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Legislation determines that teachers identify signs early and refer students to the health network for diagnosis

 

By Jovem Pan 12/05/2022 12:01 am

    

Classroom

Legislation also provides for the training of teachers to deal with the issue

Celebrating a year this December, a law already in force in Brazil requires that students with dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) receive support from health and education professionals – which should start as soon as possible. Within the specifications of the law is the determination that there is an early identification of the return, with the referral of the student for diagnosis and educational and therapeutic support. The law also provides for the training of teachers to identify the signs and monitor students appropriately. “The teacher's responsibility is to identify these signs and refer the child to the health network for diagnosis, but it doesn't stop there, because this child will continue in school. And the biggest barrier and difficulty she will face is at school. The first step is to understand that the literacy process, when well structured, will help the child who has dyslexia. And thinking about this moment we live in, when children stayed indoors for a long time because of the pandemic, will also help all children. We have a literacy deficit. So, strategies that favor the stimulation of reading, the recognition of letters and the association between letters and sounds in an explicit and systematic way will make the child with dyslexia have a better ability to be literate”, defends Juliana Amorina, president of the ABCD Institute. For the expert, in addition to basic education, reading and writing, it is important for countries to invest in other areas that children like, in order to strengthen self-esteem and facilitate future communication.

 

According to Amorina, it is possible to notice the situation from the stage in which the child is learning to write: “When the child is in pre-school, learning to write the name is something that brings joy to that child, because all children are in the same age range. And they are interactive learners, we say. If one sees a colleague doing it, she also wants to perform the same activity. That's a sign. Another frequent difficulty in children with dyslexia is the difficulty in learning sequences, which can be musical sequences, difficulty in learning that song used to facilitate routine, music for food, when entering and leaving school. These are children who will have difficulties in learning these patterns, these sequences, these rhymes, when all the other classmates who, within a classroom with other children with very homogeneous characteristics, because they go to the same neighborhood, have the same socioeconomic condition, they are with the same teacher, while all the children who have similar characteristics are advancing, that other child who is smart, who has the potential to learn, is not succeeding. So that should get a parent's attention,” she says.

 

*With information from reporter Carolina Abelin