Australia isn’t the only country which is ahead of England when it comes to dyslexia. North of the border, in Scotland, it was national Dyslexia Awareness Week from the 1st – 7th November. We were pleased to see just how enthusiastically Scotland has taken to promoting the issue of dyslexia.
This has been run between Dyslexia Scotland and Edinburgh City Libraries, supported by the Bank of New York Mellon. Cathy Magee, Dyslexia Scotland’s CEO said “We’re really pleased that three of Dyslexia Scotland’s Ambassadors are kicking off the week with a spotlight on sport at the Opening Night.”
Those championing this included the writers Cathy MacPhail, Sally Gardner and Tommy Donbavand, and Paul McNeill from the Scottish Football Association. The award winning film ‘The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia’, by James Redford was shown at the Edinburgh Filmhouse to launch the week.
The theme of the week was ‘Hidden Dyslexia’, which like the movie, ‘The Big Picture’ is drawing attention to the fact that too often it goes unnoticed, and therefore the right amount of support isn’t given. Dyslexia is also picking up bipartisan political support in Washington DC. Republican congressman Pete Stark and Democrat, Bill Cassidy, both parents of children with dyslexia, have called for solutions to be given greater attention. This will get more public scrutiny and support with the screening of The Big Picture on the US network, HBO, throughout the rest of 2012. Solutions the caucus will be exploring are text to speech software providers, like Recite, especially technologies which keep pace with the evolution of how users now access the internet.
You can find out more about The Big Picture here.
