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Dyslexia:
Specific learning disability
Common problem
attracts little notice

By Wingki Kwok

Dyslexia, an unfamiliar term to many people, is a common problem in Hong Kong.

It is a specific learning disability with which victims suffer from difficulties in reading and writing.

Dr. Connie Ho Suk Han teaches in the Psychology Department at the University of Hong Kong.

She said that in Hong Kong, most of the students in Band 5 schools are unidentified dyslexics.

However, the general public is not aware of dyslexia.

Dr. Ho said it was difficult to discover dyslexics in their pre-school age.

Said Dr. Ho: “Dyslexics often show no symptoms unless they write or read.”

This may explain why Mrs. Chiant Yim Houng, a parent of a dyslexic, did not realise her son’s abnormality until he entered primary school.

Said Mrs. Chiant: “I just thought that my son was more active than the other children, but the feedback from his kindergarten was that he lacked concentration.

“The situation got worse when he entered primary school.

“He was poor in writing as well as spelling and memorising vocabulary words. But he was good at speaking.”

This was the reason that everyone regarded her son as lazy, but not abnormal.

Mrs. Chiant had no idea about what was wrong with her son until her son’s private tutor told her that her son showed symptoms of dyslexia.

She then took her son to see a doctor.

She was later referred for further assessment to the Child Assessment Centre of the Education Department.

The results showed that her son had a relatively high IQ, good speaking ability, and creativity, but he had problems in following plans and directions. He also had difficulties in balancing.

Besides, he had high muscular tension that stopped him from sitting properly for a long time. This was what his teachers always complained about.

At the time, Mrs. Chiant did not know much about dyslexia. However, she found that her son’s teachers knew even less. She could not seek help from the school.

“The teachers did not even know what dyslexia is. They did not believe that my son has problems in learning,” said she.

She complained that the teachers did not even follow the doctor’s instructions

“I requested them to allow my son to use an exercise book with bigger line spacing, but they refused to do so,” Mrs. Chiant said.

Miss Cheuk Wai Man, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Association for Specific Learning Disability, said that teachers’ knowledge about dyslexia is limited.

Said she: “Many teachers refuse to accept the behaviour of dyslexics because they have not heard of it.

“Even if they had heard of it, they do not know what to do.

“This is unfair to dyslexics. To take a simple example, most of the dyslexics in Hong Kong cannot enter a university.”

She said that the situation is very different from that in other countries.

For instance, in Taiwan and the U.S., precise laws are set up to protect dyslexics.

However, Miss Tsang Suk Man, a specialist in educational psychology from the psychological services section of the Education Department, disagreed.

She said, “Since there are many different levels of dyslexia, we cannot force schools to give allowance to every student being labelled as a dyslexic.

“Too much allowance might give rise to an adverse labelling effect on the dyslexics.”

The Education Department prefers to arrange occupational and physiological therapies for dyslexics such as jumping on a trampoline.

However, Mrs. Chiant, the parent of the dyslexic, complained that the service was inadequate.

“It is professional and useful, but it is not persistent and thus is ineffective,” said she.

Her son has already waited for 3 months for further therapy.

Miss Cheuk agreed with Mrs. Chiant.

Miss Cheuk said, “Therapies for dyslexics should be specific since no dyslexics suffer from exactly the same level of dyslexia.”

However, the Education Department only provides short-term courses for groups of dyslexics and their parents. These courses usually last for a few weeks.

Individual treatment is offered only to dyslexics with serious problems.

Miss Tsang also said that the lack of resources posed restrictions.

“We are unable to provide individual therapy. We can only arrange treatment in groups and transfer serious cases to a smaller group,” she said.

Nevertheless, Miss Tsang said that, starting from this year, group treatment will be more frequent.

The trade-off will be a larger group size.

Despite all of the above, Miss Cheuk said she was still optimistic about the future since the Education Department is trying hard to improve the situation.

From August 1998 to July 2000, the department organised a project called the Hong Kong Specific Learning Disability Research Project.

It aimed at improving current services provided to dyslexics.

Miss Tsang was one of the people in charge.

She said that the project developed a checklist that enables schools and teachers to identify problematic students easily and flexibly.

Starting from the next academic year, the checklist will be distributed to each primary school annually.

This is part of the Early Identification of Children with Learning Difficulties Programme.

Information will be collected from schools so as to determine which students should receive further assessment.

Moreover, there are annual territory-wide teaching seminars and school-based programmes designed for teachers to equip them with knowledge about dyslexia.

Miss Tsang admitted that they may not be able to serve all schools since the above services are not compulsory. As a result, not all teachers will get the message.

Nevertheless, Miss Tsang said that parents of dyslexics should not be pessimistic since dyslexics usually have other talents.

The promotion of diversified teaching and learning is beneficial to them.

Dr. Ho, the professor of psychology, held similar views.

Said she: “Dyslexics may have a disadvantage in learning. However, not all of them are inferior to normal students.

“Many of them are good at other things. They may know how to compensate for their loss and find their own way to learn.”

Difficulties that dyslexics encounter

Dyslexia is usually a genetic problem, but some cases may be caused by environmental conditions.

Some fail to recognise words with similar characters. Or they may fail to distinguish among the same characters in different sequences, or words with similar sounds.

Examples:

Similar characters: “p” and “q”, “b” and “d”, “w” and “m”.

Words with similar letters but different sequences: “saw” and “was”.

Words with similar sounds: “nose” and “rose”.

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