Dyslexia Awareness Week began Monday with the goal of highlighting the pathologies of written language, their prevention and their screening. "Dyslexia, true-false epidemic," announced the opening symposium. A voluntarily alarmist title, as explained at the microphone of Wendy Bouchard, in The Round of the question on Europe 1, Marie-Christelle Helloin, speech therapist and active member of the National Federation of speech therapists (FNO). "Some people sometimes say in the institutions or in the media that there is an epidemic of dyslexics or false dyslexics, and our federation and all the speech therapists have wanted to be wrong about this," he said. she.
"There is no epidemic of dyslexia", sweeps this professional. "The prevalence figures have been relatively stable for a long time, whether in France or in the world.There was no sudden epidemic of dyslexia that would be caused by something, simply, we talk about it more", says -t it.
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Trouble better identified than before. According to the High Authority of Health, 8% of French students would be affected by cognitive disorders. Problems mainly related to language and learning, and which are identified and diagnosed more easily, which, paradoxically enough, took the profession by surprise. "Currently, in many parts of France, there is some embolization of speech therapy offices," said Marie-Christelle Helloin. "This is a recent phenomenon, not because there is an epidemic of dyslexia, but perhaps because these disorders are better identified."
Professionals overwhelmed. But speech therapists do not only care for children "dys", hence a congestion of the cabinets that also condemns parents to a true medical wandering. "This is problematic, which is heavy for parents who sometimes have to look far to get an appointment.It should be noted that more care is early, better are the chances to get better, to be helped, "says our speech therapist. This feeling of helplessness can also be reinforced by the lack of training for teachers, especially at the primary level, who are often in the front row to put their finger on these types of problems, but who are not able to provide appropriate guidance.
"In school, often, there is nothing set up for them, teachers are not qualified, and even if they are caring, they often do not have time to take care of these students, "lamented, at the microphone of the Tour de la question , Sara de Robien, mother of a dyslexic child in the 6th. "I fought throughout the schooling of my eldest, now 22 years old, because ten or fifteen years ago, there was absolutely nothing," says Christelle Chantreau-Bébouche, mother of three children with dyslexia, and author of the guide Survival manual for parents (and teachers) to better live everyday language and learning disorders . "For the other two, it's better, but it's still difficult at school for the students."
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Increase the number of professionals. Speech-language pathologists often appear to be the only professionals who can truly help these children. But the profession is all the more overwhelmed that its staff are at half-mast in public bodies. "We have a real concern that in all structures of employees, hospitals and institutions, speech therapy is poorly recognized, has a very low salary attractiveness, so that positions are vacant," point Marie-Christelle Helloin. In the medico-social sector, about 30% of speech therapist positions would be vacant, according to figures from the FNO. A situation that has a direct impact on the liberal sector, hence the difficulty of getting an appointment in many law firms.
In May, the federation launched a call for help to the government, in the form of twenty proposals to improve access to care. Among them: the admission of students in speech therapy courses via higher education, rather than through competitive examinations, in order to increase the professional demography, an orientation of the trainees towards the areas under-endowed with speech therapists, or an extension of the definition telemedicine to include speech therapy. "Unfortunately, they have not been heard," says Marie-Christelle Helloin.