George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises:

(a) dyslexia as a learning disability which, according to the World Federation of Neurology, is ‘manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and socio-cultural opportunity’;

(b) the Irlen Syndrome, also known as, Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome as a specific type of visual perceptual dyslexia; and

(c) that school students with dyslexia learn differently to their fellow students;

(2) supports the concept of compulsory teacher training to ensure educators have:

(a) an awareness of dyslexia and the impact dyslexia has on students;

(b) the ability to recognise the symptoms of dyslexia; and

(c) the ability to utilise a range of multi-sensory learning methods to engage with students with dyslexia;

(3) supports the:

(a) concept of compulsory training of pre-service teachers in dyslexia and Irlen Syndrome as well as training in multi-sensory teaching methods for children who learn differently; and

(b) ability of teachers to be able to inform parents directly about concerns they have of their children exhibiting symptoms of dyslexia or Irlen Syndrome;

(4) requests the Government make changes to National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) to allow school students with dyslexia or Irlen Syndrome to have their NAPLAN test read to them;

(5) supports the concept of modified homework for school students with dyslexia to reflect their particular learning difficulties; and

(6) recognises that dyslexia would be a significant barrier to learning a second language and supports the ability of school students to opt out of Languages other than English classes.

According to the World Federation of Neurology, dyslexia is 'a disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and sociocultural opportunity'. The primary symptoms, according to the Australian Dyslexia Association, are: problems learning the letter sounds for reading and spelling; difficulty in reading single words such as on flash cards and in lists, otherwise known as decoding; a lack of fluency; reading slowly with many mistakes; poor spelling; and poor visual gestalt or coding, or what they call orthographic coding. According to dyslexia testing services, about 16 per cent of the Australian population has dyslexia, making it the most common cause of reading, writing and spelling difficulties. Dyslexia does not discriminate. It affects both men and women alike and equally, as well as people from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I want to stress that people with dyslexia are not intellectually disabled. They can and they do learn. They just learn in a different manner to many others in the community.

Like autism or Aspergers, dyslexia occurs on a continuum, with learning difficulties ranging from the mild to the severe. Within the field of dyslexia, there is a specific type of visual perceptual dyslexia known as Irlen syndrome or scotopic sensitivity syndrome. Sometimes when you go into a classroom you see children wearing special coloured glasses to assist their visual perception. These young children battle with Irlen syndrome.

As a child, I would often write my Bs as Ds and my Ws as Ms and vice versa. But I would pick it up almost as soon as wrote it down. It was a very mild form of dyslexia and I still have it to this day. But there are others whose dyslexia is at the other end of the spectrum, the severe end. Many of them are children. They are some of the bravest young people that we have out there because of what they face every day in the classroom. Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting a young man, James Spain, who lives in Mackay in my electorate of Dawson. James has extreme difficulty in comprehending words and thus with reading, writing and spelling. That makes life in school pretty much hell for him. But he carries on regardless. That young man is going to have a great future because of his attitude.

I want to read you a letter from a young Mackay girl. She is in grade 9 this year, I believe. This letter was relayed to me last year. I ask that the letter be recorded in Hansard as it is written and not as I am going to read it, because I am going to read it with some corrections. I want people to understand the suffering that young people with dyslexia face in the classroom. The letter reads:

I hate school becuse I'm get bulled and my teaches are not helping me whith my school work becuse I'm. The stumped one in my class and do you why aim like this becuse I'm am dislexa and I'm always get toled by my teaches that I'm not allowed in ther class my becuse I'm so bum I just wish that I could be at home 24 hours at a day becuse what is the ponit of me being there when I'm dum and put at the bake of the class and not doing anything all school is. For me is hell but I stik it out and go whith and be me butt feel I'm always left out becuse no one blouse not whont to around a girl that is not a Lerner problem my them and you will always find that in me but same time I think that I'm just stooped and Feel really sik and just so be preset and just who ting to kill myself and but when I do have friends all thay like to do is think that becuse I'm stopped that thay can just be mean and say bed thing about me and and that is why I think that smigels and stumpy are my true fernds and thay are always there for me to talk to so that the end.

As I found out later, Smiggles and Stumpy are this young girl's two pet horses. How terrible that our education system has let a young girl who suffers a learning disability such as dyslexia fall into such a dark place that she contemplates taking her own life. That is an indictment on us all.

The motion that I have before the House is not simply calling on the House to recognise dyslexia as a learning disability and to acknowledge the real problems within our education in dealing with students who have dyslexia; it is also a motion that is calling for action. One of the key solutions to effectively dealing with students who have dyslexia is to ensure that teachers have a thorough understanding of this lifelong disability and know the methods to educate those young people in their classrooms.

In my electorate, there is a business known as the Sunbird Education Centre that assists with tutoring. They particularly assist in the field of children with specific learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Vicki Dammerel, who works at that centre, wrote to me and summarised quite clearly the intent of this motion. She said:

Teachers and prospective teachers must be made aware of these specific learning differences and be trained in understanding these student requirements and making the necessary accommodations in their classrooms. A dyslexic student's education must be equal to that of other students and most importantly their mental health be taken into consideration in the process.

The Productivity Commission undertook a study into the school workforce. There were many submissions to that that highlighted the problem of children with dyslexia and what is happening and is not happening in classrooms.

Even the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in their submission stated that most teachers would have at least one student with a disability in their classroom every school year and they included in that students with learning difficulties. But they went on to say that only 10 per cent of teachers had received the training in teaching methodologies for students with disabilities or learning difficulties. Karen Starkiss, who is from the Dyslexia Assessment and Support Service Organisation, summarised that more succinctly by saying:

Every teacher is going to meet students with learning difficulties in every class that they teach. That will happen from the first day they start teaching.

We have a major problem.

The Productivity Commission, after all of those submissions and after the study that they did, came out with a finding that there needed to be an increase in the emphasis on the learning needs of the educationally disadvantaged students in pre-service teacher training. That is one of the things that this motion is trying to achieve.

There was also a Productivity Commission inquiry into the education and training workforce. A senior researcher at the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Royal Children's Hospital and Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Nola Firth, put in a submission to that inquiry in which she said: 'The current inclusion of the study of learning disabilities varies greatly across Australia. Many teachers complete their entire training either without ever having heard of the phenomenon or with a limited understanding of what it means, how to identify signs of it, what effective strategies are available to assist these students with dyslexia.' She went on to point out that the USA, the UK and Canada have all mandated initial teacher training in learning disabilities. We in Australia are lagging behind in this regard.

She pointed to a report of the dyslexia working party that was provided to then Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services. It strongly recommended pre-service teacher training in the field of dyslexia. The government has responded. I acknowledge that some work has been done. But there is a long, long way to go, and it is three years since that report was delivered. The government in its response talked about a $200 million initiative and more support for students with disabilities. But the fact is that that program does not include children with specific learning disabilities, and the report speaks about those. That includes dyslexia. There is a large gap.

In the remaining short time that I have, NAPLAN is also something that we are going to have to focus on. There are a lot of horror stories about young people with dyslexia facing these NAPLAN tests. Teachers report that it is compounding the problems for them. They cannot do the test as it is currently structured because of their learning disability. We need to review that. I am pleased to hear that our shadow education minister is going to do that and look at a lot of the things contained in this motion. I ask the government to do it as well.

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