The South African Schools Collection 2021

i fic t it words and numbers?

When the numbers don’t add up, or the words don’t make sense, what help is at hand?

By Kim Maxwell

M

isunderstood and unfairly associated with stigmas, there is no need for schoolchildren with dyslexia and dyscalculia to despair, help is available.

DEMANDING DYSLEXIA “If you meet me, you’ll never know I’m dyslexic, but if I send you something I have written, you’ll see the grammatical errors. I might be able to say I’m eloquent, but there is no way I can spell it.” Strong sentiments from dyslexic specialist Sharon Gerken, director of the Dyslexic Association of South Africa. She is also a parent of two adult dyslexics.

“Educational psychologists would rather refer to it as a learning difficulty, than label it dyslexia. Some parents don’t even want their children labelled,” continues Gerken. “For my children, it was incredibly empowering to acknowledge dyslexia.

If we can teach our children that they’re not stupid, they just learn differently, that’s what it’s about. How can you get an accurate assessment of my IQ as a dyslexic if I can’t understand what is written?”

About 5 to 10 per cent of schoolgoing children globally have some form of dyslexia.

South Africa’s dyslexia statistics reflect a similar trend, according to the Reading Language Gym. Elizabeth Nadler-Nir is a speech and language therapist at this Cape Town practice. “Dyslexia is quite a loaded term. It

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exists and it’s on a spectrum, like everything, with different levels of severity. Many people, with a bit of help in treating dyslexia, can be out-of-the-box thinkers,” she says.

“Dyslexia is generational and inherited.

As therapists, we look at the symptoms and ask ‘what can I do for that child?’ Some are stronger orally than in writing, for example.”

Nadler-Nir stresses that if a teacher flags a young child for observation, the proper channels should be followed: schools refer to an educational psychologist and a lengthy assessment evaluates the child’s literacy in cognisance of all their skills.

“You want those reports, the paper trail … to show a child struggled in lower grades.

We need it to get Independent Examinations Board, government and Cambridge school concessions in high school,” adds Gerken.

“The school will say: go to an educational psychologist, then an audiologist or speech therapist, and so on. Parents of dyslexics often get overwhelmed. And not everybody can afford private therapists.”

The association can point parents in the right direction. “You have the right to ask your local hospital for an educational psychologist’s report for your child – you might just have to wait six months. Children are falling through the system because parents don’t know this.”

Gerken says dyslexic children are eligible for accommodations. A spelling concession – if a teacher can identify the word, it is marked correctly. Extra time is granted for written tests in junior and high school.

A child with dyslexia and dysgraphia (challenges visible in handwriting skills) may attend school with a scribe and a

Many people, with a bit of help in treating dyslexia, can be out-of-the-box thinkers.” – Elizabeth Nadler-Nir reader (who reads and writes for them).

Gerken’s sons opted not to use scribes and readers because they wanted to prepare themselves for later studies. “Both my sons struggled at school, and both managed to get degrees,” she says.

Occupational therapist (OT) Sarah Skevington from the Olive Tree Therapy Centre in Gqeberha has a special interest in sensory integration. “In children with dyslexia, I’ve seen a reversing of letters and incorrect sequencing of letters in words when spelling and reading,” she says.

“As OTs, we’ll deal with the building blocks for sequential reading and writing – things such as bilateral integration, lateralisation of both sides of the body and sequencing.

We don’t focus on reading and spelling, but rather work on those gross motor building blocks that support the spelling or reading process, from left to right. So we’ll get kids moving rhythmically left to right or clapping to a rhyme to build on sequencing to help improve functional difficulties of dyslexia.”

DAUNTING DYSCALCULIA Just as dyslexics have trouble with words, so children with dyscalculia struggle with numbers. Nadler-Nir doesn’t work with dyscalculia, but says that like dyslexia, dyscalculia is a diagnosable difficulty.

The South African Schools Collection 2021 2017

2021/04/16 4:18 PM