Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to welcome the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten, to the House. I met two ladies, Ms Aoife Caulfield and Ms Judy Breen, in Ennis two or three weeks ago. I have a particular interest in education, particularly that of small children. I am committed that they should be able to read and write as proficiently as possible. These two ladies brought to my attention that a child's ability to read and write can often be dictated by his or her reflexes and muscle movement if the child's neural system is developing correctly and appropriately. Certain movements in the neck, head and other parts of the body of many kids may not be developing, or may not have developed, appropriately and properly. There has been much research done on this internationally, although it is limited in Ireland. In England, it was proven beyond doubt that where children's reflexes and bodily movements are impaired, it leads to an literacy impairment.

We have seen a great commitment by the Government in recent times with more than 10,000 special needs assistants and significant resources put in to helping kids who have challenges reading, writing and so forth. That is very welcome but we need to think outside the box. I was struck by what these two ladies proposed, which they were able to back up by international research, that where programmes to help children with their reflexes were carried out their literacy skills improved dramatically.

I am not in any way suggesting this should be rolled out nationally immediately. It should be looked at for in-service training as part of the curriculum, particularly in primary and pre-primary education. Would the Minister consider doing this on a pilot basis with the proper analysis and reviews, and looking at the results? I have no doubt the results will be positive and we will see there is merit in looking at rolling this out at a national level.

At the very least, I am looking for a commitment in principle from the Department of Education and Skills that it will engage with these people and listen to what they have to say. They are doing it in schools on an ad hocbasis at the moment. They are getting the results. I would really encourage the Department of Education and Skills to engage with them and to carry out a pilot programme for the academic year 2018-19 in two or three schools. If it works, perhaps we could look at doing it on a more streamlined national basis. We need to think outside the box with these issues. When one thinks about it, it makes sense that, if children have issues with reflexes, movements and so on, it is bound to have a knock-on effect on their ability to read and write.