WHY SOME FALL SHORT OF A DIAGNOSIS
Dyslexia is a lifelong learning difficulty which affects skills involving accurate and fluent reading and spelling. It can be attributed predominantly to a deficit in phonological awareness, or the ability to work with speech sounds in languages.
Principal educational psychologist at Promises Healthcare Tan Su-Lynn said dyslexia is typically identified through a combination of screenings, observations and formal assessments.
Possible signs – especially in children – include difficulties in sounding out words; slow, laboured reading; struggles with spelling; reversed letters; avoidance in reading aloud; and taking longer for written assignments, she added.
In 2021, the Education Ministry (MOE) said in a parliamentary reply that all students are screened in Primary One so that those with weak language and literacy skills receive early intervention. If their difficulties persist, then they receive further screening for dyslexia identification.
Data from 2016 to 2019 showed that about 3.5 per cent of Primary 3 students were reported as having dyslexia. In Secondary 1, about an additional 1 per cent of the cohort were reported with dyslexia.
“The proportion of students with dyslexia in Singapore is within the international prevalence of between 3 per cent and 10 per cent,” said MOE then.
At DAS, dyslexia is diagnosed through a psycho-educational assessment of a student’s strengths and weaknesses. It also evaluates the common characteristics underlying dyslexia, such as phonological processing, reading and spelling skills.
The two DAS representatives stressed the importance of early and timely intervention for a child. However, attempting to detect the condition sooner comes with its own challenges.
Literacy skill acquisition can vary from young child to child. Some might have language difficulties simply due to poor instruction or lack of exposure, Ms Abdullah and Ms Kang said.
Yet if not assessed early on, children could develop strategies that mask the condition.
“Children are adaptable and resilient, and when they continue to struggle, they develop coping strategies to compensate for their difficulties,” said Psych Connect’s senior ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) and executive functioning coach Zainab Shaukat.
Promises Healthcare’s Ms Tan said highly intelligent children, or those with strong memory skills, may memorise words or make guesses based on context, rendering their struggles less visible in the early years of schooling.
“As a result, their challenges might only surface much later, when academic demands increase such as when they are introduced to more complex tasks like comprehension or composition writing,” she said, adding that such children may fall through the cracks.
