Dyskexia

Background

7-year-old P1 girl, local aided school. Early in the term, teachers reported "Chinese dictation always zero", "copying never completes", "frequently writes mirror characters". Parents initially thought it was laziness; 3 months of tutoring brought no improvement. She began refusing school, complaining of headaches, waking at night saying "I'm so stupid". Parents were deeply worried but didn't know where to start.

Evaluation Findings

IQ and verbal expression at or above age level (parents had done an IQ assessment, FSIQ 116). Visual processing: significantly weak visual recognition and visual memory. Visual tracking: jerky eye movements during reading, frequent character/line skipping. Pencil grip: excessive wrist tension, low hand-muscle endurance. Character structure memory: slow to build radical-to-structure mapping for Chinese characters. Strongly recommended referral to educational psychologist for formal dyslexia assessment.

Intervention Approach

First step was explaining to the parents: "This isn't laziness — her brain processes text differently from typical." This single sentence brought immediate relief to both parents and child. Referred to educational psychologist (walked with parents through EP selection). Simultaneously started OT intervention: visual processing training, handwriting training (grip, posture, character-structure strategies), home dictation strategies (multi-sensory learning: air-writing with fingers, body-movement tracing), executive functioning (breaking dictation revision into small steps). Communicated with school SENCo to request reasonable classroom adjustments.

Outcome

After 6 months: educational psychologist confirmed Chinese-specific Learning Disability (dyslexia). Child received school IEP support and exam accommodations (extra time, enlarged font). Dictation scores climbed from 0 to 40–50 (parents' initial goal was just 30). Most importantly, the child's self-perception shifted from "I'm so stupid" to "My brain learns in a different way." Night wakings and complaint of headaches completely resolved.