What if your ‘naughty child’ is actually a genius waiting to be understood?
Mr. D Chandrasekhar is a distinguished social entrepreneur and the President of the Madras Dyslexia Association.
An alumnus of IIT Madras with a B.Tech in Metallurgy, he began as a first-generation entrepreneur, making significant contributions in engineering and philanthropy.
As a founding member of MDA, he has dedicated over three decades to supporting children with dyslexia, championing innovative educational strategies and advocacy.
Chandrasekhar is recognized for transforming lives through empathetic leadership and pioneering inclusive education in India, earning accolades for both entrepreneurial excellence and impactful social work.
Key Takeaway:
1. Dyslexia is widely misunderstood, but highly remediable: Chandrasekhar emphasizes that dyslexia is not an intellectual disability. In fact, dyslexic children often possess above-average intelligence and exceptional creativity.
Their struggle is not with thinking, but with decoding language through traditional teaching methods. The biggest tragedy is that parents and schools often mislabel these children as “slow” or “lazy,” when the issue is simply a different learning style.
With early intervention and the right approach, dyslexia is one of the easiest conditions to resolve.
2. MDA’s origin came from a personal battle and a systemic gap: The Madras Dyslexia Association (MDA) was not born from an institution, but from a father’s frustration and helplessness.
After watching his son get misunderstood, reprimanded, and repeatedly pushed out of schools, Chandrasekhar realized that India lacked awareness, resources, and empathy.
A conversation with a British trainer led him to form an association, setting in motion a movement that would later transform thousands of lives.
3. Early years were filled with confusion, but they built the foundation: In the 90s, even parents who came together couldn’t differentiate between dyslexia, autism, or Down syndrome. There were no trained teachers in Chennai, no resource rooms, and zero public awareness. Their first steps involved searching the country for experts, bringing trainers from Delhi, visiting resource rooms in schools abroad, and slowly building a team of trained educators from scratch. These foundational efforts created India’s earliest structured dyslexia support ecosystem.
4. Training teachers became the biggest multiplier of impact: MDA realized that true change cannot come from running a few special schools or offering remediation to hundreds. To reach lakhs of children, the focus had to shift to mainstream schools and class teachers. They developed a 6-day training program that empowered teachers to identify mild dyslexia early and use multisensory techniques to support them. Over time, this approach transformed classrooms and reduced the number of children being rejected or misunderstood by schools.
5. Resistance from schools was real, awareness and funding opened doors: Schools initially resisted MDA’s training due to lack of awareness and cost constraints.
The shift came through corporate CSR partnerships that funded training programs for clusters of schools. As teachers began seeing results and children’s performance improved, the adoption grew.
Today, MDA has supported over 200 resource rooms and trained 25,000+ educators, proving that systemic change is possible.
6. Technology became a bridge to scale identification and support: MDA embraced technology early. Their training modules were digitized and hosted on IIT Madras’ NPTEL, making dyslexia training accessible to anyone across India.
They created a reading app that allows dyslexic children to scan and listen to text aloud. Their biggest leap is the AI-powered dyslexia identification app developed with IIT Madras.
Using games, exercises, and an AI engine, the app can identify the type of dyslexia a child may have and suggest remediation. This innovation addresses a major gap: children in areas with no trained specialists can still get help.
7. Real transformation happens when parents recognize the child’s strengths: Chandrasekhar insists that every dyslexic child has unique strengths, often in creative, spatial, interpersonal, or kinaesthetic abilities.
Using the Multiple Intelligences Theory, he helped his own son shift from academic struggles to discovering his talent in design.
That son went on to design for 150+ films, direct a Tamil movie, and eventually become an interior designer for projects like Sheraton Grand Chennai — all without a formal college degree.
This story highlights how shifting focus from weakness to strengths can change a child’s entire life.
8. Government policies need refinement, not generalization: While the government offers recognition and PwD certificates, the problem is that 22 disabilities are grouped together under the same framework.
Dyslexia affects approximately 1 in 6 children, yet receives the same treatment as conditions requiring vastly different interventions.
Policies also fail children under 8 because dyslexia cannot be officially diagnosed at that age. Chandrasekhar calls for more nuanced, age-sensitive, and condition-specific reforms.
9. The future of education must embrace inclusive and tech-enabled learning: As technology replaces outdated academic methods, from handwriting to memorizing tables, Chandrasekhar believes the education system must evolve.
Today, computers and assistive tools already level the field for dyslexic learners. With small, consistent remediation and teacher support, these children can move from being “problem students” to high-performing and creative contributors in society.
10. Dyslexia is a problem with a solution, and the solution is now widely available: Unlike many disabilities, dyslexia can be fully addressed through early detection, multisensory teaching, and supportive environments. With awareness rising, post Taare Zameen Par, and with the growth of MDA’s programs, parents now have more access to help than ever before.
Chandrasekhar’s core message: Don't hide it, don’t fear it, treat it early and let the child thrive.
Chethan (Host): What made you start Madras Dyslexia Association?
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): So this was in the '90s, Siddharth our son, our only son was having problems in schooling. Third class, fourth class, he never had any problem.
He was brilliant, quite vocal, and he used to be entertaining people.
He was much sought after in the neighbourhood and all that, but suddenly, from the fifth, sixth class, he started having academic problems.
He was otherwise very brilliant, he was, participating in various things he was good in dramatics but, he had problems with mathematics.
He had problems, and then there was an air of clumsiness also about him.
So these were all the points that were being pointed out by the school. We were wondering what was the problem.
We thought because he is the only son and whether we are pampering him.
So, he was thrown out of the school, so we thought maybe we are pampering him, so we pushed him into a boarding school thinking that will do him good.
But there also, he didn't have academic problems, but he had some behavioural issues, so they sent him away.
Actually, it was very simple. He didn't have misbehaviour, that school was upcoming, it was a new premises.
They were not ready fully, infrastructure-wise, but they admitted and they took the children, and, Chennai doesn't have a great winter, but still it's quite cold in December here. They asked him to have a cold shower. He was resisting. So, he was reprimanded for that in a prayer, hall in front of lot of people.
At some point, he just, shouted at them back saying, "You also cheated my parents by showing some false pictures about your academy, which are not here at all."
Immediately I got a letter asking me to pick him up, so I went and picked him up.
Then we admitted him in another school in Chennai with French as a second language, because we thought French is very easy, it's a scoring subject, everybody will know.
Then also, he was having trouble, when one of my friends pointed out that this could be dyslexia.
Then only, the first time we ever came to know of this word. We were asked to go to a school that was well-known for learning disabilities during the '90s in Chennai called Alpha to Omega.
So we admitted him, but we were clueless, whatever, write-up they gave, it matched our son's behavior.
It looked like they had understood him. One of the good things that, the institution did was organizing a training program for parents of children with this difficulty.
A British lady came, and she did the program for about two weeks and then on the last day, the spouses are also invited to have a dinner with her.
So we met and, we were talking, that lady said, "This problem seems to be very not well-known in this part of the world, and it is a serious problem, and if you want to take serious action about it, you need to form an association and do this in a large scale. You can't take some individual actions,” so that was the genesis of an association.
Chethan (Host): What were some of the most significant challenges you faced when you set out to establish MDA in early 1990s?
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): See, first of all, a group of people come together.
The only thing that they have common is a child with some learning problems.
At that time, we didn't know difference between dyslexia, autism, down syndrome at all that. Basically, these are two diametrically opposite problems.
Dyslexia is a non-intellectual learning disability, where the children have high IQ, whereas autism and Down syndrome are problems of children with lower IQ levels, lower than 70 and the approach is very different.
You have to teach a child 10 times to make the child understand something.
For an autistic child, you have to do 100 times.
For dyslexic child, you have to do it differently using multi-sensory approach. So the whole thing is different.
So initially, we didn't even know all those differences. Just a group of parents got together. We discussed among ourselves, that we will do this.
Quite a lot of parents in those days, who joined with this later on left us because we decided to focus on dyslexia, so that's how we got started.
Then we realized that there was no capable person in Chennai to train teachers, so what we did was we identified a lady in Delhi called Sunita Sodhi.
She was running an organization called Educare in the '90s in Delhi.
We approached her, and she was very kind. She said she will come to Chennai.
We arranged an awareness program in the music academy for an audience of about 300. So the association that was formed quickly rallied around, raised the money for this program, and conducted this program.
That was the first public program on dyslexia in Chennai.
So then after finishing the program, we discussed with that lady what we can do further. She further volunteered to train some of our teachers in dyslexia remediation and identification.
So I was nominated as a secretary of this organization in the initial stages. So I said, "Okay, fine." I went along with these, eight or nine ladies to Delhi. We got them trained by her. We also visited some of the resource rooms that were functioning in some of the Delhi schools, like the British school, like the American schools.
All of them had a resource room to take care of their learning disabilities.
So we visited all that an came with a pack of trained teachers. Our idea was to start the work in Chennai using these trained teachers.
Chethan (Host): Sir, over three decades, MDA has set up over 200 resource rooms in schools and trained more than 25,000 school educators.
What key strategies enabled this scale and what impact have you seen on mainstream school embracing dyslexia-sensitive teaching practices?
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): This also didn't happen that easily and that quickly.
Initially, we had people who thought only assessment is essential, so we did assessments.
Little later, we realized that there were a lot of children requiring after-school remediation. We did that.
Then we found that schools were throwing out the dyslexic children, so we wanted to have a pull-out program. We started a pull-out school to take the children who are thrown out by the school, remediate them and put them back after two years.
So we were mostly focusing on these areas for the first 15 years of our activity.
Then we also were slightly clueless before one day, one of our members asked the key question. "To do whatever we are doing, why do we want an association? It can be done by one individual. If it is an association, we should impact at least five lakh children," he said.
So there was an awakening in amongst us, so we decided how to impact more children.
See, if you have to impact more children, you can't run a school for 500 or 5,000, it’s difficult.
So it's better to go to the schools where these dyslexic children are already studying, empower the classroom teachers.
So, we were already running a training program for a very long time, but that was an eight-weeks training program that, that will help someone to become a special educator.
A class teacher doesn't require so much input, she requires some minimal input to take care of the mildly dyslexic children in her classroom. This will be one way of managing high volumes. That's what we thought.
So we started going, approaching schools and, giving a general awareness to all the teachers so that everybody is familiar.
Then take the primary class teachers and give them a six-day program.
The six-day program, first day is on, identification ,we provide them with a checklist.
Using the checklist, the, the teachers will be able to quickly identify already they will have some doubts when the child has academic issues.
When they apply the checklist, they will be able to spot the dyslexic children amongst them and then we provided them techniques in remediation, in reading, writing, spelling, maths, and that these children also have problems with executive functions.
We also empowered the classroom teachers with knowledge on multiple intelligences so that they are able to identify the weakness as a child, they are also able to identify the strength of the child. This is what we started doing, the challenge was the schools were resistant.
First, because they were not aware, a lot of convincing was required.
Second, cost, we have to pay people to go there for six days and do training and these schools are located at different locations.
So we went on a fundraising program. We started, raising money for specific groups of about 15 schools, 20 schools. That was a time when CSR was just coming up, so we tapped some of the corporates and they were willing to support this program.
So we used to take, CSR support from a particular company, do some 10, 15 training programs like that. That's how it got started.
Chethan (Host): What message you have for the parents who are in denial of dyslexia about their kids?
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): As far as the parents are concerned, if the child has any problem, it's quite serious unless it is attended to.
So the earlier they attend to this problem, better it's for them. There's no point in hiding it from community, society and all that because they are not doing good service to the child.
They are doing the most disservice to the child by not helping the child to get out of the problem.
Amongst the many problems that the child may have, dyslexia is one of the simplest problem and very easy to remediate.
So they should immediately take the help and get it sorted out. That's my message to the parents.
It's very easy. The solutions are very simple and easy it's very inexpensive. They just have to do it.
That's all. Maybe they don't have ready facility in the school that they have. They need to look around, find wherever there is help, they have to take help. It's not like '90s when we started Dyslexia Association.
Now dyslexia is a well-known problem, particularly after the film that came, ‘Taare Zameen Par’, people are aware of it.
Facilities for remediation is available all over India. In most of the big cities, the facility is available.
Chethan (Host): MDA has developed multi-sensory teaching strategies and recently collaborated with IIT Madras to develop an AI app. For Dyslexia Training, can you shed some light on innovation and how technology support for dyslexia students?
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): Technology is always very supportive and you can move for large number only using technology.
The first time we used the technology was when we developed this six-year training program.
We also realized that maybe many people who are not in, the schools where we do training, they may also require training. So, we went to IIT Madras.
IIT Madras has got a program called NPTEL, National Program for Technology Enhanced Learning, where any video type programs can be loaded.
So, we video graphed our training program for six days and put it in the NPTEL platform of IIT Madras.
Now, that is open to general public, any person, individual, teacher, anyone can just get into that program.
It is called eShikshanam, you get into the program, and then you get the lectures, video graphed lectures, and you can learn dyslexia identification and remediation.
That was our first step into technology.
Then what we did was, the dyslexic children require some other person to read sometimes. Not all the dyslexic children are good in reading. So, they'll do better if someone reads the book. So, we developed a reading app so that is useful and can be used through a cellphone.
So, using the cellphone camera, you can copy any text, any English text. We have done it for English language. So, any English text and the comp- the cellphone will read it for the child.
We developed this about 10 years back. It's, it's been available in Google Play Store.
Then the next step in technology, we have gone to train 25,000 teachers over five, six years.
But it's going to take a lot of time for us to keep doing it in different places.
So, what we did was, we got into a tie-up with IIT Madras. We are developing an artificial intelligence based app.
We load the app; it's a joint project of IIT Madras and Madras Dyslexia Association.
The Madras Dyslexia Association developed a set of games and a set of exercises for the dyslexic children. The- these are uploaded into the app. Then the Dyslexia Association also uploads a set of standard problems and solutions for dyslexic. These are our contribution.
IIT develops the AI engine. On completion of this project, if a child has the need, the child can be taken to the app. The app can be administered through a cellphone, wherever the child is and the response of the child for the games and exercises will be decided by the app what kind of dyslexia the child has.
So for immediate, wherever there is no facility for easy identification, this app can be used.
Now, this app can be further used to recommend suitable remediation.
So, this is the beginning and as the app gets more and more used, it will refine itself in its own way. That is the, that's the design of the app.
Chethan (Host): From your experience, give us one of the inspiring stories of dyslexia student who was identified early and provided with timely intervention.
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): Ultimately, to make a child a productive part of the community is the objective.
I can take the case of my son. My son is now 45 age, but when he had a problem, the difficulty was there was no facility to help him.
So, he could not get college admission because of, dyslexia, he had low marks.
He couldn't get admission then we got him admission in a school of arts in the US.
He went there, but that academics also he was not able to withstand he came back in two weeks.
So, we realized that he was very good in spatial. He was good with colours, with drawing, designs and all that. So, he needed some support so, we gave him that support and we let him set up a small studio with one computer.
He started a design studio, we encouraged him and then he became a designer.
Little later, he started designing for the feature films, the advertisements for the feature films.
He developed a concept of, advancing the advertisement for feature films.
Usually, feature films are advertised a week before it hits the screen, he advanced it.
He said primary selling is done to the distributors.
The secondary selling only is to the viewers so, during the time of primary selling, that is when the, when they do the pooja for the film itself, he introduced marketing, by designing different types of invitations.
So, he developed a market for this he did it for about 150 films.
Then he found that, this is an interesting field so he offered to become a director.
He did direct one Tamil film but then, later on, he realized that if he has to get one more film, someone must be ready to invest about five to six crores.
Nobody was ready to do that and nobody was ready to risk it on him also and he was stuck for some time then one of his friends who knew the strength of my son, he took him to another businessman who was trying to put up a very novel building and he wanted some design ideas.
My son gave him all the required design ideas and then he was appointed as the interior designer for the building.
So, from then onwards, he has slowly changed into a very full-fledged interior designer.
He designed the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Chennai.
So, without, without a formal education all because we up- used the theory of multiple intelligences, we found him very strong in spatial, we gave him all the encouragement to focus on that he did that.
Like this, quite a few children who have come to MDA have done well.
Some of them have become lawyers, some have become very successful businessmen, some have done MBA.
Recently, one boy has gone to UK to learn design of automobiles. But particularly, they are very strong in creative areas.
Its parents should spot the creativity in the child and then encourage, then they do extremely well.
You might have known Boman Irani, he is dyslexic. He has given us a video, interview where he has admitted he is dyslexic, and, we are using this extensively amongst parents.
Even another well-known, Tamil actress called Khushboo, she's also dyslexic.
She has also given us an interview. We have done some very interesting awareness programs. She has taken part in that entire program.
We took up a, cake shop in Chennai. It's called Teacher's Cafe.
We took it up, and we converted that into a dyslexia cafe for one month.
We put, we put the board Topsy-Turvy. We changed the entire menu card, Topsy-Turvy, like, how a dyslexic child will read it.
We ran it like we stationed dyslexia educators there to give awareness to people.
So, a normal man will come, he'll see.
He will not know how to read the menu. Then he will be given the proper menu and given a talk on dyslexia. That's how we did awareness once.
Chethan (Host): How do you view the current state of policy and advocacy for children with learning disability in India? And what reforms or initiative would you like to see to ensure more inclusivity education in systematic level?
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): See, government has got this disabilities. Now, they issue a PwD certificate and give all the facilities.
But what they are doing is, they are clubbing 22 difficulty disabilities in one stroke.
They have a common policy and they put one special educator for all the 22.
Each disability requires different types of attention, and amongst the disabilities, dyslexia are the maximum incidence because is, it is one in every six, shortly becoming one in five.
So, this dyslexia requires a more severe attention than others.
But unlike the physical disabilities, it is not going to be lifelong. Give the child that two, three years of support in the crucial time, then the child will become all right.
Then some policies, for example, they are willing to help dyslexic children provided they take a card. Now, until the age of eight, you cannot even declare a child dyslexic.
Now, what will the children up to eight do? Where will they go for support? These are some fine-tuning is required.
Chethan (Host): As you continue your lifelong work towards a dyslexia-sensitive society, what message would you share with future educators?
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): When people were having problems with vision, the spectacles were invented.
So, of course, some people were shy of wearing spectacles, but then at some point, spectacle became, and it was accepted by the community everywhere. Nobody is now, reprimanded or nobody is criticized because you you're wearing specs. It got simplified, but it took about hundred years for that to happen.
Now, dyslexia is again one of those problems and dyslexia, it's very easy to remediate once it is identified. So, there is no problem.
If you have a problem without a solution, then you are in trouble. Here, you have a problem with a solution. Solution is simple and it's easily available. It's inexpensive.
So, they have to take the solution and they have to think differently.
Of course, every parent cannot decide the life of the child. The child's life is predestined, so they need to go with the wind.
If the child is strong in music, help the child. Have you heard of the theory of multiple intelligences?
Okay, I'll take a few minutes of that. This was developed by Howard Gardner, a professor of Harvard University in the 1980s.
Our conventional understanding of intelligence is somebody who is doing good maths is intelligent.
Otherwise, we'd have no other measure of intelligence.
But he said there are eight types of intelligences in human beings.
That includes linguistic, mathematical logical, music, interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, and naturalistic.
So, each of us have a dominant, we have an assortment of these intelligence with a dominant intelligence.
So, there are children who are very good with nature, and they would be ideal botanists, they would be ideal, veterinary doctors.
There are children who are very strong in interpersonal. They would be good lawyers, good marketing people. There are people who are very strong and spatial. They'll be good architects, they'll be good designers.
There are people who are very strong and bodily-kinaesthetic. They'll be very good sportspersons, good dancers.
Now, it's like, making a wrong fit by trying to take somebody who is not good in this and putting them through the other one. This is what parents should avoid.
If the child has a problem, where there is a deficiency, there will be proficiency. They have to look at where the child is proficient and work on the strength of the child than beating on this, weakness.
This is what I would, recommend too. See, the other thing is, technology is advancing very fast and technology is doing away with a lot of problems that were there in the past.
Now, see, for someone who can't write computer, with a computer, he can do everything. Why should he write? Why should he at all write? Writing itself is a 4,000-year-old activity.
So, like that, you know? There are a lot of problems. There, there are a lot of things, When I was young, I used to be taught, fractional, table, quarter into quarter.
Now, where is it all used? So, by using technology, a lot of these problems are already being solved.
People should get hold of those technologies and just solve the problems for themselves.
Technology itself will take care of a lot of problems and this little bit of remediation, little bit of that, if that is taken care of in the school level, the child will become brilliant, will perform. There's no problem.
Chethan (Host): Thank you very much. It was a pleasure talking to you.
D Chandrasekhar (Guest): Thank you for showing the interest.
