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CAIXINMEDIA

China's 10 Million Dyslexic Children Left In The Dark

Chinese school children
Chinese school children

BEIJING — China has some 10 million children suffering from dyslexia, with most left to fend for themselves without help from the country's educational or social aid structures.

Chinese magazineCaixin reports this week on a new survey based on 2014 national data that found 11% of Chinese suffer from the disorder, which is caused by problems in the brain's language processing functions.

Guo Fei, assistant researcher at the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who participated in the study, said China's rate of dyslexia is similar to that found in the U.S., where recent studies have estimated 10 to 15 % of the population is dyslexic.

Dyslexia, which is not linked to intelligence but rather different impediments to the ability to read and write, is already widely recognized in the West, where educational policies and social organizations to assist affected children are well established. In China, however, dyslexic children often do not receive the help they need, the new report found.

"Affected individuals have no intelligence or motivational defects, nor do they suffer from vision, hearing or neurological disorders," says Bi Hongyan, researcher at the Institute of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "It's not an illness in the traditional sense and is not to be treated as a disease."

Caixin noted that the Chinese public education system does not currently provide special textbooks for dyslexic students, and there are fewer than five national organizations dedicated to assisting dyslexic children and their families.

Huang Lanzi, director of Social Enterprise Research Center, an educational institution that helps children who struggle with reading and writing, said that early intervention is the best way to tackle learning difficulties.

"The success rate for primary school children in grade one or grade two is as high as 80% to 90%, which drops to 30% to 40% for those in grade five or grade six," she says. "Unfortunately, most children sent to our center are in the latter grades."

Huang Yongguang, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, recently submitted a proposal to establish a complete dyslexia screening and correction system, and develop detailed learning strategies to help affected children.

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What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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