Despite intense public debate about youth violence, a literacy specialist warned on Friday that one potential contributing factor is being overlooked – undiagnosed dyslexia.
Joy Sharon warned that failure to identify and support young people with dyslexia is contributing to an alarming trend in youth offending, with calls for urgent research and reform amid mounting evidence of a link between low literacy and crime.
Undiagnosed dyslexia is being overlooked, as no research has been conducted here to examine dyslexia as a risk factor for crime, said the reading tutor and trainer, even though international studies show a strong link between literacy challenges and incarceration.
But the government’s chief crime researcher confirmed that nearly all violent criminals in Dodds Prison read at the level of a three-year-old toddler.
Dyslexia is a common, lifelong language-based learning difficulty that primarily affects reading, writing, and spelling due to challenges with processing language.
It is not related to intelligence and involves trouble with the ability to identify speech sounds and how they relate to words and letters.
Symptoms often become apparent when a child starts school, such as struggling with reading fluency, having poor spelling, and having difficulty sounding out words.
“They say that 15 to 20 per cent [of the population], that’s the estimate, will have dyslexia, but they are not being accounted for at all,” she said in an interview with Barbados TODAY. “A lot has been shared recently about youth crime, and they’ve looked at lots of factors that intermix. They’re looking for evidence, basically, research evidence, but they’re not looking at dyslexia.”
She pointed to studies that suggest nearly half of prison populations are dyslexic, adding: “There are some US studies that say that like 47 per cent of the prison population have dyslexia. So there’s an over-representation of dyslexia in the prison system. So that connection isn’t being made.”
Sharon argued that the same lack of attention is reflected in the school system, where children with dyslexia remain largely unsupported. “There’s a large cohort of children who, through no fault of their own, are unable to access what’s going on in the classroom.”
She further warned that the emotional consequences can be severe for students who struggle without knowing why: “If you don’t know that you’ve got [a] learning challenge that prevents you from reading, writing, and spelling, and you’re in an average classroom, then you think there’s something wrong with you, which impacts self-esteem, impacts self-worth.”
Sharon said this lack of support can contribute to poor outcomes later in life. “And those are the students that often end up being incarcerated, you know, and the thing is, there’s very little data in Barbados, there’s data for other countries, but the data in Barbados is quite limited, so a lot of my research done for Barbados is done through the papers.”
Recent data highlights the issue. In July, Cheryl Willoughby, the director of the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit, revealed that a government study found at least 95 per cent of inmates convicted of violent crimes are reading at the level of a three-year-old.
Willoughby said: “It tells me that we have to look at our educational system. You may have children there who are experiencing learning challenges and we need to be able to pick them out of the mainstream and work with them at an individual level.”
She stressed the need for early intervention and support within schools.
“We need to have proper monitoring systems within our schools so that when we recognise that children are not coming to school [or] they are having problems and so on, we can have social workers within the setting to address these issues early.”
In October, Superintendent of Prisons DeCarlo Payne revealed that an increasing number of teenage offenders are entering Dodds prison.
“The age range is going down,” he said. “We’re seeing inmates as young as 15 or 16. The trend is more violent, with many crimes involving firearms and robberies.”
Earlier this year, Minister of Home Affairs and Information Wilfred Abrahams announced a reform agenda with a renewed focus on rehabilitation supported by educational opportunities.
He said: “You’d be pleased to know that one of those programmes designed to enhance the educational opportunities for prisoners is also going to be open to prison officers as well, so that where anybody in prison benefits, you get a chance to benefit as well to become your best selves.”
Sharon said the evidence underlines her call for schools to identify and support students with learning difficulties before they fall behind. She suggested that addressing dyslexia early is key not only to literacy but to preventing long-term social consequences. louriannegraham@barbadostoday.bb
The post Dyslexia overlooked as key factor in rising youth crime – educator appeared first on Barbados Today.