The organization is planning to set up a training and support centre at Thane for dyslexic children, while looking to support a team of educators to be trained in UK who would teach children here. In February this year, they had organized awareness seminars alongwith Sulabha Trust in Mumbai. The Trust is also working with SNDT and Somaiya College of Education.

Initially, a team will function through a training centre in Thane with 4-5 classrooms and provide tuitions to about 30 children each day. “We are keen to deliver academic support to dyslexic children in Mumbai and also create a cadre of qualified and experienced teachers who are exposed to the best practices in this field, both in India and UK,” said Dr Mahadeo Bhide of the Health and Education Trust.

“There are a couple of things we have envisaged, one is to provide service to families with children with special learning disabilities, especially dyslexia and secondly to provide adequate number of teachers for dyslexic children so that there is a force-multiplying effect,” said Bhide.

In Maharashtra, the entire set-up for dyslexics is concentrated at the Sion Hospital which issues the certificates and handles treatment. Earlier this year, Nair Hospital also started the centre for dyslexia. With an estimated incidence of 5-10 per 100 children, practitioners in the field feel the need for more setups and better diagnostic facilities in the city. Currently, children with such disability should be identified when they are in the third or fourth standard, “not too early, not too late age”.

“There have to be more diagnostic facilities. The incidence right now is about 5-10 per 100 children. It is highly under reported,” said Dr Neeta Naik, child neurologist and epileptologist, associated with the Sion Hospital.

“Every school should have a resource centre. More centres that can identify and label need to be established. The Sion centre can work as the main training centre and for special care. More centres should be established to identify and take care of the children at the school level and health centre level,” added Naik.

Rukhasana Sholapurawala, special educator at Sion Hospital said, “There is a strong denial factor among the parents. There are plenty of success stories over the last ten years, however, the child’s development definitely gets hampered in case they are snubbed. Many times schools send children late to get the certification. It leads to a lot of anxiety for the parents and children too. The schools are required to give a detailed report and not just a bonafide certificate. The report has to say in which subject the child has a problem which indicates the teacher knows.”

Sholapurwala added, “We need more centres to give the certificates. Initially we had very few patients. But now it has become almost unmanageable for us alone.” The initial target is to train around a hundred Indian teachers each year. The course in UK would provide high quality supervised British experience while providing a scholarship. In the next step, linkages will be established with colleges in Mumbai so that British course can be delivered here. The Trust also hopes to establish liaison with various schools who will know about these teachers and conduct interviews to recruit them.