Eighty percent of all Greek schoolchildren suffering from dyslexia are not diagnosed with the condition soon enough and as a result suffer from low self-esteem and may be forced to abandon school early, doctors warned yesterday.

According to the University of Macedonia’s Professor Giorgos Pavlidis, the educational system’s failure to correctly identify sufferers can lead to suffocating pressure being brought to bear on dyslectic schoolchildren by their teachers and classmates. This usually delivers a crippling blow to the self-esteem of sufferers — who typically have trouble with reading, spelling and learning texts by heart — many of whom end up giving up school.

Pavlidis was speaking at a press conference ahead of the Fifth International Congress on Dyslexia, which will be held in Thessaloniki from August 23-27 with the participation of 1,200 specialists.

Greece has only 50 diagnostic centers for dyslexia and long waiting lists — which in Athens stretch to 18 months. There are an estimated 600,000 dyslexia sufferers in the country.