general public can make life difficult for dyslexic persons, simply because of lack of awarness and lack of knowledge about dyslexia," she said.

Christine Firman, an expert in learning difficulties, said dyslexia tends to be very much associated with children, but as time went by the problems encountered by adults also became a reality.

"Dyslexia is an ongoing problem. Though adults might be more skilled at circumventing their difficulties and accentuating their strengths some continue to struggle with their literacy problems. Often adults feel embarrassed to talk about their difficulties - they are overly sensitive and fear that their condition might be misunderstood," she said.

As part of Dyslexia Week, the Special Learning Difficulties Service of the Education Division will be showing a video which discusses the difficulties and resourcefulness of dyslexic adolescents and adults. For further information please call on 2123 4965.