Now for Something Completely Different . ..

When Kirsty was brought to the attention of the Kelburn Visual Resource Centre in September 1979 she was a rather egocentric, tense, frustrated, unhappy and mixed up individual. She wanted to attend University but saw herself being dead from drug addiction by 20. Kirsty was classified as dyslexic. At a chronological age of almost sixteen she had a reading age of eight and had received eight years of intensive remedial reading assistance - in a reading clinic, individually with her schools, and in private tuition at home. Life for Kirsty was an existence of frustration in so many areas. Her I.Q. had been assessed at 137 on a WISC intelligence scale and although she was able to compensate in
some aspects of her educational and daily life, in the final analysis a non-reader is terribly disadvantaged in today's world.
So Kirsty gradually began to react more and more negatively against the fact that she was unable to read and the fact that the system as she saw it was not providing for her ongoing education. Her general behaviour deteriorated and the Education Department's Psychological Service was consulted.