Hancock’s Dyslexia Bill, BABO at our request, makes comments

Hancock’s Dyslexia Bill, BABO at our request, makes comments

“Following on from our story of the proposed reading on the 8th April of The Rt. Hon Matt Hancock’s Bill for Dyslexia Testing for Children we have supplied with further information from his office.” This was our story in early April and can be found here

With a lack of comment from the large professional bodies and the College we approached BABO at 100% Optical on their views on Dyslexia, its screening and what we as professionals could do for children.

Here is there reply 

RE: Dyslexia Screening Bill 2021-22 Private Members Bill BABO is a group of optometrists who specialise in visual disorders found in 1 in 5 school children, many of whom live with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia.

As an association we advocate visual assessments, beyond the scope of the existing NHS Sight Test, for children who are suspected of or are diagnosed with dyslexia or other specific learning difficulties.

Dyslexia as defined by the Rose report in 2009 is:

A learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills in fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia include difficulties with phonological awareness, verbal memory, and verbal processing abilities.

Visual difficulties are considered co-occurring factors as they also occur in the general population, though they are found to be more common in patients with dyslexia. Problems using the eyes together (vergence) is thought to affect one in five children and focusing (accommodation) problems have been found in almost 100% of children with dyslexia.

In the UK SASC, the examination body for those who are qualified to diagnose dyslexia has made good progress in raising awareness of visual difficulties that may co-exist with dyslexia and developed guidance on when to refer children for a sight test or further investigations. However, the current NHS Sight Test was not designed to screen for these issues.

In supporting the Dyslexia Screening Bill we would urge that any such screening in schools also includes screening for visual issues.

For more information contact info@babo.co.uk

“I thank the comments made by a BABO spokesman and note that once again it is a mixture of unpaid time and a lack of precise understanding of the concept of dyslexia that has creayed a hiatus from robust bodies to comment on the screening bill. Opchat News intends to continue to follow this story on behalf of the 7% of children with dyslexia. See Lisa Donaldson 100% Lecture story here

“We will research with academia Visual Stress and the occurrence of refractive error in dyslexia and relate this information back to Matt Hancock’s Head of Communications” Editor of Opchat News