Madras Dyslexia Association
Organization background

Madras Dyslexia Association (MDA), a not-for-profit organisation has been working towards enabling a dyslexia- sensitive-society in a multi-pronged manner since 1991. To date, they have supported 8000+ children from pre- primary stage through adulthood.

Dyslexia is a neurobiological condition, generally manifesting as a difficulty in reading, writing, spelling and mathematics, and other executive functions, in spite of the IQ level of the children being average to above-average. According to the statistics in India about 10-15 percent of the school going children have this condition.

MDA has developed various means of helping children with dyslexia, and the associated stakeholders like parents, teachers and school management. Services include comprehensive guidance and assessment; remediation for primary school children, and working closely with school management to set up resource rooms, educating the teachers, etc.

They are currently working with the government of Tamil Nadu to equip approximately 2,500 teachers to identify and support approximately 25,000 children with dyslexia.

Project background

One of the biggest problems is that teachers only identify children with possible dyslexia when they are 8 years or older. By this age, they have already fallen behind, negatively impacting their self-esteem. Consequently, MDA wants to develop an early-intervention program that focuses on identifying, assessing and remediating children between 2.5 to 5 years that are at-risk for developing dyslexia. The end-to-end program is done through play.

Such early intervention programs exist in developed countries like the US, where the at-risk child is spotted early by the paediatrician, and state-funded remedial treatement is provided to the child. However, the process is not as streamlined in India, where one has to depend on an ad-hoc combination of paediatrician, pre-K teachers etc., to identify the child, and the process of providing appropriate remedial services is also not well established.

MDA plans to develop a course that would teach stakeholders (teachers in pre-K, parents) about early intervention, and train them to spot aberrations in the child's development, and recommend remedial treatment. Screening tools would also be developed as part of this course, in consultation with specialists. MDA will make this course available both in class mode and for free in digital mode.

GKF contributions to MDA