Tony Gregory
Ceist:679 Mr. Gregory asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will give details of all special assistance, resources and tuition available through his Department for children with dyslexia. [21049/03]
Vol. 571 No. 1
679 Mr. Gregory asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will give details of all special assistance, resources and tuition available through his Department for children with dyslexia. [21049/03]
Children with dyslexia are generally catered for on an integrated basis in ordinary primary schools where they can be supported by the learning support teacher service or the resource teacher service. At present there are 1,531 learning support teachers and in excess of 2,300 resource teachers and in the primary system.
Where the condition is of a more serious nature, provision can be made in one of the four special schools or 23 special classes attached to ordinary primary schools and dedicated to the needs of children with dyslexia. Decisions on placements are based on the professionally assessed needs of the individual child and parental wishes in relation to their children. All special schools and special classes dedicated to children with dyslexia operate at a reduced pupil teacher ratio of 9:1 and pupils attending such facilities attract a special increased rate of capitation funding.
My Department also provides funding to schools for the purchase of specialised equipment such as computers to assist children with special needs with their education, including children with dyslexia. Grant aid is also provided to the Dyslexia Association of Ireland to support its work with persons with dyslexia.
The report of the task force on dyslexia contains more than 60 individual recommendations ranging across a wide variety of issues from identification and assessment, to models of service delivery, specialist training for service providers, to issues relating to structural reforms. Since the task force reported, a number of initiatives have been taken in the area of dyslexia. These include the introduction of the first on-line training course for teachers catering for pupils with dyslexia; the appointment of ten new learning support trainers to the primary curriculum support programme specifically to provide in-depth support for the implementation of learning support guidelines for children with dyslexia; and a reduction from 11:1 to 9:1 in the pupil teacher ratio applicable to special classes catering for children with dyslexia.