From left: Maria Mohammed-Maharaj, Immediate Past President, Rotary Club of St Augustine (RCoSA); Indar Ramnath, President, RCoSA; Kennedy Flemming, President, Rotary Club of San Fernando South; Roger Bose, Past Rotary District 7030 Governor; Dr Paulson Skerrit, Lecturer - Reading Education, School of Education, Faculty of Humanities and Education, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus; Dr Stephen Ramroop, Past Rotary District 7030 Governor; Jan Siegel, President, Rotary Club of Willowdale, Toronto (RCoW) and Courtney Doldron, Immediate Past President, RCoW, Toronto.
The Rotary Clubs of St Augustine, San Fernando South and Willowdale (Ontario, Canada), along with Dr Paulson Skerrit, Lecturer - Reading Education, School of Education, Faculty of Humanities and Education, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus (UWISTA), recently held an information session for Rotary Clubs, on the recently launched Psychoeducational Diagnostic and Intervention Clinic (PEDIC).
PEDIC, based at the School of Education, UWISTA, was formed to address challenges that exist in Trinidad and Tobago, where there is limited access to assessment and intervention that result in barriers to learning not being identified and addressed for many learners.
This includes issues specific to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Reading Challenges, which will be highlighted as it relates to the need for the PEDIC project in 89 primary schools across the country.
The PEDIC is spearheaded by Professor Jerome De Lisle, Team Leader, Principal Investigator, PEDIC and Director, School of Education and the rest of his team, Dr. Korinne Louison, Manager; Dr. Elna Carrington-Blaides, Inclusive Education Specialist and Dr. Paulson Skerrit, Reading Specialist, PEDIC.
Highlights of this multi-phase research project include:
· Surveying the ADHD/Reading context within the primary school system of Trinidad and Tobago;
· Ascertaining the prevalence of ADHD in school-aged children and student attitudes toward reading;
· Conducting clinical interviews and administering parent/teacher behaviourial rating scales
· Screening for Dyslexia and Tier I and II assessment of reading challenges, that will drive evidence-based interventions.
PEDIC envisages that in Phase IV of the project, the support of the Rotary Clubs will provide the resources for the screening, diagnostic assessments and interventions specific to reading challenges on a scale that will fit with PEDIC’s social entrepreneurship business model.