Nigerian institute of estate surveyors and valuers (NIESV), Lagos State branch, an umbrella body of professional estate surveyors and valuers in the state, have entered into partnership with Dyslexia Foundation to tackle the problems of people suffering from dyslexia.
Dyslexia is a brain condition in people, especially children; it is a neurologically based condition that leads to attention deficit.
Worried about this condition, NIESV which is a frontline body of real estate and built environment professionals, and Dyslexia Foundation have decided to offer assistance through awareness creation.
The Foundation is an organization dedicated to identification and remediation of this brain condition. Ben Arikpo, the chairman of the foundation, explained to BusinessDay that Dyslexia is an unfamiliar disorder that interferes with acquisition and processing of language and varies in degrees of severity.
“It manifests in difficulty in receptive and expressive language,” Arikpo added, listing reading, writing, spelling, handwriting, etc as some of the areas of manifestation.
He cited a 1994 research work which reported dyslexia as the most common of all known learning disabilities, adding that the research found dyslexia as the leading cause of school drop-out and the most commonly shared characteristics of juvenile justice cases worldwide.
Early warnings of dyslexia in children, the chairman pointed out, are speech delay, inability to read at a particular age compared to age mates, inability to write legibly and inability to comprehend a read piece to answer questions.
He advised parents, teachers and employers of labour to look out for these signs which also include taking too long on assignments and home work, and taking too long to carry out a task in the work place.
Knowledge of dyslexia is not common in the Nigerian environment which is why victims of that brain condition are often beaten, called names, bullied and jeered at. The victims unconsciously develop inferiority complex; they are generally afraid of trying out anything.
Despite its ‘newness’, dyslexia is highly prevalent affecting 1 in 6 persons which is several steps ahead of Autism which, though well know, affects as low as 1 in 150 person.
“This reason, among others, is the basis of our partnership with the foundation,” explained Adedotun Bamigbola, NIESV’s chairman, in an interview with BusinessDay on the sideline of the institution’s courtesy visit to the foundation.
“We know of other challenges which are not as prevalent as this. Autism, for instance, is there but it is not as prevalent; it affects 1 in 150 persons. But Dyslexia is a brain condition that requires urgent attention. It is a capacity deficiency. We are interested in it because it is not popular yet it affects many people. So, it is a matter for concern,” he said.
Bamigbola disclosed that they see their partnership with the foundation as their CSR, assuring that they were going to create awareness about dyslexia and would be supporting the foundation in every programme the institution would be having going forward.
“In all our business visits, we are going to carry them along. We believe that is going to help in publicizing the foundation and the product it offers. They will be on all our social media platforms. We are going to be having collaborative programmes together,” he assured further.
CHUKA UROKO
