Learning disabilities. “The challenge is to assure the right to education”

 There are over 200,000 students in Italy with learning disabilities or difficulties. In Varese, they are 15,000, of which 9,000 with general learning problems, 3,000 with a certificated handicap and 3,000 are dyslexic – in total this means around 15% of the students. This matter comes to light more and more strikingly in schools of all levels, although there is some pressure to avoid medicalising each problem that may arise while studying.

This morning, at the “De Filippi” congress centre in Varese, a meeting called “The combined work of the health system and schools” has taken place. The organiser was professor Cristiano Termine, one of the major experts nationwide and a child neuropsychiatrist at the Del Ponte hospital in Varese.

[photograph] What are the problems involving learning

                        A vade mecum for learning disabilities

“Today, the new cultural challenge is to open up to all cases of difficulties, to special educational needs. Law no. 170 has finally integrated Specific Learning Disabilities (dyslexia) in the legal framework, but there’s still much to be done in the field of needs. Today’s meeting aims to make these two great areas of difficulties equal, in order to have a similar approach in both cases. Most of all, this is a cultural challenge.”

Law no. 170 (the text of the law here) has introduced precise rules of behaviour and certification regarding learning disabilities (dyslexia,  dyscalculia, dysgraphia). Adopting this law, the Lombardy Region has arranged some guidelines accord to which a certification is to be provided only by one of the approved teams in the region itself ( the list of certifying teams here). This innovation was also introduced to try to cross off the long waiting lists at the public healthcare wards of child neuropsychiatry. Therefore, from around eight months only certified teams have been allowed to issue statements which are valid for schools; public operators are supported by private operators whose labour costs vary from 600 to 2,500 euros. Starting from next summer, the local health authority is going to provide the public with the most accurate information on teams, also including information about the costs. The higher level of clearness reached for learning disabilities is wanted also in the very large field of Special Educational Needs. “Schools still have great difficulty dealing with the different levels presented by diversity,” explains professor Termine, MD, “ this is no doubt an important cultural challenge, as it embraces all kinds of diversity. For SENs, there are no existing certifications, only attention towards the different needs that may come to light in the individual’s growth. That’s a great challenge, and that’s why today the world of healthcare and schools are interacting. It’s necessary to find a common ground. We often talk about digitalisation, but the introduction of technology shouldn’t be limited to machines. It’s necessary to find an adequate language that all the different worlds in a class can understand.”

The school that welcomes has been invoked also by Raffaele Cattaneo, chairman of the Regional Council, that stepped-in during the opening of works: “In the past blind and deaf were penalized in study. Then, inch by inch, the barriers were overcome. Today we see that, at last, the problem of diversity has been detected and there is the will to overcome it. The right of studying has to be protected as well as the centrality of person. The school is becoming more and more multi-ethnic and multicultural: if we don’t accept the differences the work of teacher will become more and more difficult. However, the school should not be left alone in assuming this task. It is necessary to involve the family, individually or through the associations that represent it.” Among the speakers there was also Raffaele Ciambrone, manager of the Ministry of Education, compiler of the ministerial directive on the Special Educational Needs. There was, to send the institutional greeting, also Simone Vender, lecturer of psychiatry of the Insubria University, Callisto Bravi, chief executive officer of Varese hospital and Massimo Agosti, chief executive of the Maternal Department.