Title of Product
Living the “dys” in family
Name of Author(s)
Hervé Vacheresse, director of the programme « Allée de l’enfance »
Name of Producer
Television channel Cap Canal (Lyon, France)
Language of the review
English
Language of the product
French
Thematic Area
Students with learning difficulties
Description of Contents
Cap canal is an educational television channel created by the city of Lyon (France) in collaboration with local education actors. It produces programmes for children, adolescents, parents, teachers, educators … and for all citizens, to help them understand such crucial issues as those related to education.
In “Allée de l’enfance”, the magazine for parents who ask themselves questions, the channel gave word to parents of children with “dys”.
The show “Vivre le dys en famille” aims to inform on those parents’ experience with children suffering from learning difficulties, commonly called “dys” troubles:
• dyslexia, reading trouble (related to a difficulty to identify letters, syllables or words)
• dyspraxia, movement trouble, particularly with motor skills (alteration of the ability to automatically carry out determined actions
• dysphasia, language trouble (it affects expression, understanding or both)
• dysorthography, spelling trouble (failure to assimilate important and long-lasting spelling rules)
• dyscalculia, calculation trouble (severe troubles in number learning)
• attention deficit disorder
These are invisible handicaps, making the family path riddled with difficulties, lack of understanding and ill-being that society has difficulties to manage.
Review
The aim of the show is to share those difficult experiences, giving valuable points of reference to all those who experience this situation in their family.
The show lasts one hour and is made up of two parts of +/- 30 minutes each:
• The first part is a debate between specialists and the mother of a child with dyslexia and dyspraxia. It tries to define and outline the problem.
• The second part is a documentary La famille puissance “Dys” (The Family to the power of “dys”). It presents reports in families in which parents and children report on their difficulties and their hopes and successes. Speech time is given to parents in their daily life with children.
The show tones down the problem without denying its complexity. It opens perspectives to families confronted to those difficulties.
We discover wilful children, who work a lot (much more than other children), who want to succeed, who have life projects and talents they want to develop.
Those children have difficulties to read, write, count, coordinate their movements or speak distinctly. Children who are “a little different” because they have a trouble in a specific cognitive function, but without psychic problems, or affective lack. They are all normally intelligent.
The parents define themselves as normal parents, but with a bit more difficulties than others. They have a different family life, with children who do some weird things, but a normal life.
Those parents do everything so that their children can learn differently: rehabilitation by professionals (speech therapists, occupational therapist, psychomotor therapist, psychologist …) but also, for instance, using a computer and printer/scanner in class, coaching sessions, doing one’s lesson again at home in the evening … Every family has its own tips and tricks.
Those parents fight to keep their children pour in class and avoid having them placed too quickly in specialised education.
They support their children, particularly when these are demotivated due to their many failures. Those families have learnt to live with frequent failures.
The show and testimonies will be of particular interest for parents who feel helpless faced with their children’s learning troubles.
The show is also addressed to teachers who are confronted every day to learning difficulties that are not always easy to identify and for which they were insufficiently trained. It must be pointed out that nowadays teachers’ initial training takes better into account this problem, also addressed in continuing training.
The show will also interest anyone who wants to know more about the subject.
The transferability potential
The video is available for free and for all on the website.
Points of strength and of weakness
The debate is a bit long.
