Ray of hope for children with learning disabilities 

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Fired by its motto No child struggles or fails on purpose, DASwk reaches out to dyslexic children to help them cope with their condition and to discover their talents

AN old government quarters nestled among the woods along shady Jalan Maxwell in Kuching has become the beacon of hope for children with learning difficulties.

The building known as Banglo Kalaka is the headquarters of Dyslexia Association of Sarawak (DASwk) and its Learning and Resource Centre for dyslexic children likely be discarded by society as slow learners and ho-hopers.

United by their common predicament, a group of parents of dyslexic children and some well-wishers came together in 2007 to set up DASwk to help those so afflicted.

The association, led by Dr Ong Puay Hoon as president, and fired by its inspiring motto No child struggles or fails on purpose, has since helped many dyslexic children cope with their condition and discover their talents.

Its mission is to help children with reading, writing, speaking, listening and other learning difficulties overcome their literacy challenges through intensive intervention program-mes and other learning support.

The Centre is manned by six permanent staff and a number of volunteers. These tea-chers are diploma or degree holders trained to help children with special needs.

The Centre offers a range of services and programmes, including clinical assessment for potential clients, short-term (three months) Dyslexia Intervention, volunteer-reader pro-gramme, research collaboration with local universities, health promotion, community network and adopt-a-child programme.

Among the most important is the three-month Dyslexia Intervention Programme that the Association runs under the sanction of the State Education Department.

Acceptance into this programme is through a detailed seven-step procedure, details of which can be obtained from the Centre.

However, DASwk’s success should be gauged only by the number of children who found hope and self-worth through its programmes.

The true measure of the Association’s success is raising awareness of these mis-understood disabilities through its campaigns and the hopes its gives to parents and children, affected by dyslexia.

In 2009, the Education Ministry disclosed about 314,000 school-going children in Malaysia are dyslexic. The figure could be higher as with increasing appreciation of available help, more and more people are coming out to say they are dyslexic.

Every year DASwk organises more than 15 programmes and campaigns to inform the public of dyslexia and the measures parents can take to help their afflicted children mitigate and cope with the condition.

 

What is Dyslexia

 

So far, there is no single definition to Dyslexia but it is generally accepted that Dyslexia is often characterised with the learners’ disability to recognise letters, problems in reading, writing, speaking or listening despite adequate teaching and ideal culture exposure.

These challenged learners will exhibit difficulties in attaining reading fluency and showing accurate comprehension despite normal or above-average intelligence.

Dyslexic learners are also often reported to be creative, have unusual talents in arts, sports, architecture, graphics and other areas that require visual, spatial and motor integration.

There are various dyslexic issues with learning – ranging from difficulties in learning about time, poor spelling
skills and unintelligible handwriting. One problem is learning words. Dyslexic learners have reported being confused with letters – that words “trap” them. If they stare at a word for too long, the word looks abnormal and starts to move.

Or they tend to miss words or see them as some other words when reading. Despite struggling with spelling and homework in their youth, they somehow develop their own coping mechanism and manage reach up to tertiary level of studies.

Gone were the days where dyslexia was regarded as merely a learning difficulty, thus a handicap. These days, the view is that hidden beneath the challenge is a gift that makes a dyslexic child special. Dyslexia is not a disease, hence there is no treatment, vaccination or even a cure. Dyslexia is a life-long learning condition that one has to cope with.