PMA RASHEED

BY PMA RASHEED

The Gulf Today, 24 Nov 2008

Up to 50 per cent of the UAE children’s suffer from poor learning disability and literacy skills, according to an expert.

Dr Chris Reynolds of the British Institute for Learning Development said as much as 25 per cent of the UAE’s school going children are not reading and writing at their chronological age-grade level. The figure may be even as high as 50 per cent.

Reynolds added, “The United Nations (UN) has reported that some 20 per cent of the UAE population is illiterate, not being able to meet the basic literacy standards of the UN. Literacy problem is probably much higher for children, and especially for those with poor learning habits.”

“However, the right intervention programme can increase the learning capacities of children with learning difficulties by an average of three grade levels in one year,” he pointed out.

“Among children with learning difficulties, 95 per cent of them have problems regarding literacy skills. Increasing literacy skills for the UAE children starts with first assessing children’s learning capabilities and then providing the right coaching to lift a child’s learning potential,” he added.

“The British Institute for Learning Development will release next week a report on its two-year study of children with learning difficulties. The Institute assesses the cognitive development of 62 children for two years.”

“Of the children assessed during the first and second years of the study, their cases showed an average increase of 16 per cent above expected norms in their neurological ability, or learning capacity, which directly impacts their academic potential,” Dr Reynolds said.