Dyslexia

HL Deb 04 March 1987 vol 485 cc692-712

7.40 p.m.

Lord Ritchie of Dundee rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider that the Education Act 1981 is operating successfully as regards the diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in asking this Question of Her Majesty's Government I am hoping for three things. I hope to hear from the noble Baroness rather more about what is being done by local education authorities to implement the 1981 Education Act than I know already (which is very little). I hope to be able to make a few points myself and I am greatly looking forward to hearing what other noble Lords say on this subject.

I should say that my knowledge of dyslexia is based on many years of teaching dyslexic children. I am not going to weary noble Lords with a long description of the condition of dyslexia, about which I am sure noble Lords already know a good deal, or you would not be interested enough to be here. I would guess that several noble Lords have children, grandchildren, nephews or nieces who have been sufferers and this is the occasion of your interest.

We all know what we are talking about. It is as follows: A disorder in children who, despite conventional classroom experience, fail to attain the language skills of reading, writing and spelling commensurate with their intellectual abilities". That was a definition, made in 1968, from the World Federation of Neurology. I take no exception to that definition, other than I would cut out the words "in children" because I am sure the condition exists in adults.

Noble Lords will know that this condition is also associated with what is called crossed laterality. This does not mean just that you are left-handed, but it possibly means that you combine left-handedness with a dominant right eye, or possibly that you may be left-eyed and use your right hand. If this is happening, you are what is called crossed-lateral and this may coincide with the condition called dyslexia.

An aspect of the condition that fascinates me is this: we are told that the left hemisphere of the brain is the hemisphere which processes language skills. The right hemisphere is concerned more with visuospatial and artistic skills. If there is a slight defect in the left hemisphere, which processes language skills, it may be compensated in the right hemisphere, which is the hemisphere more concerned with spatial, 3D artistic skills, things which can be done with the hands. If this is so, this accounts for the fact that a greater than expected number of dyslexic children are gifted artisti-cally or mechanically and able to do things with their hands. I find that very interesting but it is at the moment only a theory. One can think of Leonardo who was known to have been dyslexic.

I have to say that when I was looking at some sketches a year or two ago by no less a person than David Hockney—sketches for a production of, I think, the "Rake's Progress"—there were some verbal instructions on the sketches and I noted that he was a very poor speller. We know also that the condition is much more common in boys than girls—approximately four to one. We have an idea of the sort of pattern that a child's life may take if the condition is undiagnosed. You have your unhappy, anxious little boy aged eight, and by the time he is 13 or 14 he is beginning to be disruptive in the classroom. He leaves school illiterate, or at best, semi-literate. He drifts into the dole queue, and possibly worse—perhaps into delinquency or even crime. By the time he is in his thirties he may be referred to a psychiatric hospital. All the time you may have a frustrated engineer, medical student or scientist.

I should like to shift the focus briefly to illiteracy generally. The adult literacy and basic skills unit together with the National Children's Bureau undertook a survey in 1981 of 12,500 23 year-old adults, who had all been born in the same week of March in 1958. They were asked whether since leaving school they had experienced any difficulties with English, writing, reading or spelling. Of that number 10 per cent. said that they had. If that sample is extrapolated to the population as a whole it would appear that approximately 3,250,000 adults suffer with some degree of difficulty with English. I should stress that this figure is very approximate because what is meant by literacy or illiteracy is very indeterminate —where does one stop and the other begin?

How is it that this number of children can go through 11 years of schooling and come out having failed to acquire these basic skills? In speaking of this failure and in suggesting reasons for it, I should stress that in order to avoid complication I am not thinking of children whose mother tongue is not English. Among possible causes one can name missed schooling through ill health or other reasons. Other causes could be frequent changes of school, emotional disturbance, cultural deprivation in the home, generally low intelligence or mental handicap. I am not going to include poor teaching among those because on the whole the standard of our primary teaching is extremely high and it is very unlikely that a child will have failed for that reason.

I do not believe that the factors I have named can fully account for this proportion of poor literacy among adults. I am going to suggest that a large number of them are suffering from a degree and a form of dyslexia. Here we have a situation in which a proportion of otherwise able children cannot fulfil their potential, or play their part in modern society because they have failed to acquire the basic skills on which the whole of our literacy system and the whole edifice of our society is based. These unfortunates not only cannot find work but they cannot look for work because they are not able to read advertisements. If they could read them they could not complete the forms or write simple letters of application. Think of the frustration and of the human wastage!

Since 1981 light has been dawning. The Act requires local education authorities to ensure that children with special educational needs receive special educational provision, and this includes dyslexia or, as the pundits prefer to call it, specific learning difficulty. I should say in parenthesis that I believe that there are certain social overtones here. Dyslexia was at one time thought to be a posh complaint. The saying was that if you were working class you were thick; if you were middle-class you were dyslexic. I have also heard that in my part of the world if you go to Maidstone you suffer from specific learning difficulty, but if you go to Tunbridge Wells you can have dyslexia. I leave your Lordships to draw what conclusion you can from that.

My question of the noble Baroness is to ask how this is working out in local authorities throughout the country? From my investigations, it seems to me that it is variable. I think I can boast that in my part of the country, which is East Sussex, it is working well. In the eastern area, which is mine, we have 170 children receiving special help from a team of seven teachers working full time. Children are given a screening test at top infant level in order to pick out specific learning difficulty problems. Teachers of infants are offered special advice and resources, and there has recently been a course for ordinary class teachers on how to recognise and identify these children and how to help them.

The county of Shropshire has produced an impressive consultative paper which classifies a number of special educational needs. There is reference not to dyslexia but to specific learning difficulty—SLD. Everything has to be initials nowadays. The county claims to be making special provision for this group.

There are bad stories. In telling your Lordships one briefly, I am not going to mention the county involved because I think that this would be unfair. It may be a one-off instance. In any case I know the difficulties that some education authorities are going through. The parents of a little boy aged five knew that he was troubled by some complaint of this sort. They did some reading and investigating and became convinced in their own minds that some sort of dyslexic problem was bothering him.

The school refused to take any interest. It was not until he was eight that he was given a test by the school psychologist. The result of the test was that he was said to be "below average". If he is below average you do not have to do anything special about him because he can go to a class for less able children, a remedial class, and no special provision has to be made.

However, the parents did not believe this. They took their child to a dyslexia specialist. In fact they took him to two. One was at Aston University, which has been specialising in the subject for many years. This resulted in reports saying that the child was of above average intelligence. The parents went back to the school and to the education authority but got no change out of them.

This went on, and further tests were made. Following one, the child was actually described as being of superior ability in certain aspects. Still nothing was done by the authority. The parents are still struggling. They are long-term unemployed. They have spent over £1,000. At one time their child was out of school for a year after developing school phobia. He is now 10, and still nothing has happened. I believe that the parents are now planning to sell all they have, buy a caravan, and move into a different area where, in their own words, "they understand dyslexia".

That is a bad story, and, of course, there could be many others. I do not suppose that this authority is unduly intransigent. I expect that like others it is overworked, understaffed, and underfunded. But the fact is that a number of authorities are offering what they can provide; they are not offering what the children need. There is a big gap between the two.

As I see it, an urgent necesssity is adequate resourcing to enable local education authorities to put into effect what the 1981 Act demands. It is all very well for us to pass an Act and say this, that and the other are to happen. But if those responsible for putting it into effect cannot afford it, it has not done any good. This is, I believe, the situation in many areas.

The second great need is the training of more specialist teachers. In the county responsible for the sorrowful tale of the little boy, I am sure that there are insufficient skilled teachers, which is one reason for not being able to help. The training of ordinary class teachers to recognise these children when they have them in their classes, I know from personal experience, is a great necessity. Often a child in a class of 25 or 30 is written off as of poor ability and peculiar, without sufficient expert knowledge being there to discover exactly what is wrong.

What we need much more of is an ability to identify and diagnose on the part of the class teacher. The training of teachers at the initial stage is important. I think this is not happening at the moment. It may be that the noble Baroness will correct me, but I think that this is not touched on in the initial training of teachers. There have been inset courses in various counties including, as I have said, East Sussex, which help teachers in this way.

Early identification is vital. It is important that parents whose children suffer in this way should know more of their rights under the 1981 Act. One has to bear in mind that the parents of dyslexic children often have a little dyslexia themselves, and they may not be frightfully good at understanding official English. They may not understand what they can do and what recourse they have under the Act to apply to an appeal committee to consider their case and eventually to apply to the Secretary of State. They may not understand what they can do. In my opinion, there is an urgent need for more research into the incidence of specific learning difficulty, or dyslexia, in all schools and also into the causes of the widespread semi-literacy from which we are suffering.

The term dyslexia was coined by an obscure German physician in 1877. I may be doing him an injustice when I say that he was obscure, but you can usually safely say anything that came out of Germany in the 19th century was obscure. He coined the word. It has taken over 100 years for it to achieve something like current parlance.

Thanks to the work of, perhaps notably, the British Dyslexia Association, of which I have the honour to be a vice-president, and of the Dyslexia Institute and of many others who have toiled, worked and fought through many years to bring this into public prominence—and from some of whom I have learned a great deal myself—we now all know what we are talking about. It is now time to take account of it as a substantial factor, possibly even the major factor, in the national problem of functional illiteracy.

8 p.m.

Lord Schon

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, for raising a very important subject. I am most impressed with the comments he made, and he has dealt with most aspects of the subject about which I wanted to speak. I should like to raise a particular question: are there enough teachers to deal with children affected by learning disabilities? I ask this in the light of the fact that in many instances, I have been told, specialist schools have been closed and children affected by learning disabilities have been integrated into general classes. I had some other points to raise but. as I said before, the noble Lord has dealt with them.

Lord Addington

My Lords, I am honoured to be addressing this august and noble assembly and only hope that what I shall say will be of the high standard which your Lordships have come to expect.

When the Education Act 1981 was passed it was hailed by those concerned with problems of dyslexia as a major breakthrough. For the first time, the disability of dyslexia was mentioned. But whatever the cause or nature of the condition, the degree of difficulty should be revealed by assessment and local education authorities had to make appropriate arrangements for meeting individual educational needs.

Dyslexia comes under the umbrella of special educational needs and approximately 20 per cent. of the school population has special needs of one sort or another. The actual percentage which is dyslexic is a matter of controversy, but a conservative estimate would place it at approximately 5 per cent. needing remediation and a possible further 1 per cent. probably sufficiently bad as to warrant specific individual teaching. Even 5 per cent. of the total school population is a very large number of children.

Under the terms of the 1981 Act a process of assessment called statementing can be applied to all those who have specific educational needs. The process of statementing falls on the stony ground of not having enough trained educational psychologists to see that it is put through. This is primarily due to financial constraints. The problem is increasingly severe when it is brought to mind that up to 10 per cent. of the school population would benefit from statementing.

There are still many teachers who have only a vague idea of what dyslexia is and have very little idea of how to deal with children in their classrooms who can hardly read or write. It is also thought that dyslexia should be exclusively the concern of the remedial or English departments. Dyslexia does not mean that a child is mentally retarded and certainly it does not only affect English lessons. In fact, dyslexic children are quite capable of taking part in ordinary lessons, provided they are not expected to do all the appropriate written work and some concession is made over the amount of reading. Ideally dyslexic children should be spotted in junior school and given appropriate teaching before disruptive behavioural patterns caused by frustration can emerge or they can become withdrawn, which often happens with dyslexic children.

Teachers often fail to realise the constitutional nature of the problem. There are many courses designed to instruct teachers in the areas of special needs. Dyslexia, which is a historically controversial topic, is often neglected and teachers who are supposed to be helping dyslexics may not be sure of what steps to take. The British Dyslexia Association has done sterling work in promoting the cause of dyslexics over the years; its Dyslexia Educational Trust runs courses designed to train teachers from both the public and private sectors on how best to help dyslexics. It is vital that those in the state system should have access to the same sort of specialist knowledge which has all too often been available only in the private sector.

In the past, this lack of specialist knowledge in the public sector has led those parents who could afford it to transfer their children to the private sector. This has led to the saying that middle-class families have a daughter who has spectacles on the end of her nose, braces on her teeth and a son who is dyslexic.

There have been great strides forward in the recognition of this problem since the implementation of the 1981 Act. There is, however, a very long way to go. I speak as one who is acutely dyslexic. I went through the state system. I was so bad that my problems were picked up in kindergarten and I was lucky in never being labelled stupid in junior school. I was also lucky in receiving a great deal of attention from educational psychologists and teachers, most of whom tried to help by giving me more of the work I had failed at, failing to appreciate that what I needed was a more structured method of learning.

In secondary school there simply was not the framework to deal with someone of my acute level of difficulty and I presented a great many problems to staff. The answer was found in the end to be to allow me to take part in the appropriate classes where I could make an oral contribution. Examination concessions also had to be sought to allow me to take public examinations; in my case this was an amanuensis. The whole process added several years to my schooling.

There is, however, a lighter side to being dyslexic. I can remember my family being very worried and not a little surprised when they were told by a school doctor that I was as blind as a bat. He conducted a sight test using letters of diminishing size; he had not thought to ask if I could read. On another occasion, an essay which I had laboured long and hard over in junior school was preserved, along with a looking glass, as a perfect example of mirror writing. It was actually indecipherable, with or without a mirror.

It is unfortunate that our society still largely equates literacy with intelligence. The undiagnosed dyslexic child may well find himself labelled stupid, lazy or slow throughout school. He will carry these labels throughout his school career and he will carry a very low self-esteem throughout life. It is hardly surprising to find that there are a great many illiteracy problems among those groups in our society who rebelled against it, such as prison inmates and young offenders.

Dyslexics form a substantial minority in our society, a minority which cuts across all social classes, a minority which cuts across all racial groups. To leave this minority largely undiscovered and untaught is not only a waste of human potential but it may also be expensive to society in terms of the anti-social behaviour their frustration may cause.

8.8 p.m.

Lord Renwick

My Lords, it gives me enormous pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Addington, following a maiden speech which, as I think your Lordships will agree, expressed very well what the rest of us were going to try and say, I would suggest rather less eloquently. I believe that he found that the medium in which he was happiest was in making an oral contribution. I suggest he remembers that, because many of us, I believe, hope to hear a lot more from him in the future. I also took note of his mention, and I am not quite sure that I heard him aright, of some low esteem. I say here and now that he should forget, from his own point of view, any feeling of low esteem. He has a great deal to be proud of and delivered his maiden speech very well indeed.

I speak as somebody who perhaps is not as dyslexic as he is, but I find myself not being able to use the written symbol as a reference as readily as others of your Lordships in that if I read a note I find I cannot talk. Therefore, the sequencing of my thoughts has to come from my mind rather than from any notes.

I am also very pleased and should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, for introducing this subject on which I made my maiden speech some x-years ago, though not nearly as well as the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I am grateful because, as the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, said, he is a vice-president of the British Dyslexia Association and so am I. There are five of us and he and I are two non-executive vice-presidents. I spent five years as the executive chairman of the British Dyslexia Association; so I am delighted to hear the tributes made by the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Ritchie.

I want to add one or two things to what noble Lords have already said and perhaps to put my own questions to my noble friend Lady Hooper who will reply for the Government. With dyslexia, as I have seen it, there are differences in ability. It becomes a disability or a handicap because of people's attitudes towards it. There is a lack of awareness. One of the British Dyslexia Association's main priorities is to bring awareness of the condition of dyslexia to people and to provide information and counselling to those with the condition and the parents of such people.

The British Dyslexia Association is the national body. Our main corporate member is the Dyslexia Institute which runs many of the teaching courses in this country. The Dyslexia Education Trust, the DET, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is a trust of which I am chairman which funds bursaries for teachers to take an in-service training course or courses to enable them to understand more, to recognise a dyslexic in the classroom and to give them the specialist treatment they need. There are various degrees of course, and we are in the process of attempting to obtain validation for the British Dyslexia Association's diploma course. There are RSA courses and so on.

What is most important is to make these courses available to as many people and qualified teachers as want them and to satisfy the demand from teachers. It is true, from the experience we have in the British Dyslexia Association, that teachers wish more and more to be able to recognise in their classrooms one or two people perhaps who are sitting at the back who do not absorb the lessons as presented by the teacher. I believe that teachers used to think that there was something wrong with little Jimmy in the back row, but now they are thinking "What is wrong with my presentation of the lesson? Why is that child not absorbing it?" This is marvellous and we are seeing it throughout the education system. I was going to say that teachers are queuing up. I wish they were and I wish we had the resources to fund all this. I am sure that my noble friend is aware of these courses and of what is going on in this respect.

We have now finished our first year and a half of funding these courses which was a private sector investment. The British Dyslexia Association is firmly agreed that this is a national problem and that it should be within the remit of those people whose statutory duty is to provide education to know what we know. Here, I make an offer to my noble friend which I made to the Department of Education and Science when I was chairman. It worked very well. If the department has any question it needs to ask in the realms of specific learning difficulties or dyslexia—both terminologies are rather self-defeating, but we have to call them something—will it please ask us? This has been very successful. We have worked very closely with the Department of Education and Science for the past 10 years at least. I hope, now that the British Dyslexia Association, through its local associations, of which it has between 70 and 75 around the country, will work closely with the local education authorities in the same way and with the same helpful attitude. However, this demands enormous resources.

When I talk about resources, I am conscious that the most important resources are information and knowledge, awareness and understanding. Money can be wasted, but information and awareness are never wasted because they can be presented to the people who need them in a form in which they can accept them. I am making this offer, although I am no longer the executive chairman, because the British Dyslexia Association is in a position to make available an enormous amount of information to education authorities not only of the condition but also an understanding of the teaching methodology which is needed to help these children.

A marvellous thing about dyslexia is that the methodology that has been evolved over the last 15 or 20 years in the Scottish Rights Hospital in Texas—the development work done there is multinational—is a methodology by which all children can benefit. It works beautifully with dyslexic children and it also works with other children. Other means of teaching reading with remedial teachers is of very little value to dyslexic children although it might work with many non-dyslexic non-readers.

All of this leads to another point that I should like to make to my noble friend Lady Hooper. I am being rather unspecific about numbers, and the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, asked how the local education authorities operate. It would be valuable and of enormous help to the British Dyslexia Association to know how to apply its resources, but it would also be of great value to the Government and to the Department of Education and Science. I know that the department has a difficulty in that it is the local education authorities who provide education. But now, after three or four years of operation of the Education Act, there should be a check into how it is operating.

My noble friend may tell us about the House of Commons Select Committee set up to look into the 1981 Education Act: that is, overall. The dyslexic side of it, the subject of this evening's Question, is, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, about 5 per cent. of the school population. The British Dyslexia Association operates on the basis of 4 per cent. for planning purposes. Again we need more research. I believe that, on 4 per cent., those coming into the schooling system every year who will be in need of special educational provision would be of the order of 30,000, to be added to the 300,000 in the school situation at any one time.

The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, rightly said that we need teachers. When I became chairman of the British Dyslexia Association, I said, fine, it is simple. There were 278,000 teachers in the public sector eight to 10 years ago. I do not know what the figure is now. How does one impress upon them the problem of providing the teachers of the teachers? Why do we not just impress that upon the dozen or so teacher trainers—those who train the teachers—so that at least all teachers who come in subsequent years will have an idea what dyslexia is about? As the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, rightly said, teachers go through their teacher training with specific learning difficulties and dyslexia omitted entirely or taking up only half an hour or so in their whole three years of training as a teacher, or whatever the period is.

After Warnock, we tried in 1980 to be instrumental in setting up a unit in the department of education in Southampton University, with privately funded money again. It went on for three years. It could, I believe, have been a model, as Warnock suggested, for putting a positive dyslexia input into teacher training for post-graduate education. (I apologise to your Lordships for my scant knowledge of education, not having been to university.) That was positive. I am only sorry that in 1983–84, for lack of funds, we had to stop that.

I believe that research is and would be interesting but, more than that, it is vital and it would pay great dividends. We are talking of a group of people often with enormous potential. We are talking of a group of people who have a difference of ability about which it is possible to do something positive. One illuminates the minus side and enables the person to contribute enormously to society. I therefore believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, that this is an enormous waste and money spent economically would make sense.

I have one other suggestion, and there I shall leave it. The deputy chairman of the Warnock Committee was Mr. George Cook, who, I believe the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, would agree, is another of the vice-presidents of the British Dyslexia Association. He has for a long time suggested to the Government that there is a need for an independent professional advisory body to oversee the implementation of the 1981 Education Act. This was a suggestion of the Warnock Committee. I ask my noble friend to consider that for discussion.

8.25 p.m.

Earl Attlee

My Lords, when my noble friend Lord Addington stood up to make his maiden speech, I crossed my fingers. I remembered back to when I made my maiden speech in your Lordships' House as a dyslexic on dyslexia. I offered up a silent prayer, which went something like this: dear Lord, please let him make a good speech. My Lords, my prayer was answered. My noble friend made, to my mind, a very eloquent—I meant to say eloquent, not elegant, but in fact I felt it was both—speech. When he sat down, I thought, what a wonderful thing, we now have another dyslexic in your Lordships' House who will stand on his feet and preach what we believe.

I believe it is true that whatever your Lordships were discussing from sewers to amphibians, if I made a speech it would include some reference to dyslexia. It is an unfortunate fact that we live with, yet there are still people who do not believe that such a thing as dyslexia exists.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ritchie of Dundee for introducing the debate and for informing me that I am apparently a "cross lateral". I am not sure that I fully appreciate what that is. It might be something like a Cross-Bencher. But I know that my brain is different from a non-dyslexic brain, and I have accepted that for a long time.

My noble friend Lord Ritchie mentioned application forms. It is a funny thing, but I have never yet managed to fill in an application form for anything and get it all right. What I would do without Tippex I honestly do not know.

I should like to mention two things. I was on the professional and executive register, that is, I did not have a job. I took all the tests. When I had finished, I was told there was one more—"We would like you to see our educational psychologist". Like a lamb to the slaughter, I went in and sat down. He started producing Lexicon cards. "Oh, this is an easy test—A, C, X, Y, B—Oh, I mean He said, "Ah, you're dyslexic". I said, "Doc, if you had asked me, I could have told you that". He said, "I went through all your test reports. We can always tell if you are telling the truth. It is obvious that you told the truth, but you made a lot of silly mistakes which a man of your IQ shouldn't make". I thought, "Yes, you're a bright man".

We held a meeting in your Lordships' House of people interested in dyslexia, and I talked to one of the educational psychologists afterwards. He was the first non-dyslexic who seemed to understand. I said to him, "I think that you actually have a glimmer of how my mind works". Indeed, my noble friend Lord Ritchie mentioned this in part. I said, "I am a dyslexic, the first one in the family. I am left-handed, as far as I know the first one in the family. I also suffer from migraine, as far as I know the first one in the family. Is there any correlation?". The expert looked at me and said, "We do not actually know, except that an awful lot of people who are dyslexic are also left-handed and suffer from migraine".

I now live in Hampshire. Across the road from me are very good friends who have a little boy who is dyslexic. On occasions he flies into the most awful tempers; he screams; he picks things up and throws them. His mother is very understanding. I was with her last night and we talked about her son because I said that I should be speaking about dyslexia in your Lordships' House tonight. She is very good and very sympathetic. I was explaining the awful frustration that builds up inside you so that the only thing to do is to hit something or someone or throw something.

Very early on this boy came to me and said, "I understand you suffer from the same thing as I do". I looked at him and said very coldly, "Do you mind? I am older than you and I have had dyslexia longer than you have". He gave a great big grin; and we are friends because with me he knows he is safe. He knows that I understand him: I understand his thought processes.

I said to his mother last night, "It is a very peculiar thing: when you are that age you find there is a great deal in physical contact". I find myself that when I meet him I just ruffle his hair and say "Hi". He will come into my house and come and sit down next to me; he will come and curl up in my armchair. He does that because he knows I am no danger to him and I am the only person he knows, apart from his teachers, who understands what he suffers. And, my Lords, if you are dyslexic you do suffer.

I should like to ask the noble Baroness the Minister one question. I have read the Education Act 1981 several times, and each time I pick up something different. It is very interesting because they talk about the assessment of children with learning difficulties; but it seems to me the one thing they do not say is that a child with learning difficulties should be assessed by someone who is trained—and I stress the word "trained"—to look for and identify specific learning difficulties. If you get someone who does not understand dyslexia—and there are still many today who do not—they will say "Dyslexia; oh yes, we prefer to us the old-fashioned word and call them `lazy'." There are still teachers and head teachers who say that and believe it. There are doctors who will tell you that dyslexia has to do only with word blindness and not with numerical blindness. Therefore what chance have some of our children got when those who assess them have not been taught how to do it?

The noble Lord, Lord Renwick, mentioned the people who are training others to understand and find out what needs to be done. I am afraid that the Act as it stands is very well-meaning but if a child is dyslexic—and we have talked about figures and from 4 per cent. to 5 per cent. has been mentioned, although I believe the figure is probably far nearer 15 per cent.—what chance has he got unless the assessment is carried out by a trained and qualified person? If the noble Baroness can answer that, I shall be very grateful.

8.35 p.m.

Baroness Vickers

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, because he is so interested in education and has chosen this subject because he is an expert. The debate has been very helpful indeed. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his maiden speech. It was excellent, well thought out and displayed a sense of humour. I am quite sure that he is going to do very well in this House and I hope that we shall hear him many times in the future. It must have taken a lot of courage to get up, even at this time of night, to talk about himself and about what he knows so well. I am sure we are all very grateful to him for the information he has given us.

The LEAs seem to be having difficulties at the moment. One voluntary organisation offered to sponsor teachers for the BDA diploma course in 1987-88. The local education authority replied that it would not be willing to release teachers for the course for so long a time—that is, one year. It is a lengthy course, but if it is necessary to have such a lengthy course, why cannot the association of teachers allow one of its teachers to go on one of these courses? It is essential, I think.

Dyslexia is not a disease. If you are a dyslexic you have a mind of your own and you can teach it to work. That is why we need teachers to help people in that way. Two noble Lords who spoke tonight have shown that they taught their minds to work and are getting down to things that they will enjoy doing in the future. All dyslexics are individuals. If you go into a room where there is a blind person or a spastic you can usually see that they are different, but a dyslexic looks perfectly normal—and indeed they are normal. I understand that every one who has dyslexia is different: it is an individualised trouble.

The learner moves step by step with simple material and the material becomes more and more complex as the teacher goes on. There are primary, essential and scientific ingredients in methods designed to set the dyslexic free to enable him or her to make full use of his or her gifts. But to be able to help them in this way it is essential to have experienced and well trained teachers. Dyslexia is a new disease. It was first written about in the medical journals in 1895 and since then research has been done into many apsects of the problem. It is interesting to note that Napoleon III, Hans Christian Andersen and Albert Einstein were all sufferers from dyslexia.

Today the needs of under-achieving children are not being met. For example, on an adult literacy scheme 60 per cent. came for help and most were adult dyslexics. Most were worried about whether they were going to pass on the trouble to their children: in other words, that history would repeat itself. The only way I can see of helping these people is to ensure that the Education Act 1981 is implemented so that it can help those with difficulties.

Dyslexia affects about 10 per cent. of the population but it is under-diagnosed and under-treated. The problem affects children from all backgrounds. Many people think that it involves only one type of child, but it is bound to involve those from all backgrounds. In Wiltshire the local education authority is setting up a working party and is screening children at the ages of seven and 11 years. Only reading ability is being assessed and the children whose reading age is two years behind their actual age are picked out and looked at in more detail. The rest of the children are left for the ordinary classroom teachers to look after and so they do not get the help that they need and should have.

How can we all help? I think it should be remembered that the dyslexic tires more quickly than a normal person and far greater concentration is needed. A dyslexic can read a passage correctly and yet not get the sense of it. A dyslexic may have difficulty with figures (for example, learning tables), reading music or anything which entails interpreting symbols. Learning foreign languages is usually a problem. A dyslexic is inconsistent in performance. A dyslexic may omit a word or words, or write one twice. A dyslexic suffers from constant nagging uncertainty. A dyslexic cannot take good notes because he cannot listen and write at the same time. When a dyslexic looks away from a book he is reading or a blackboard he is copying from, he may have great difficulty in finding his place again. A dyslexic works slowly because of his difficulties and so is always under pressure of time.

As these children are not getting adequate education in most schools, a number of parents are now saving up and sending them to boarding schools where they are getting good results, but of course parents do not want to be parted from their children. I hope that my noble friend may be able to give some assurance tonight after this short debate that there will be further help in the future.

8.41 p.m.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, it is a great privilege to be able to take part in this debate, and even more a privilege to listen to the speeches which we have heard this evening. This has been the best kind of debate in your Lordships' House. It was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, in a spirit of inquiry rather than in a spirit of controversy. He has been asking for information from the Government about the implementation of the provisions of the 1981 Act. He has not been doing it in any other sense than of concern for those who suffer from dyslexia.

He has been followed by an enormously impressive series of speakers and I must draw attention particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Addington. It has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, that he referred to an oral contribution and he certainly has made an oral contribution of some distinction in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Renwick, also said that he was one of those who did not use the written symbol as a reference. It is another of the admirable aspects of the debate this evening that we have had so many speeches from Members of your Lordships' House who do not speak from notes, and maybe do not do so because they are not able to do so, but who set an example to those who can do so and who far too often do. It has been valuable to have that contribution.

I have also learned a great deal myself. The concept of cross-laterality, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, referred, struck very close home to me. I am left-handed, I have a much stronger right eye than my left eye and I certainly changed schools many times-10 schools before the age of 10 as an evacuee during the war. I do not qualify for one of his criteria. I am certainly the least mechanically gifted of individ-uals, and so that may explain why I have escaped the dyslexia problem.

But it has been of enormous value to me to learn the different circumstances in which dyslexia can be caused and, in particular, the effect it has on those in the schools, because the issue raises matters of public policy. I can do no more than echo the questions which have already been put to the Government. I have no special knowledge on these matters. On the question of the training of teachers, it is surely the case—is it not?—that teacher training is at the moment under continuing scrutiny and review under the CATE system. The question to the Government would be: does the CATE review provide for training in the teaching of dyslexic children?

I think we would also want to know more about the issues of research to which the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, referred. What resources are being put by the Department of Education and Science towards research into dyslexia and, above all, research into the teaching of dyslexics? Quite apart from medical knowledge, there is a lot of pedagogical knowledge which I should have thought was entirely relevant.

It will not be a surprise that I add from this Dispatch Box that the issue of resources is of concern. Local education authorities have found themselves with responsibilities since 1981, or may have recognised responsibilities which they did not recognise before, which have not found any place in educational budgets in the past and, possibly, do not often find a place now in educational budgets, or in the calculation of grant related expenditure or of educational block grants, but which deserve attention. It would be helpful if the noble Baroness could indicate in her reply more than just sympathy with that point of view but some positive contribution that her department is willing to make to solving the problem.

If I may also go beyond the educational sphere—in this respect I do not expect the noble Baroness to reply to me now—it so happens that I have spent most of today at the Manpower Services Commission in Sheffield, talking about the problems of disabled people in employment, about the operation of the quota scheme under the 1944 and 1966 Acts and about the operation of the disablement advisory service of the Manpower Services Commission.

Again this will not be in the noble Baroness's brief, but I wonder if in due course she could write to me about whether the disablement provisions under the quota scheme and under the disablement advisory service codes of practice, and the videos which I know have been produced, take account of the needs of the dyslexic in employment.

Whatever progress we make in the education of dyslexic children, we must also make progress in helping employers to understand how important it is to recognise the intellectual and other abilities of those who have reading, numerical and learning difficulties. I am afraid it appears that these will persist throughout life. But they ought not to be a barrier to employment any more than they are a barrier to education, and it ought to be a remit from government as a whole to the Department of Employment and the Manpower Services Commission to see to it that such disabilities are recognised with other more obvious physical disabilities in the way in which government approach the general issue of the disabled.

We have heard about the need to recognise special educational difficulties and to go from that to special educational provision. I think that the Government will have learned a great deal from this evening's contributions—contributions from those who are personally affected, including the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I believe that they have the basis on which to give us a comprehensive and accurate review of the current position under the law. I hope the Government will feel that they have a basis on which to show us the way forward.

8.48 p.m.

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I too welcome the opportunity that this debate gives us to consider the operation of the 1981 Education Act as it affects children with dyslexia. I am grateful to the noble Lord. Lord Ritchie of Dundee, for asking the Question and indeed to all noble Lords for their interesting and well-informed contributions. Indeed, it fits remarkably well with the debate we had a little earlier this afternoon on the importance of the English language and the case for making it easier to learn. We have had a very educational afternoon.

I should also like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his remarks, which are all the more valuable to us in the light of his own difficult experience. I feel sure that we may learn in the future from his performance in your Lordships' House that he has many of the compensating abilities to which the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, referred. My noble friend Lady Vickers referred to the many eminent people who have the same compensating abilities. I join those who look forward to hearing him on many more occasions in the future.

The Government do recognise the existence of dyslexia and they consider it vital to the educational welfare of dyslexic children, as it is to all children with disabilities, that their needs should be identified as early as possible. It is also crucial that they receive appropriate provision to meet those needs. To that end, the education of children with dyslexia has been considered by a number of committees established by the Government. Although that may be common knowledge to the people who have contributed to the debate, I think that it is worth a further reference. These committees include the Tizard Committee, which reported as long ago as 1972, and the Bullock and the Warnock Committees.

All these committees advised successive Secretaries of State that there are children with severe and long term difficulties in one or more areas of reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic whose general ability is at least average and for whom distinctive arrange-ments are necessary. These normally take the form of appropriate help in ordinary schools. The term "specific learning difficulties" seems to provide the best description of these children's problems, since it denotes the existence of an established problem for which help is required but does not imply any definite causation or exclusive categorisation. I believe that my noble friend Lord Renwick underlined the importance of this matter since the underlying causes vary from child to child so that an approach that works well in one case does not necessarily do so in another.

I was amused by the illustrations of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, of the use of the word "dyslexia" and of its perhaps snobbish connotation. The Government recognise, however, that "dyslexia" is the term in the more common use, not least since it is included in the name of the principal voluntary bodies in the field. This is purely a question of semantics; the Government and local education authorities are well aware of the existence of this group of children and their needs.

Perhaps I may say at this stage that I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Renwick for his emphasis upon the co-operation which exists between the Department of Education and Science and the voluntary sector. We regard regular contact with the British Dyslexia Association, which is the umbrella organisation for all local associations, as very valuable to progress.

That said, I must stress at this stage the importance of not labelling children. The Warnock Committee advised strongly that the use of labels should be abolished, since it concentrated far too much on the child's main deficit, thus obscuring both his strength and other possible needs which should be met. It is on this philosophy that the 1981 Education Act is built. As the House knows, this Act abolished the concept of categorising children into one of ten main statutory handicaps. In its place it established the Warnock conception of "special educational need". This stresses the importance of looking at all aspects of the child's performance, his strengths as well as his weaknesses, and the help he receives both at home and at school. A child's special educational needs are thus related to his abilities as well as to his disabilities and to the nature of his interaction with his environment.

The aim of the 1981 Act is to require local education authorities to identify all children in their areas who have, or may have, special educational needs. This includes children with dyslexia as well as children with any other form of special educational need. Local education authorities cannot ignore these children any more than they can ignore a blind or physically disabled child.

I recognise the anxiety expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, that some authorities may perhaps be more assiduous than others or more efficient in their use of resources. However, the Act does not totally rely on the actions of local authorities. It goes further and provides parents with a statutory right to request an assessment of their child's heeds if they are unhappy about his educational progress. The local education authority has to comply with this request unless, in its view, it is unreasonable. Thus any parent of a dyslexic child who believes that his child's needs are not being adequately met in his school may take the initiative by drawing the child to the attention of the authority and asking for an assessment. The same rights of appeal, either against a decision not to make a statement in respect of the child or against the educational provision specified in the statement, apply irrespective of whether the parent or the local education authority initiated the procedure.

It may be helpful if I digress for a moment to explain the Government's view of the operation of the Act in respect of which children should be the subject of statements and which should not. Perhaps it would be helpful to explain what the statement procedure means. If the local authority identifies a child whose needs require the authority to determine that special educational provision be made for him, that child should be given the benefit of a statement. The preparation of the statement involves a multi-professional assessment. It incorporates advice from medical, educational and psychological sources and from other sources, where appropriate. The statement should detail the identified special need provisions required and the steps which the authority proposes to meet those needs. The child who is the subject of a statement must be reviewed annually to ensure that the provision remains appropriate.

In addition, the Act requires that children with statements should have their needs reassessed fully before they reach the age of 144 years. The aim is to advise on the curriculum choice in the final years of schooling and to provide advanced data for other agencies likely to be closely involved with the young person when he or she leaves school.

Section 1 of the Act defines the child who falls within its scope. A child has special educational needs if he has a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for him. The section further defines "learning difficulty" by reference to a child who has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of his age or has a disability which either prevents or hinders him from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided in schools, within the area of the LEA concerned, for children of his age. In this context, special educational provision is defined as educational provision which is additional to, or otherwise different from, the educational provision made generally for children of his age in schools maintained by the local authority concerned.

Warnock envisaged that up to 20 per cent. of the school population might have special educational needs at some time during their school careers. The Act encompasses all the 20 per cent. but does not require that every child who has, or may have, special educational needs will be the subject of a statement made and maintained under the procedures laid down in Sections 5 and 7 of the Act. This is necessary only in respect of children whose specific educational needs are such as to call for the LEA to determine the provision to be made for them.

Perhaps at this point I can reassure the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, on the question of who carries out assessments. Under the regulations in the Act, it is required that the people making assessments of children are qualified educational psychologists. This means that such persons must be teachers in the first place. Also included must be a qualified medical practitioner and the head teacher. Therefore, the people involved in making the assessment are or certainly should be very well qualified to reach the right decision.

The deciding factors in determining what constitutes additional or otherwise different provision may vary from area to area depending on the range of provision normally available in an authority's schools. The department's Circular 1783 makes it clear that a statement is appropriate for all children who have complex learning difficulties as in all cases where a child is based in a special unit attached to an ordinary school, a special school, a non-maintained special school or an independent school approved for the purpose. On the other hand, formal procedures are not appropriate where ordinary schools provide special educational provisions from their own resources in the form of additional tuition or remedial provision; or, in normal circumstances, where the child attends a reading centre or unit for disruptive pupils. Perhaps that in some way will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Schon, on the point he raised.

Local education authorities are under a duty to make available appropriate provision to meet the needs of all children identified as having special educational needs, irrespective of whether they are the subject of a statement.

Section 1, therefore, in the Government's view provides for two groups of children with special educational needs: the majority, for whom a statement is unnecessary but for whom the LEA and the governors of the school concerned are under a duty to ensure that adequate provision is made and the smaller, more complex group for whom the LEA is under a duty to make and maintain a statement of special educational needs under Section 7 of the Act. This view was recently upheld by the High Court, but that ruling is currently the subject of appeal.

In the light of what I have just said, noble Lords will appreciate that the provisions of the Act provide opportunity for both schools and parents to identify any child with dyslexia. Once identified—as many speakers have said, that is the difficult part—the Act also ensures that the LEAs make the necessary provision to meet those needs.

During the course of the debate I have been questioned on what the Government have done to encourage better identification and provision for these children. First, following the Warnock Committee's recommendation, the Government commissioned five major research projects into aspects of dyslexia. One of these was a review of existing research in the field. The remaining four considered the prevalence, identification and teaching needs of groups of children with specific learning difficulties. The findings of these four projects were the subject of a seminar held in the Department of Education and Science in May 1984. All those involved in the field were invited to attend.

Secondly, the Government are concerned to promote better training of teachers for children with special educational needs. Training for teachers of children with special educational needs was one of the priority areas of in-service training supported under the department's grant scheme from 1983-84 to 1985-86 inclusive. Training of teachers of pupils with special educational needs in schools and in further education are both priority areas under the proposed arrangements for funding in-service training due to come into force in April this year.

Again, I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Schon, who specifically asked about the number of people who have been trained. Apart from the general initial training and in-service training, the number of people trained on government programmes to teach pupils with special educational needs in mainstream schools has increased over the years since the implementation of the 1981 Act in 1983. Although the figures are not, understandably, complete after 1986 the total has reached some 1,183 such teachers.

In addition to the priority areas I have just mentioned, under these new arrangements local education authorities will be able to support courses of their own choosing to meet local needs. These courses will attract 50 per cent. central Government funding. The teaching diploma of the British Dyslexia Association, to which my noble friend Lord Renwick referred, is a good example of what will be eligible to be considered by LEAs for this purpose. I hope that that goes some way towards reassuring the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, about the Government's positive attitude.

These courses are of great assistance to existing teachers. The Government also recognise the importance of including children with special educational needs in courses for initial teacher training. Advice offered to the then Secretary of State in 1984 in the report of the Advisory Committee on the Supply and Education of Teachers (ACSET) recommended that all initial teacher training courses should include elements concerned with special educational needs to be determined by the Secretary of State. That recommendation was accepted and is included in the Government's policy on the future supply and training of teachers set out in the White Paper Better Schools. Therefore, it is now being implemented. While these elements do not concentrate exclusively on children with dyslexia, their needs are considered within the broader framework of children with special educational needs.

I was asked some specific questions to which I shall endeavour to respond, at any rate in part. My noble friend Lord Renwick suggested that there should be an advisory body on special education. The recommendation of the Warnock Committee that there should be an advisory body to advise the Secretary of State was, in fact, rejected by the previous Secretary of State. The question has been raised again as a result of the evidence of Professor Klaus Wedell given to the Select Committee of Inquiry on Special Education. Any further consideration by the Government will need to await the findings of the Select Committee.

I believe the noble Lord, Lord Addington, suggested that there were perhaps better opportunities in the private sector. In the past dyslexia institutes have tended to suggest to parents that the needs of their children can best be met in the private sector. While it is true that a number of independent schools offer specific provision for dyslexic children, local education authorities are increasingly improving their own provision. In many areas, like East Sussex, this is being done by means of a peripatetic support team and by in-service training for teachers in the mainstream schools.

All local education authorities are aware of the new arrangements for inset training and under these arrangements the LEAs can, as I said, support courses of their own choosing and they will attract the 50 per cent. government funding.

The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, specifically asked whether the CATE review covered the training of teachers for dyslexics. I can assure him that the approval of initial courses of teacher training by CATE includes a scrutiny of courses concerning pupils with special educational needs.

I hope that I have been able to respond to the debate in the spirit of all the contributions, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and have said enough to inform the House that the Government believe that the 1981 Act provides the framework for identifying and meeting the needs of dyslexic children. Our policy on initial and in-service teacher training has not ignored those needs. Of course it is always possible to do more but considerable progress has been made since the Act was implemented in April 1983.

Noble Lords may be aware that the Government have been monitoring implementation of the Act by means of a major research project carried out by the University of London Institute of Education, whose report was presented to the Department of Education and Science on the 31st December last year. A copy of that report will be made available in the Library in your Lordships' House.

As my noble friend Lord Renwick told us, the Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts in another place has just commenced an inquiry into the needs of special education. I cannot give him very much information on the progress made by the committee since its inquiry has only just started, but the Government intend to review the provisions of the Act in the light of both those reports and in the light of the comments made in today's debate.

Once again let me say that I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, for having raised this issue today. I may not have been able to respond to all the points made but if I discover when reading Hansard that I can do so, I shall try to follow them up—in particular a couple of points raised by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. The debate has given us a rare opportunity to reflect on the needs of some of our more disadvantaged children, and I thank all the participants for their very helpful contributions.

House adjourned at ten minutes past nine o'clock.