Your education questions answered by Brian Mooney

My seven-year-old daughter's teacher has suggested that she may have dyslexia. My husband and I are very upset and distressed about this. We always considered her a very intelligent child and we are very confused that her teacher would feel that she is a dyslexic. What do you suggest we should do?

There is no reason for you to feel distressed about the suggestion from your daughter's teacher. She is doing you a huge favour if she has discovered this condition at such a young age. Dyslexia is learning disorder that effects about 8 per cent of the population. Both parents and teachers can confuse dyslexia with laziness, below average performance, and disruptiveness.

People with dyslexia are just as intelligent and gifted as the rest of the population. They simply have difficulty converting the spoken word to written language - and visa versa. They may also confuse the order and sequence of letters and numbers, and seem to have difficulty in retaining correct images in the brain, a necessary part of the process of reading and writing.

If your daughter is diagnosed dyslexic, timely and adequate intervention will ensure that she will reach her full potential. The first step you should take is to request your daughter's teacher to administer a Dyslexia Early Screening Test. If this test confirms the teacher's diagnosis, you should request a full psycho-educational assessment for your child. This may be available within the school from a psychologist from the National Educational Psychological Service or you may have to source one privately if the school has already used up its allocation from NEPS in the current year.

Following on from this assessment, if your daughter is found to have dyslexia, she will receive an allocation of one-to-one support from a remedial/special needs teacher if one is employed in her school. This should, over a short period of time, assist her in overcoming her difficulty.

There has been a major development in the psychological service provided by the Department of Education. In the current year regional offices have been opened to improve the quality of service throughout the country. Unfortunately these developments, however welcome, are only beginning to address the huge backlog of undiagnosed incidents of dyslexia/specific learning difficulty that were ignored for so long.

Parents seeking further help and assistance can contact the Dyslexia Association of Ireland at www.dyslexia.ie. Tel 01-6790275/6 Email: info@dyslexia.ie