NEWS ARCHIVE

Newsletter Archive

To download a copy of the DAI Spring 2010 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Autumn 2009 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Annual Report 2008, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Spring 2009 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Autumn 2008 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Annual Report 2007, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Spring 2008 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Autumn 2007 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Annual Report 2006, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Spring 2007 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Autumn 2006 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

To download a copy of the DAI Spring 2006 Newsletter, click here (PDF format).

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view PDF Files. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, click on the icon below to download a free version from the Adobe site.

SPRING 2008

Equality Authority to Appeak Ruling.

Breaking News (March 7th 2008) - All may not be lost, as the Equality Authority have decided to launch a High Court challenge to the ruling re annotation of exam certificates. A court date has yet to be set.

AUTUMN 2007

Statement on the ruling handed down on October 19, 2007 that annotation of exam certificates is not discriminatory.

The courts have ruled that students whose certificates were annotated because they received reasonable accommodation in the Leaving Certificate examination were not discriminated against. The judge found that they were treated differently to other students, but not less favourably. He said that annotation was in line with international practice and respected the integrity of the examination.

The judge also said that a person with a disability is best served by the making public of the disability and by educating and informing the attitudes of employers about the disability. The time for cloaking disability is past, he said. Disclosure is beneficial and serves to dispel myths. Forced disclosure is not unlawful, he said, as other disabilities (presumably physical and sensory) cannot be hidden.

The judge also said that the end users of examination certificates were entitled to know if some parts of the syllabus were not examined. He did not accept that the system of examination accommodations used in universities had any relevance to the case.

The Dyslexia Association deeply regrets this decision and maintains the opinion that the educational system does not sufficiently meet the needs of students with dyslexia and that the examination system is not flexible enough to allow students with dyslexia to display their full ability and knowledge.

Anne Hughes, DAI Director, 19th October 2007.

Parents required for Research Project

Research into the possible link between delayed crawling in babies and dyslexia.
Christina Connor is carrying out a research project for her Masters in Inclusive Education at the University of Gloucestershire on the possible link between whether a child crawled as a baby and was later diagnosed with dyslexia. Christina is looking for people to fill out a simple questionnaire. If you would like to help her with this study, please email Christina at autumnrobyn@yahoo.com.

Parent seeks contact with users of Dragon Dictate

If you are a parent with a child in secondary school who is using Dragon Dictate Naturally Speaking, Eileen Clair would be very interested in hearing from you. She is trying to get her child the support he needs within the school to successfully use this technology and would love to hear about other peoples experience using this type of software.
Eileen can be contacted by phone 065 9052239 or email: enquiries@eileenclair.com.

SPRING 2007

URGENT

Request for Submissions to the Advisory Group on Reasonable Accommodations at the Certificate Examinations

The State Examinations Commission (SEC) has established an Advisory Group to re-examine/review policy and practice in the area of reasonable accommodations provided for candidates in the certificate examinations.Reasonable accommodations are intended "to diminish, as far as possible, the impact of a physical or learning difficulty on a candidate's ability to demonstrate his or her level of attainment."
Further information is available from the Candidates section of www.examinations.ie

The Advisory Group is calling for submissions from interested parties, organisations and the general public. Submissions will be accepted in a variety of formats - for example:

1. email to advisorygroup@examinations.ie
2. written format
3. other electronic formats
4. audio tape or video tape

With the exception of emailed submissions, all other submissions should be sent to:
Andrea Feeney, Secretary,
Advisory Group on Reasonable Accommodations,
State Examinations Commission,
Cornamaddy,
Athlone, Co. Westmeath.

Submissions should not exceed 1000 words and should be received by the Advisory Group on or before Thursday, 17th May, 2007.

It is very important that any members of the Dyslexia Association who hold views on this subject should make their submission before May l7th. This is an important opportunity to get your voice heard. Some points to bear in mind when preparing submissions include:

The Format of the Exams

1. The state examinations, Junior and Leaving Certificate, in their current format, do not suit the learning styles of most students with Dyslexia. Terminal, hand-written, essay-type, timed examinations are not best designed to allow students with dyslexia to reveal their subject specific knowledge. Until such time as examinations contain elements of continuous assessment, project work which counts towards final marks and course work which can be completed on a term or yearly basis, students with dyslexia will continue to be disadvantaged and will need special accommodations to help minimise this disadvantage.

2. Students with dyslexia will often take longer to read the questions on an examination paper and may be at risk of not answering a question correctly simply because of misreading one word in the question. Thus a reader, or the provision of questions on tape will continue to be necessary.

3. Students may be hindered in expressing themselves because of worries about spelling errors and so answers may not truly reflect the knowledge or ability of the student. In real life situations people are not expected to produce a word perfect first draft of any document without access to dictionaries or spell checkers.

Asterisks or Annotation of Exam Certificates

4. The aim of special accommodation is to make the exam system fair to all students. Fairness is not about giving all students the same but about giving students what they need. Giving students with dyslexia some accommodations which other students do not need does not confer an advantage on the student with dyslexia. It simply tries to make up in a small way for the disadvantage which that student faces in the exam system.

5. Giving a student with dyslexia an accommodation which he or she needs and then indicating on the certificate that such accommodation was given is unfair. It gives with one hand and takes away with the other. The object of the accommodation is to remove the disadvantage the student suffers.

Third Level Accommodation: Students at third level colleges receive a lot of additional supports which students at second level do not. They also get special accommodation in exams, i.e. extra time, use of tape recorders or word processors and they do not have their certificates endorses in any way.

AUTUMN 2006

Equality Authority Ruling

The Dyslexia Association of Ireland welcomes the ruling by the Equality Authority that annotation of the certificates of students with dyslexia who had been given reasonable accommodation in state examinations was discriminatory.

To read the full DAI statement on this news, please click here.

APRIL 2006

2006 AGM of the Dyslexia Association of Ireland

The 33rd Annual General Meeting of the Dyslexia Association of Ireland took place on Saturday 6th May 2006 in the Glenroyal Hotel, Maynooth, Co. Kildare. Further information, including handouts from some of the speakers, is available by clicking on the following link - AGM 2006.

SEPTEMBER 2005

Response of the Dyslexia Association of Ireland to the programme "The Dyslexia Myth" shown on Channel 4 on Thursday, September 8, 2005

This programme dealt to some extent with myths about dyslexia. It certainly did not prove that dyslexia is a myth. This outcome would hardly be surprising to the thousands of parents of children with dyslexia and the adults with dyslexia in this country. Dyslexia exists unfortunately, and a lot of people have the scars to prove it.

Many of the myths about dyslexia persist, not because people with dyslexia propagate them, but because many people do not bother to inform themselves. It is widely known and accepted by those actively involved in working with people with dyslexia, that it is found in people across the intellectual and social spectrum. It is not confined to the highly intelligent, nor to the well to do.

The Dyslexia Association of Ireland would agree with many of the statements which Professor Julian Elliott made on the Channel 4 programme. We agree that there are no miracle cures for dyslexia, that reading is not dependent on intelligence, that many people mis-understand and misuse the term dyslexia, that all children with reading difficulties deserve early and appropriate help and all the support a good education system can offer and that vulnerable parents should not be exposed to expensive but dubious treatments for their children.

Where we disagree with Professor Elliott, and some other contributors to the TV programme is in his presentation of the research into reading difficulties. Some items of research were highlighted, while other research carried out by respected scientists was ignored. There was a blanket acceptance of the Phonological Deficit Hypothesis as the cause of all reading difficulties. This is a dominant theory at present, informing most teaching approaches. However, this does not mean that there are not some reading difficulties caused by problems in visual processing. Interested parties might consult the work of Professor John Stein and others.

This programme suggested that there are only two causes of reading difficulty - dyslexia or low intelligence. It further went on to suggest that it was pointless to differentiate between the two. The Dyslexia Association disagrees. There are many causes for reading and learning delay. Environmental factors such as poor nutrition, insufficient sleep, lack of family interest and support, frequent or prolonged absences from school, missing out on crucial periods of instruction, low teacher expectation, overcrowded classrooms, emotional or physical difficulties, all have an effect on a child's learning. Each problem needs to be identified and rectified, often by quite different methods.

The programme also took a very narrow view of dyslexia which was taken to mean reading difficulty only. Dyslexia is an information processing difficulty, which affects a number of areas, such as short-term memory, organisation, sequencing and retrieval of information and spelling and writing skills. These areas were not addressed. Many people with dyslexia also have great difficulty with maths. (Another myth is that people with dyslexia are brilliant mathematicians.) Neither did the programme mention the fact that many people with dyslexia have very significant strengths, often in the non-verbal areas.

With regard to Professor Elliott's "solution" to reading problems, one method only was promoted. This approach is that developed by Hatcher and used in the Cumbria area of the UK. This approach is very similar to what has always been preached in the dyslexia field, i.e. that intervention must be early, it must be individual, it must be intensive, it must relate to real reading, it must be multisensory, it must be metacognitive and it must focus on sound-symbol associations. This is certainly not new. In fact, much of it was pointed out in the l930's and became the basis of the Orton-Gillingham method. The Dyslexia Association of Ireland has been promoting this type of teaching for two decades. What is new in Cumbria is the attempt to combine the best features of Reading Recovery with phonological development. Many systems have taken on Reading Recovery as the panacea to reading difficulties. However, Tunmer and Chapman (2003) showed that it will not work with dyslexic children unless substantial work in developing phonological skills is added. Hatcher and Cumbria have followed this advice and Hulme's research has shown it is working, (see Tunmer & Chapman, 2003 'Reading Recovery: Distinguishing Myth from Reality').

As Reading Recovery is becoming more popular in Ireland and is receiving support from the Department of Education and Science, we hope that this aspect of the Channel 4 programme has been heard, and that authorities will read the Tunmer and Chapman research and so ensure that Reading Recovery in Ireland is adapted to include phonological training.

A major source of disagreement with Professor Elliott is on the topic of psycho-educational assessment as a tool in the diagnosis of dyslexia. The current practice is to use a discrepancy model, i.e. find out the child's IQ, deduce from that the level of literacy which should have been attained and compare it with the actual achievement. The object of an IQ assessment is not simply to arrive at an I.Q. figure. That is probably the least important aspect of the information gained from an assessment. The assessment is done to determine the cognitive abilities that are essential in acquiring literacy (e.g. working memory, attention span, perceptual skills, speed of processing). This information can inform teaching to remediate the deficits and compensate for them by using the strengths. It can also reveal issues which require further investigation and which may be the real cause of reading delay. As stated above, reading delay has many causes and these need to be identified in order to 'prescribe' appropriate intervention/remediation.

The most serious flaw in this programme is that it lacked balance. The production was sensationalist. It heightened the tension before each ad break with promises of revelations and scandals. This is not the type of atmosphere in which rational and mature debate takes place. There was not one dissenting voice, or contrary piece of research presented. It had all the appearance of being promoted by "a man with a mission" and that mission would not appear, to this observer, to be the welfare of children and adults with dyslexia.

Anne Hughes, Director
Dyslexia Association of Ireland

JUNE 2005

"Understanding Dys-lex-i-a : A Guide for Schools"

"Understanding Dys-lex-i-a : A Guide for Schools" is a CD-Rom and DVD/DVD-Rom and accompanying video which have been produced in Ireland as a joint initiative of the Departments of Education, North and South, and was officially launched on 10th June 2005. Every primary and secondary school in the country has been sent a copy. Alan Sayles, Educational Consultant to DAI, was on secondment to the Department of Education and Science and was central to the production of this excellent resource. DAI also provided information and support to the project, and several DAI members were interviewed for the video.

This is a very welcome initiative from the Departments of Education and will greatly increase the information available to schools about dyslexia and how they can better support students with dyslexia through the education system.

The 33-minute video "Understanding Dys-lex-i-a : Challenges and Opportunities" provides an introduction to what dyslexia is and how to cope with it in an educational context. There are seven sections in the video as follows:

1. Dyslexia: Signs
2. Dyslexia: Facts
3. Dyslexia: Consequences
4. Dyslexia: Recognition and Intervention
5. Dyslexia and Parents
6. Dyslexia and Teachers
7. Dyslexia Overcome

There is an extensive amount of additional information on all of these topics on the accompanying CD-Rom and DVD-Rom. The additional information can be accessed by simply placing the disc into the CD or DVD drive on a computer.

There are three very useful advice documents which contain selected information from several sections of the disc. Copies of these booklets may be printed free of cost directly from the disc. The three booklets are:

• Advice for Parents
• Advice for Primary Teachers
• Advice for Post-Primary Teachers

Where to get a copy?
Copies of the package (video, CD-Rom and DVD-Rom) can be purchased from the Government Publications Office, Alliance House, Molesworth Street, Dublin 2, Tel. 01 6476879 and 6476000. Price €10.00
Parents should be able to access the package through their child's school. All primary and secondary schools have been sent a copy. Some schools may decide to organise an information evening for parents and teachers and show the video.
It may also be possible to borrow a copy from your local library.

APRIL 2005

2005 AGM of the Dyslexia Association of Ireland

The 32nd Annual General Meeting of the Dyslexia Association of Ireland took place on Saturday 23rd April 2005 in the Glenroyal Hotel, Maynooth, Co. Kildare. Further information, including handouts from some of the speakers, is available by clicking on the following link - AGM 2005.

JUNE 2004

Minister Dempsey Approves Special Needs Allocation System

This is a Department of Education and Science press release

The Minister for Education and Science, Noel Dempsey T.D., has approved the allocation of an additional 350 teaching posts for special needs and a new system for the allocation of resources for special needs in primary schools.

The new system will involve a general weighted allocation for all primary schools to cater for pupils with higher incidence special needs, those with learning support needs, borderline mild and mild general learning disability and dyslexia. It will also allow for individual allocations in respect of pupils with more acute needs.

The general weighted allocation system will greatly reduce the need for individual applications and supporting psychological assessments and will put resources in place on a more systematic basis, thereby giving schools more certainty over their resource levels. This will allow for better planning in schools, greater flexibility in identifying and intervening earlier with regard to pupils’ special needs, as well as making the posts more attractive to qualified teachers.

The previous allocation system placed significant demands on principals, teachers and psychologists. It has also proven to be time-consuming, thereby delaying the allocation of resources for special needs. "We had to take action to reform the system and I believe that the model we are now introducing will, over time, significantly improve the capacity of the system to cater for children with special needs in a speedier, more effective way," said Minister Dempsey. "The revised system will reduce the administrative burden on schools and allow them to concentrate on the delivery of services to pupils with special needs. It will also allow psychologists to devote more time to advising teachers on planning for individual children and for whole school provision," added the Minister.

The revised system will have regard to the fact that there appears to be a greater incidence of disabilities in boys. It is also weighted in favour of the most disadvantaged schools. It will mean that every school will be given an allocation for pupils in the higher incidence disability categories without having to submit individual applications. As has been practice hitherto in relation to learning support teachers, the Department will be clustering small schools together to enable the allocation of full-time posts.

In the most disadvantaged schools (over 240 schools), a teacher of pupils with special needs will be allocated for every 80 pupils to cater for the subset of pupils with higher incidence special needs. In all boys schools, the ratio will be one teacher for every 140 pupils, in mixed schools one for every 150 pupils and in all girls schools one for every 200 pupils. In addition, all schools will be able to apply for separate specific allocations in respect of pupils with lower incidence disabilities.

The Department of Education and Science will now communicate with schools in relation to their allocations. Permission will be given to fill all specific allocations immediately. The general weighted allocations will be filled following the determination of clustering and reallocation arrangements. To ease the transition to the new system, the Department has already agreed not to redeploy teachers from full-time posts via the panel redeployment process.