The Government has announced that they are spending three million pounds on a pilot scheme to support dyslexic children in 10 areas of the country. As a dyslexic, who grew up in the 1970's, this causes me mixed feelings. It's fantastic that anyone with dyslexia has the help that they so desperately need. The effects of spotting dyslexia early on, in a child's education will make a significant difference to their life. This money will help charities to set up helplines and give support to children without the need to get a statement of special needs, something that can take a considerable amount of time and effort to obtain. However, having grown up in a period where dyslexia was generally treated at most as an abstract idea, it feels that we're now living in a completely different world. 1970's world was free from political correctness, not a PC in sight and had three channel television that would go to sleep at night. It would be easy to think that today's youth have it all their own way. Nevertheless different times produce different problems, back in the 70's I could go out all day over the downs with my brother and we'd do as we pleased. The traffic wasn't exactly like it was in the 1950's - two cars, a bike and a horse - but friends from school would play the usual dare game of lying down in the middle of the road for as long as possible. You were told not to take sweets from strangers but there didn't seem to be a complete panic about pedophiles. I could feel that I had been badly treated when I was at school but that wouldn't really help. Even today academics argue over the validity of dyslexia, Professor Julian Elliott a notable dyslexia denier claims that dyslexia is an "emotional construct". This type of approach is worrying, because no matter how genuinely felt; it can be used by other people as an excuse to save money and withdraw funding. Funding, which is urgently needed to help pupils develop their reading and writing, whether dyslexia can be scientifically proven or not.
