Class X and XII board results: How students battling dyslexia showed the way

NEW DELHI: When all eyes are on Class X and XII board students, hardly does one acknowledge that every child is special with a unique combination of abilities. Several board students battling dyslexia, a learning disability, became an inspiration for thousands of such children by scoring big in the current session.
Debates starting from allowing a dyslexia patient to use calculators during exams to banning subjects like Mathematics, Physics, accounts and languages for such special children have never settled. But dyslexic students, trained with special tools, have shown the way.
"Dyslexic kids are more inquisitive by nature. If you can give them logical answers, they learn things easily," said Rajeev Bhatt, an educationist and learning disabilities expert based in Delhi.
"We don't teach students. Our focus in classrooms is on learning rather than teaching. Dyslexia basically affects the part of brain that process language. In my 18 years of experience, students with learning disabilities have inspired me to research and innovate special tools and techniques that have helped us grow as an institution. Result: With our child-friendly techniques and audio-visual methods, our students have cleared boards with flying colours this year," said Bhatt who also runs Adhyayan Inclusive Learning Centre in Green Park area of the city.
As claimed by Bhatt, among institutions training dyslexic students, Adhyayan has the maximum number of candidates in the country clearing CBSE 12th board exams.
Raghav Gupta (R) with Rajeev Bhatt
"Every year we guide 50-60 students suffering from dyslexia. This year, the pass percentage of students associated with us was 100 per cent. Over 70 per cent of them secured more than 65 per cent marks. Our student Vedant from one of the prominent schools of Delhi who has been facing severe learning disabilities scored 81 per cent in social studies paper in CBSE 10th board. The subject required lot of learning and writing works but we covered the learning gap with our new techniques," Bhatt said.
Another child Shivani Nautiyal - a patient of severe dyslexia - has done wonders. She has secured 92 per cent in the CBSE 12th board exams. "From a 40 percenter, she has become a 90 percenter. "She has been associated with Adhyayan and belonged to the economically-weaker sections (EWS)," Bhatt said. According to him, Shivani's marks have shown that these special children can't be labelled as dumb and if their parents and schools take into account their sensibilities and needs, they can come out with flying colours.
According to Dyslexia Association of India, 10 to 15 per cent of school-going children in India suffer from some type of dyslexia. Convincing parents for special mentoring of their kids with such disabilities is a big task, especially when they belong to EWS and are not much educated.
"Tremendous hurdle is faced as parents are first not willing to accept that their child has any learning disabilities and also the teachers are not willing to accommodate the child with learning disabilities even though CBSE talks about inclusive education," he said.
“Our student Raghav Gupta, who has severe dyslexia symptoms and also has ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) besides having epilepsy, has cleared CBSE 12th class board exams with 90 per cent in a language subject which is not a forte of dyslexics," Bhatt said.
Dyslexia is defined as a learning difficulty that can affect skills needed in reading, spelling and comprehending. "A dyslexia patient has very good visualisation skills and they prefer to learn and memorise concepts by visualising them. Memory trees, flow charts, audio-visual techniques help them a lot," Bhatt said.