But all was not well. Her school grades were falling; her teachers loved her but pushed her parents to give her ‘more practice’. Her mother who helped her with the homework began noticing that something was not right. For an otherwise multilingual chatterbox, she appeared to lack an intuitive understanding of phonics. Her vocabulary was lagging, her comprehension lacking. Her father could somehow relate to her better. A successful financial analyst, he still avoids books. He vividly remembers being labelled ‘tube light’ or ‘lazy’ by friends and teachers for his inability to multitask and poor grades in class. He was dismissive of his wife’s concerns. “There is nothing wrong with my daughter, she will be fine,” he would say. He was uneasy about labels. Six months of internal struggle and the undeniable social withdrawal of their bright and happy child drove them to finally approach a child psychologist. A Cognitive Assessment was conducted where Mumtaz met with the psychologist, played block games, told stories and drew cartoons. Finally, they had an assessment.
Mumtaz has a Specific Learning Disorder or SLD, in her case, Dyslexia. A condition that makes it difficult to read and write, often accompanied with difficulties in math. Reading is in fact two separate activities; decoding or translating the written symbols into sounds and comprehension or understanding the meaning of the words. Dyslexics may have difficulty in both or only one of these. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize similarities and differences in sounds, for example in rhyming words and dyslexic children have trouble with this. In addition, there are sometimes other associated difficulties that dyslexic children face. They may have trouble sequencing; for instance they may find it tough to remember sequences such as days of the week, syllables in a word (hence hopsital), steps in a long division, or the order of events in a story they are narrating. They may also sometimes have a weak working memory. Working memory is like the RAM of a computer, the place where you store small bits of information for a very short time to be retrieved for daily activities. Examples include taking notes while also listening to the teacher speak, following mother’s multi-step instructions, keeping track of steps in a long division. Children with a weak working memory may look like they are not paying attention, but in reality they are struggling to keep it all in their head. Dyslexia is a very diverse condition with one or more of these associated problems. Mumtaz is one example while young Ishaan of the movie Taare Zameen Par is another, with different combinations of deficits.
Homo sapiens have existed for nearly 200,000 years on earth. We have likely the most sophisticated brain on earth, capable of learning everything from tool making to music compositions to computer algorithms. For most of our existence we have communicated verbally. Some 5000 or so years ago we began devising codes for jotting down our thoughts for greater efficiency. Then 500 years ago we began relying on books to communicate knowledge, but it was still only the scholars who needed to read. It is in the last one century as societies began favouring universal school-based standardized education, instead of apprenticeship for vocational training, that we stumbled upon this problem that put a significant number of us at a disadvantage.
Dyslexia often runs in the family and may show up as mild difficulties in reading to severe and identified dyslexia in the family history. Comparisons of genomes of dyslexic people with proficient readers have found changes in many genes that could be associated with dyslexia. This knowledge is helping scientists understand how genes control neurons that in turn control how we learn. The brain is however too complex for us to yet be able to figure out whether these genes have any direct role in reading deficits. In humans, the area known as Visual Word Form Area (VWFA-that recognizes written words) in the brain is connected to the language region even before children have learned to read. This must be one of those evolutionary inventions that set us up to be linguists and decoders meant for greater things. Functional MRI (fMRI) scans of brains of skilled readers and dyslexic readers clearly show differences in the regions related to reading and language processing. But they show many other differences as well. The many differences in the brains of any two individuals show up as differences in their sociability, moods, imagination, learning styles, behaviour and skills. Thus these larger differences in the brains of dyslexics manifest in the way they see the world, think about, and solve problems. Dyslexic individuals are more likely to miss the details while being able to see the larger picture. They may have better pattern recognition and visual-spatial abilities even as they struggle with reading and sequencing. They may be better at dealing with social interactions and managing people. Perhaps these are the traits that helped Albert Einstein and Agatha Christie and Steve Jobs, all dyslexics, to make their mark in the world. But this blooming generally happens after they leave the trauma of school and discover for themselves where their strengths lay.
Could we forgo this traumatic childhood and bolster their strengths in the school itself? Armed with the diagnosis, Mumtaz’s parents entered her into a remedial program where special education teachers worked with her individually to strengthen her phonological awareness, her sequencing skills and helped her discover simple tricks and hacks to improve her reading, writing and math. The school started providing accommodations in the class and gave her extra time and extra help in understanding the questions during tests. Slowly she began to regain her footing in school. She is still way behind her classmates in academics, but with encouragement from teachers and parents she has discovered a talent for music and sports. She received this support and help thanks to her getting identified as a dyslexic. Dyslexia is so diverse and covers such a wide spectrum that there is a movement in the world of educational psychology to remove the label dyslexia altogether so that everyone with difficulties can get the help they need to flourish. Every school-teacher will agree that there are always a few children in their class who have difficulties with language and math. But these deficits do not get formally identified. There is a lack of awareness among teachers and parents. To add to this, cognitive assessments and remedial classes are very expensive and not within the reach of all.
Some of these issues can be remedied by making cognitive assessments compulsory in junior school. The National Education Policy 2020 mandates inclusive education for all children with disabilities. It states that teachers should be provided with help to identify children with learning disabilities early, so that they can be supported from the beginning. It lists out specific actions such as using appropriate technology, allowing students to work at their own pace and making curricula flexible to make education accessible to all. There is a framework in place now to implement such changes in our educational institutions. When inclusive teaching strategies become mainstream then each student in the class will begin realizing their self-worth. A child who believes in herself and feels confident to face her own personal challenges, is a child set on a path to success and happiness.
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month.
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