Education Guide

The Regional Council of Psychology of St. Paul is holding a controversial position in relation to dyslexia, which calls into question even the concept of the disease.

For CRP-SP, bills to create diagnostic programs Dyslexia public schools in several counties, such as that currently underway in Sao Paulo City Hall, divert the focus of the teaching-learning developed by schools and saw the spotlight on alleged physical problems of students with difficulties to read and write, address an issue that involves the whole educational system as a matter of child’s illness, reduce the participation of education professionals in coping with difficulties in reading and writing students and give the problem to health professionals outside of school.

I talked to the psychologist and counselor of Psychology and Education Commission of the PRC-SP and president of the Association of Educational and School Psychology, Belluzzo Beatriz Brando Cunha, Ph.D. in School Psychology from the University of São Paulo, which strongly attacked the attempt to ” medicalization “of reading and writing difficulties of children because, she said, there is no scientific consensus about the design of the disorder. “The design refers to learning problems in reading and writing and understand the difficulty and disorders that are located on a neurological level. The way we define and diagnose a condition of this order is not clearly defined. ”

I also talked to the pathologist Flavia Benevides County, doctor in Sciences by the Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, language expert from the Federal Council of Speech Therapy and a professor of CEFAC – health and education, with extensive experience in clinical and institutional care of disorders learning and dyslexia. She fought back strongly with the initiatives of the CRP-SP, considering an “irresponsibility” of the organization’s campaign to discredit the existence of dyslexia. “The bill can and should be widely discussed, but the debate should not be taken as a reference based on the hypothesis that dyslexia does not exist.”

It is not news to anyone that education in Brazil is not being able to teach reading and writing to a large number of students throughout the school. Talk to any teacher to know that the inability to interpret and elaborate a text is very common among high school students and university. Any mental health problems of children can not justify such high rates of school failure across the country.

To the psychologist Beatriz Belluzzo, projects that intend to carry programs of assessment and diagnosis of dyslexia into the schools should be fought because the learning difficulties of writing and reading are the result of educational deficiencies and international understanding of the disorder does not address the particularities of Brazilian reality. “The school has produced a series of Brazilian problems. Not only is the difficulty in reading and writing, we have a school full of problems, inadequate, archaic. ”

In the evaluation of Flavia Foz, failures in the process of teaching and learning explain most but not all of the huge number of students who fail to become literate. “Within this group there are those that reflect the results of failure in education and there is a small percentage of people who have learning disorders.”

To the psychologist Beatriz Belluzzo, the concept of dyslexia is very vulnerable and tests for the diagnosis lead to the confirmation of the hypothesis of the disorder. “There is no evidence that a child has dyslexia because the diagnosis is made based on assumptions and evidence that are susceptible to school issues. When you check a problem reading and writing, he is always within an educational context. ”

The therapist Flavia Benevides County disagrees: “Just do not believe in the existence of dyslexia who do not work in the care of these children.” She said Brazil still needs to go a long way in research to create their own testing protocols not to continue copying the American model. But evaluations using international models do not invalidate the existence of the disorder and are able even to perceive signs of possible problems even before the acquisition of literacy. The difficulties are likely related to phonological skills, language and thinking necessary for future formalization of the process of literacy. And a preventive stimulation with younger children can create the necessary conditions for the learning process of reading and writing.

Psychologist Beatrice Belluzzo, criticizes the identification of dyslexic children as increasingly early. She said the problem usually appears in the early grades, when it begins to fail in school. “But there are cases of diagnosis for children six years! See, if a problem is the reading and writing, with six years, you are starting a process and it’s been diagnosed? “. The psychologist believes that the problem is getting worse with the new structure of elementary school, which anticipated the start to six years old. “Pretty soon, have five children diagnosed with dyslexia!”

While sharing the idea that an overdiagnosis may actually mask the deficiencies of education, the speech therapist Flavia County believes that the absence of an assessment may be even more damaging to the child. “You leave out children who really need treatment.”

For Flavia Foz, dyslexia is a health issue and the teachers are not trained to address the reading and writing difficulties caused by the disorder. “The dyslexic should be treated by a multidisciplinary team of health and teachers consider important partners. They are not able to make the diagnosis, but can and must make referrals when deemed necessary, and class mediate inclusion. ”

Professor of graduate courses, she said the graduates are no longer looking for a more expertise in this area. “It’s the same lack of training. Is there such a demand because the neuroscientific studies have brought many new features. With the rapid evolution of these studies, there is the need to get updated often. ”

Psychologist Beatrice Belluzzo believes that the diagnosis of dyslexia teacher takes the opportunity to help children in the school environment and shifts the problem to other professional areas. But these students end up without help because the private treatment of Psychology and Speech Therapy are very expensive and the public health system is unable to cater for everyone. “I shot the teacher’s ability to act on issues of teaching and learning of reading and writing. If he (the student) has a neurological disorder, it is not to mess with that teacher. He will feel incompetent and unable to act with that child as someone who has a problem. ”

She denies treatment in health, out of the daily life of schools. “They would be acting solely on that child diagnosed as dyslexic. Given the individual, not what happens within that context that is producing not one but many children are not learning to read and write. When you find Johnny has dyslexia, I came to understand Johnny is not the result of that teaching-learning process, but as an individual within that machine is defective. I’ll find him and shoot pedagogical issue the solution to the problem. ”

The Regional Council of Psychology of St. Paul recognizes dyslexia only in cases of loss of ability to read and write some caused by brain injury proven. And challenging the extension of the concept to a congenital disease or evolution. The direction of the CRP-SP points to the pharmaceutical industry as a great promoter of the medicalization of a problem that is pedagogical.

In her assessment, is a trend in modern society seeking an explanation for everything in science, so the approach to medicine is culturally valued. “There is a tendency to make a medical understanding, organic, in most of our problems. It is not only the question of learning to read and write. Today, we are in relation to mood swings, sometimes it is sad and at other times are happy, we’re bipolar. If we are very sad, we are depressed. ”

In the opinion of Flavia Foz, progress and process of globalization have democratized access to information. “It is natural that the greater the number of informed people, the greater the demand for diagnostic and treatment centers. This does not mean that there is a percentage increase in the number of diagnoses. ”

She argues based on the results of SAEB – Evaluation System of Basic Education which revealed in 2001 that 59% of students in 4th grade (now 5th) of basic education did not develop basic skills for writing. “Obviously there are 59% of dyslexics. If done a study, should not exceed five to ten percent of learning disorders that can affect five to 20% of the population. ”

The therapist said that the very definition of the learning disorder is, whether the specific reading disorder (dyslexia) provides that the difficulties appear even in favorable conditions. “Therefore, the problems of” ensinagem “are not considered disorders and should be cared for in education.”