He has been warning him for years: dyslexic students are not well detected in Catalonia or well cared for at school when they are diagnosed. And who says dyslexia says ADHD or any learning disorder. The first read slowly, with more effort and make many spelling mistakes and the second constantly lose the thread of reading. It is not laziness or negligence, it is a neurological disorder. Because they face a huge obstacle to learning, many students fall by the wayside before reaching higher stages, with the added burden of low self-esteem.
Anna Sans, a pediatric neurologist and director of the Som Via Institute, is convinced that behind the low results presented in Catalonia in reading comprehension in Catalonia (Pirls 2021 Report) are these children. “With current scientific knowledge there is no reason, and it is unacceptable, to condemn children to school failure,” she stresses.
How many children with dyslexia or ADHD are there in the population?
Approximately 15% of the school-age population has learning problems (similar data throughout the world and corroborated by studies on the Catalan population). There is no classroom in which there are not 3 or 4 children with neurodevelopmental problems.
And I deduce that it is not the figure detected in schools.
Not at all. I visit about 30 students a week, most with stories of poor school performance, self-esteem problems and misunderstanding. 40% reach ESO without diagnosis. Almost all of the children we attend to had their first reading difficulties in early childhood education, which is when they should be detected to start working on them. Today this is an exception.
And why is it not detected?
Topics persist such as: “every child has their own rhythm”, “let’s give them more time”, “until 8 years old you don’t have to do tests”, “it’s immature”… And precious time is lost in which brain plasticity is maximum to create brain connections in the deficit areas if scientifically validated treatment methods are implemented.
Do schools doubt this reality?
It is clear that it is not contemplated. If children were less diagnosed and correctly treated on a health issue than the average in neighboring countries, pediatricians would not sleep until they found out what the problem was. How can you be like 20 years ago in this prevalent issue?
The Catalan Society of Pediatrics is working so that the next Protocol of Pediatric Preventive Activities of the Department of Health includes screening for Neurodevelopmental Disorders at an early age in all children who attend public and private pediatric consultations. From ASD to language, learning and ADHD disorders. The next step will be that, once detected, circuits are established in the educational and health field that attend to them adequately.
Do you think that in communities like Asturias, with high levels of reading comprehension, more is detected?
There is no doubt that in communities with greater investment in education things work better and that in some of them the action protocols for children, and their compliance, are enviable. But, in my opinion, not everything is a problem of resources. Here there is great inequality in the attention that children from different areas or neighborhoods receive. And the differences sometimes depend more on an opinion or “line of thought” than on proven scientific criteria.
What problems are found?
A deficient reading comprehension does not allow extracting the main idea of ??a text, which is what allows consolidating learning. The child with low reading comprehension retains unrelated details that are quickly forgotten. And it hinders other learning such as mathematics due to the difficulty of understanding the statements.
Will they never learn?
If reading habit is not acquired, spelling will not consolidate, written expression will not improve and their acquisition of knowledge will be greatly limited. They can keep up with the school rhythm and cheat with lots of help. But as long as these families have a sociocultural level to be able to support it and the means to go to private centers.
And the rest? Families that can’t afford it?
In children from vulnerable families with learning problems, difficulties are always attributed to their socioeconomic and cultural situation. As if this ruled out a learning disability. Very often they have it all. And, without early and effective detection and psychoeducational care, we have already lost these children, in 3rd grade. We know what will come next.
What do or can teachers do?
There are detection tools and action protocols, such as the Prodiscat for Dyslexia, that you just have to decide to use systematically. There are methods for reading training (Binding, Glifing), “easy reading” books, computer readers as support methods, etc. Extraordinarily useful so that children do not miss the train. The presence of language specialists in schools would also be highly recommended.
There are many ways to learn to read. Which one is the right one?
In many countries with much higher educational success than ours, children learn to read later. Before starting to read, they work on the language much more than here, especially those fundamental aspects for learning to read, such as phonological awareness. This is vital for children who are going to have difficulties learning to read, since skills that are deficient in them are reinforced. And doing it at such an early age is very important. Children adapt to everything without any difficulty, but we make it very difficult for those with difficulties.
Does fluency and speed prevail over comprehension?
“I should read to pick up reading speed”, we often see in the comments of the notes. Does it make sense to control the number of words per minute that a student reads? Children gain reading speed as they automate the mechanics of reading. If you insist on speed when their reading level does not allow it, they invent and deduce the words according to the context. And obviously they make mistakes and the comprehension of what they have read is disastrous.
Do visual therapies help?
Reading is related to language, not vision. “Visual therapies” have no scientifically proven validity for children with reading difficulties. They do nothing but delay the diagnosis and the necessary psycho-pedagogical measures.
