Last week a parent of a child I have worked with came to me with a rather worrying quote. She had been seeking a local authority’s official position on identifying and supporting dyslexia. The response was rather shocking, but sadly it’s the harsh reality of many local authority’s views on this and something I am hearing, tragically, from families I support all over England.
Most local authorities no longer provide a service for pupils with dyslexia.
This is because of it’s high incidence (lots of people are dyslexic… at least 1 in 10 to be precise!) Alongside this, even if you were able to win the referral lottery many Local Authority Educational Psychology services (one of the ONLY free services to parents and pupils) rarely diagnose dyslexia anymore and instead do needs assessments. This may help the school and the child make academic progress, but it certainly doesn’t help the person understand who they are! I strongly believe, from both personal experience and a professional view point, that diagnosis is essential.
Dyslexia is a part of WHO someone is! It helps them understand why they make the decisions they do, why they are struggling with something and what they need to do to overcome it. How can your mental health and emotional wellbeing be balanced if you are constantly experiencing failure, or results that don’t equal your effort? How can you know you are intelligent if your academic grades don’t reflect this, because academia isn’t your thing? However, being creative, talking, caring, being practical, solving problems, having empathy is your thing, but there is no official measure or recognition of this.
The current view point from many local authorities and possibly the government is that they believe schools can support dyslexia!
This would be true if:
- All Teachers had compulsory training on identifying it.
- Every school had a specialist teacher and assessor of dyslexia
- And crucially, schools were provided with the correct budget to fund the above!
Currently it feels that in terms of identifying and supporting Dyslexia a HUGE step back has been taken.
The above is my current reality. What I experience and hear most days on a professional and personal level.
Read the the latest update from the government on how our UK educational system supports and identifies dyslexia.
Makes interesting reading… let me know your thoughts.