DON'T use his name," says one mother. "It's too much baggage to give someone.
She is talking about her 18- year-old son, who has a learning disability. He is sitting the Leaving Cert at the moment. In 1990 he was diagnosed as having a problem in visual discrimination.
No special arrangement has been made by the Department of Education for her child.
"From my conversations over the years it seems to be the luck of the draw," she says. "Some counties get it and others don't."
The student's spelling is very bad, she says. "Then he had the problem of confusing words that look alike... the Department seems to turn a blind eye to it.
His teachers are very supportive, the mother says. "People think that dyslexia is when you can't read or write, but it's more than that. They have a total problem with organisation.
"I blame the Department. They are not making teachers aware.
The Department stresses that the existence of a specific learning difficulty (SLD) does not automatically entitle a candidate to special arrangements in examinations.
In recent years, about half of the applications based on a specific learning difficulty have been refused on the grounds that examination performance would not be significantly impaired.
The Department points out that for most of candidates whose applications were accepted, the special arrangements involved "no more than ensuring that every possible effort would be made to decipher their answers and mark them reliably in accordance with the marking scheme, however difficult it would be to read their work because of mis-spellings, bad hand writing or poor grammar".
Diverse special arrangements are made to accommodate students with learning disabilities of different sorts. Some will have their papers read out to them and some will record their answers. In some cases examiners will be made aware of the learning disability and this will be taken into consideration when papers are marked.
Students can apply through their school for special consideration in the taking of the Leaving Cert and Junior Cert. The Department requires the application to be sent in 20 months before the student takes the exam. Students at second level can also get an exemption from Irish.
A survey of dyslexia in Irish schools, carried out by Robin and Simon McCormack from St Gerard's Secondary School in Bray, Co Wicklow, was entered in the Aer Lingus Young Scientist Competition last year. Its findings indicate that the level of awareness here is still poor.
The McCormacks maintain, on the basis of their survey results, that there are many students with undiagnosed "specific learning disability" in the school population. A small number of replies to a questionnaire, which was sent to 10 per cent of the second-level schools in the State, indicated that the schools were not aware of the SLD designation or how it can affect students.
Whether or not special arrangements have been made in schools, exam time is still stressful for both student and parent.
One Dublin-based parent, Mrs Susan Kealy, is worried about her daughter, who was diagnosed as being severely dyslexic for numbers, sound and reading three years ago. Today she is one of the students who has been recognised by the Department as being dyslexic.
"I applied to the Department at the correct time at the beginning of fifth year. They are allowing her to do the exams on tape and she will also get somebody who will read the paper to her."
ABOUT 8 per cent of all children have a specific learning disability, according to the Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities. SLD is an umbrella term which is used to describe disorders which occur in one or more of the processes involved in understanding or using written language. Nobody knows exactly how or why such difficulties occur, but they are thought to be due to differences in the way the brain works.
Mrs Kealy describes her daughter's writing as "slovenly looking". She has had the option of dictacting her answers during exams, but her mother has doubts about the efficiency of that.
Her daughter, who is currently sitting the Leaving Cert, still finds reading a problem. "Reading takes her ages," Mrs Kealy says. "The words don't really make sense when she reads them. I would compare it to me reading French and my comprehension of it. It's very difficult for her to study."
From the beginning her daughter was in trouble in school, says Mrs Kealy. "She's lively but she's terrribly hard to control. She used to be disruptive in class from a very early age.
Being diagnosed by an educational psychologist made things much easier for her. "It was a relief to know that there was a reason." However, Mrs Kealy says that her daughter now has mixed feelings about it.
Another mother has had similar experiences with her 16-year-old son. "We felt there was something wrong when he was six," she says. "He's a bright little kid but he just couldn't get to grips with the reading thing at all, despite the fact that the house is coming down with books."
Her son is now attending a private school in Dublin and is sitting his Junior Cert. He has been diagnosed as having a specific learning disability in reading and the Department has made certain concessions and arrangements for him.
"Having a learning disability is just a much bigger burden for them," she says. "What he would like is more time." But, her son will not be given more time during the exam, although his exam papers will be printed in larger type than ususal.
Children with learning disabilities "have to work twice as hard to get to the same point", she says. "They get tired very easily. He will do quite well at Christmas but by Easter he has fallen off.
"It makes such a difference if the teachers are on your side, if they understand what the kids are going through."
For students with a specific learning difficulty who have to sit their exams under the same conditions as other students, this is a very difficult time. "I'm paralysed with worry, says one mother. "He's very together, he's very articulate and very mature. But if you cannot perform on paper, it's very bad for you. He has a problem with speed. I looked for extra time but they wouldn't give him more time.
"The trouble is that when they're under presssure their writing deteriorates."
She recalls "being dismissed" when she went to her son's primary school. "They thought I was one of those mothers who wanted an A student. I didn't. I wanted a student who could write."