Before you dismiss a child as lazy and slow, read this

The country was outraged when Joy Wangari, a Standard Three pupil at Mukandamia Primary School in Laikipia County, died after she was reportedly beaten by her teacher and fellow pupils. Reason? She was unable to read.

According to her grandmother, her guardian, Wangari had had a long-running learning difficulty, in fact, she was among pupils in the area who were interviewed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology during a survey on the quality of the 8-4-4 education system last year. The standard three girl was among one of those identified as being unable to read and write properly.

Could it be that she had a learning disability?

“Could be,” says Phyllis Wamucii, the director of Dyslexia Organisation Kenya. “Dyslexia is a learning disorder characterised by difficulty in reading and spelling - Joy had difficulty in these two areas,” she says.

Most parents are ready to go to any lengths to offer their children quality education. The pain of a parent whose child is unable to do well in school may not fit into lexical terms. This disability yields frustration at home and triggers distress in school, consequently draining the child’s sense of self-worth. Eventually, any hope of recovery from the problem is hurt.

Dyslexia, autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly known as ADHD, are some of the common learning disabilities. How is a learning disability in a child diagnosed? Does the Kenyan school curriculum address issues of learning disabilities?

Are teachers adequately equipped to handle such learners when they encounter them? What role does the parent have in this? And perhaps more importantly, is there hope for children with such conditions?

IMPATIENT TEACHERS

Ruth Karanja says that at one-and-a-half years, her daughter could barely speak or walk. She took her for occupational therapy at the Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital and Aga Khan University hospitals.

“Nyawira was four years when she began school in 2010. After months of schooling, unlike her peers, she could not get the sounds right. Whenever she tried writing, letters would run across the page in a confused fashion.”

When no progress was forthcoming in this school, Ruth was forced to transfer her daughter to a different school, with the hope of improvement.

More frustration awaited them in the new environment. “Her new teacher was impatient, and would beat her up for her inability to keep up with her classmates. She complained that my child was timid, a slow learner, lazy and refused to read. This ruined her self-esteem. She would wake up grumpy and refuse to go to school. We had to force her to.”

It emerged later that the teacher had neglected Ruth’s daughter, and while the other pupils were being taught, Nyawira would sit alone at the back of the class, idle.

Ruth’s daughter was also unable to socialise with her peers, but it was the beating and neglect of the child in school that severely damaged the relationship between Ruth and the teacher.

“I had grown tired of the teacher mistreating my child, and the numerous summons to school. We would spend hours in the evening struggling with her homework, both of us crying.”

Ruth’s patience was running out, her child’s condition deteriorating and frustration mounting both at school and at home. She had been to three schools already, but there was no progress in sight.

In 2013, Ruth went to see a neurologist. Her daughter was seven years but she still could not read well. It turned out that her daughter had dyslexia and mild autism. A friend advised her to take her to her current school, where she was put under therapy.

“Today I’m a happy mother. My daughter can read, write and speak well. She is cheerful now and freely plays with other children. She is also able to perform light indoor chores and her self-esteem is high.”  

Catherine Kasamu Obonyo’s son, Victor, has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia.

Her close friend had observed abnormalities in Victor and mentioned them, but fearing the worst, she had remained in denial until her son turned four.

“I could not afford to be away from him for long, because he would turn the house upside down. It was a waste buying him toys because he broke them immediately,” explains Catherine, an officer with the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC).

FRUSTRATED LEARNER

In school, the script was the same. While his colleagues were learning in class, Victor would be up to all kinds of mischief; singing, playing and moving up and down in class. Other times he would walk out of the class.

“The teacher explained that since he could not grasp anything, he could not learn with the others. He was behind in everything. I was a broken mother.”

 “Exam time was the most difficult period of Victor’s life. He would come home and tell me: Mum, tomorrow is exam day, but I don’t know what to write. I would try to comfort him, but we would end up crying together.”

At school, his classmates would laugh at, and tease him. “He started to lock himself up in a room and refuse to eat, talk or see anyone,” says Catherine.

Meanwhile, she walked from one hospital into another, seeking medical help for her son, but drawing blanks with every visit. “In one of the centres, I was advised that Victor’s was a nutritional problem. We placed him under a nutritionist to try and rectify his problem but there was no change.”

 “In 2010, Victor’s condition was finally diagnosed – he was dyslexic and had ADHD.”

“When the school learnt about his condition, he was confined to the back of the class. While in Standard Five, the teacher advised that he go back to Standard Two and was not allowed to sit exams with the others.

Everywhere Catherine went to look for a place for her son, the boy was subjected to an interview, and every time he failed. The burden was wearying her. And her son was getting even more frustrated. Catherine would much later stumble on a story in a local magazine about a school that was helping children with learning disabilities such as Victor’s.

“I searched online for the school and I found it. Victor was assessed and admitted.”

Now 16, he is currently in his tenth year of study, which is equivalent to Form Three at Kenya Community Centre for Learning, KCCL.

“Despite the high school fees charged, and through God’s intervention, my son is performing well, and is now an independent young man who does his homework by himself. He is excellent with numeracy, but has some challenges in language subjects. He loves music, is a good dancer and swimmer.”

Esther Njeri, like Ruth and Catherine, knows only too well the pain that comes with watching your child struggle to read and write. Her daughter, Natasha, nine, was like any other normal child until she turned three, when she stopped responding to sound.

“I took her to the hospital and the test revealed that she had otitis media, a middle ear infection.”

She adds, “During the occasional hospital visits, it was discovered that she had a speech impairment also, and we were advised to buy hearing aids for her and engage a speech therapist, who would assist her after school.”

As Natasha grew, her condition worsened. According to her mother, she was treated like an outcast in her school. “She was taught differently and given different assignments from her classmates. Instead of proceeding to Class Two, she was asked to repeat nursery level. For me, these were two years of school wasted, but I had no choice.”

Even as the school environment grew increasingly difficult for Esther’s child, the prospect of transferring her elsewhere worried her.

“Taking her to a new school would mean repeating the same frustrating cycle. All I wanted was my child to complete school,” Esther says.

It reached a point where there was no communication between Esther and the school.

“One day, I went to the school to request for an academic progress report for my daughter, instead, I was given a school leaving certificate. My attempts to seek intervention from the school director were futile.”

The school could no longer accommodate her daughter. According to them, Natasha was an unsustainable liability. While her mother was devastated, for Natasha, it was a relief not to go to school anymore. Around this time, Esther’s friend referred her to a special school where her daughter’s condition was assessed, and subsequently, she was admitted.

“Natasha is now better. The only regret I have is that I did not know about the institution sooner – those years would not have been wasted.”

Esther feels that it is unethical for parents and teachers to compare children and to evaluate them using the same parameters despite their different cognitive capacities.

“Always question the advice that you receive from friends and experts about your child’s condition,” she says, advising parents to take action early if they suspect any abnormal condition in their children.

“Engage teachers as much as possible, and most importantly, don’t give up on your child.”

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Are we doing it right?

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, (CRPD), guarantees the right to education for all children and adults with disabilities, and requires state parties to provide an “inclusive education system” to all learners.

This is aimed at promoting equal rights for all people. Kenya’s Basic Education Act of 2013, however, bestows upon the Education Cabinet Secretary the power to establish special needs schools, which, according to experts, is antagonistic to the UN document, to which Kenya is a signatory. Separate, segregated schools with special curricula, they argue, violate international standards.

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IN THE GENES: Condition can be hereditary

Phyllis Wamucii Munyi of Dyslexia Organisation Kenya, explains that dyslexia is a learning disorder characterised by slow processing of textual and verbal information by the brain. The problem is manifested by difficulty in reading, spelling and even learning a foreign language.

“From our research, we estimate the prevalence in Kenya to be about 15-20 per cent, affecting one out of five people in Kenya.”

For her, the formation of Dyslexia Organisation Kenya (DOK) was occasioned by necessity.

“I have a son, 18, with the condition. My nephew, an IT expert, is also dyslexic.”

Phyllis however points out that dyslexia is neither hopeless nor a permanent condition. “Early identification is essential because dealing with dyslexia in formative years minimises its impact on a child. My son sat his KCSE in 2016 and scored a satisfactory C- (minus).”

DOK provides screening, assessment and intervention of dyslexic cases, and trains teachers and community education experts to enhance public awareness on dyslexia and the challenges experienced by people with the condition.

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Susan Kamau is a teacher in a school for children with cognitive disabilities. She believes that the Kenyan problem is structural in nature.

“Learning disability is thinly addressed by our teaching syllabus. Trainees are barely prepared to identify, understand or handle such cases should they encounter them in their teaching practice.”

Susan points out that ignoring autistic, dyslexic and those with speech and language defects on the assumption of laziness is common in regular schools. According to her, unless a teacher is compassionate enough, he or she is unable to assist a slow learner, a situation aggravated by the disproportionate teacher-to-learner ratio in Kenyan public schools.

“Some parents only send their children to school and pay the school fees. If you do not demand for progress reports from school regularly, you will likely lose your child. If your child has a cognitive disability, you might not know in good time to take corrective measures.”

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Esther Wamai, a cognitive disability expert, and the principal of Kenya Community Centre for Learning, (KCCL), observes that learning disability incidences in Kenya have been on the rise, adding that autism has gained so much attention at the expense of other conditions.

Wamai says: “Statistics on learning disabilities in Kenya are largely scanty, but from surveys, the ratio today is put at one out of 68-100 persons. By 2020, however, it is estimated that one out of every 20 Kenyan children will suffer from one or another form of learning disability.”

While learning disability does not mean that a child is not intelligent, Wamai raises a red flag, calling for urgent intervention.

 “We started a support group on WhatsApp for mothers with children with learning disabilities. We didn’t expect the kind of reaction the group attracted. Soon, the group was full, such that we had to start a separate group. That one too filled up within a short time. Interestingly, members are mostly Nairobi-based parents, so it would be correct to say that there are many, many more parents out there with children that have learning challenges,” she says.

Learning disabilities could be hereditary. “The child will present the condition if someone in the family tree had a similar condition. It doesn’t have to be the immediate parent.”

There are no known causes of these disabilities. “However, there are risk factors, such as taking alcohol during pregnancy, injury and impairments to the brain, which inhibit the chemical dopamine, which is responsible for triggering various emotions.”

On the legality and ethicality of special schools, Wamai argues: “In principle, having an all-inclusive education system is attractive, but we must be cognisant of the fact that learning disabilities range from mild to moderate to extreme manifestations. As a result, not all children are able to benefit from an inclusive model. Their circumstances require special attention. In fact, evaluating them with their peers who have no disabilities at all is itself unfair. In practice therefore, an inclusive method would be ineffective.” 

Wamai further explains that mainstream education centres cater for about 1 per cent of the needs for children with learning difficulties. Schools offering this specialised care in the country are also spread thin. She adds: “Without our own curriculum, we rely on the British model. This mode of teaching is not time-bound. We assist a learner until they are able to process all the information given to them.”

She adds. “There are children who cannot write at all, so during exams, we hire scribes for them. They state the answers, and the scribe writes them down for them. For those who can’t read, we engage readers for them. These only read the instructions for them, while the learner writes down the answers.”

Wamai acknowledges that it is a slow but fruitful process, and the high cost involved often scares parents away. Learners in the school however take the same exams offered elsewhere.  Ability to identify and assess these disabilities would help parents and teachers to accord such learners proper care befitting their circumstances, and even avert possible tragic incidents of injuries and deaths resulting from manhandling by otherwise uninformed caregivers.  No doubt, education policies that critically address learning disabilities are at the epicentre of an effective education system that ensures equal rights for all persons.

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USEFUL CONTACTS:

www.dyslexiakenya.org

www.kise.ac.ke