Health & School, Dyslexia Week is back.

Health & School, Dyslexia Week is back. Cases increased fivefold in the last 10 years, but very long waits to obtain a diagnosis. Now in its eighth edition, the week dedicated to dyslexia returns from 2 to 8 October, organized by AID (Italian Dyslexia Association) in conjunction with the European Diyslexia Awareness Week, promoted by the European Dyslexia Association (EDA). This year's theme is "reading frees everyone: rights towards learning", but is it really a right in Italian schools?

Here is the analysis of Dr. Giulia Zanzariello, clinical and developmental psychologist. "According to the latest data, the number of students suffering from 'Specific Learning Disorders' was 318,678 in the 2019/20 school year and 326,548 in the 2020/21 school year, more than 5% of the total Italian students. Huge numbers above all for the regions of the North West which in the 2020/21 school year totaled 7.9%, while for the regions of the South the percentage was "only" 2.8%. A discrepancy that leads us to ask ourselves the reason.

Diagnosis Dyslexia in Italy was not a common practice until the early 2000s and even today, despite the fact that the number of diagnoses issued over the last 11 years has increased fivefold, the waiting times in the National Health System are such (often over year) to induce the family to turn to a private institution that is accredited in order to speed up the time.

The timeliness of the diagnosis is in fact fundamental for two reasons: firstly it allows for rapid intervention with a clinical intervention program and secondly, allows the student to access the recording of the Personalized Educational Plan (PDP), a mandatory document with which the school defines the objectives it will adopt for the student, without which the school often does not guarantee the student with 'Learning Disorder ' access to the compensatory tools and dispensatory measures that he needs (and is entitled to) to guarantee educational success". (Dr. Giulia Zanzariello, clinical and developmental psychologist by Italia News Press Agency - www.italianews.org)