Nick Beard - Appropriate Evidence for DSA July 2012
1. Nick Beard
B.Ed (hons) MA M.Ed AFBPsS C.Pchol. HPC Reg EP
After some 30 years working with Cleveland, Dorset and
Poole local authorities as an educational psychologist I
now run a private consultancy. My specialisms and
interests as well as SpLD include bereavement, behaviour
management, Autism/Asperger’s and the training and
professional development of both professional and non-
professional staff working with young people with
special needs.
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2. Advance Organiser
The difference demands for Eps working in school, FE and
HE contexts
Definitions of dyslexia and why they matter
The content of the psychological report
Reasons for failure to identify
Other SpLDs
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3. The difference for Eps between
working for schools/LAs and HE
HE School/LA
Diagnosis of “condition” Exploration of strengths and
weaknesses
Producing an acceptable Producing realistic and useful
“label” recommendations
Opening the gate to Implying who should pay for
additional help additional input
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4. Definitions of dyslexia
The British Psychological Society, 1999, define Dyslexia as “evident when
accurate and fluent word reading and/or spelling develops very incompletely
or with great difficulty, despite appropriate learning opportunities – that is
learning opportunities which are effective for the great majority of children”.
The Rose Report by Sir Jim Rose (June 2009) identified the following
working definition of dyslexia:
Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in
accurate and fluent word reading and spelling.
Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness,
verbal memory and verbal processing speed.
Dyslexia occurs across a range of intellectual abilities.
It is best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and there are no
clear cut-off points.
Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor
coordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation, but
these are not, by themselves, markers of dyslexia.
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5. Definitions of dyslexia
A commonly accepted definition of dyslexia in
further/higher education (SpLD Working Group – 2005
– DfES Guidelines, page 5) describes “A combination of
abilities and difficulties where the difficulties affect the learning
process in aspects of literacy and sometimes numeracy. Marked
and persistent weaknesses may be identified in working memory,
speed of processing, sequencing skills, auditory and/or visual
perception, spoken language and motor skills”.
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6. Some implications
A student might be dyslexic using one of the above
definitions, but not using another.
The EP therefore needs to produce evidence as to why they
regard the student as being dyslexic.
This evidence needs to be replicable – ie another EP using
the same methodology with the same student should get
more or less the same results.
Higher education still tends to favour a discrepancy model,
which links in well with the Working Group model – given
this person’s overall scores, how probable or improbable are
their discrepant scores?
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7. The psychological report
There will normally be an indication of overall ability, obtained from
a “closed” normative test, together with comments about any
unusual variations in the subtest scores. This will typically include
scores for verbal and non-verbal ability together with results and
discussion on working memory, and processing speed.
There will be an indication of scores on standardised literacy tests,
looking at different sorts of reading and writing together with
comments on areas of strength and weaknesses and whether or
not these are unusual.
There should be an indication as to the extent to which the literacy
scores would have been predicted from the ability scores .
There will often be a further set of tests to follow up any hypotheses
or to produce further evidence.
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8. Example of a significant discrepancy
Subtest Predicted Actual Score Difference Level of Frequency
Score statistical of difference
significance in normative
sample
Word 99 110 +11 n/a n/a
Reading
Reading 99 102 +3 n/a n/a
Comp
Spelling 99 99 0 n/s n/a
PS Decoding 99 114 +15 n/s n/a
Written 99 70 29 .01 1%
Expression
Comp 99 110 +11 n/a n/a
Reading
Comp WR L 99 84 15 .01 10%
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9. The Psychological report -2
There will normally be an indication that any other issues
which might be affecting the situation has been checked and
eliminated or allowed for – sensory difficulties, missing or
problematic education, difficult family circumstances and so
on. It’s often helpful to know if other members of the family
have similar difficulties.
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10. Keeping it “legal”
The Working Group reports lays down various other
requirements which EP (and other) reports should adhere to.
Reports should carry a note indicating that they have been
written “in accordance with the SpLD Working Group
Guidelines for assessing SpLDs in Higher Education”
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11. How do they get this far without
identified?
Deficit difficulties:
Institutes with no systems or other priorities
No or minimal independent study skills input
Reluctance by student or institute to acknowledge problem
Subtle difficulties that don’t show at more basic levels of work
Positive difficulties:
Being bright and working hard overcomes difficulty at FE level
Huge amounts of input/support from others
Also:
Course has literacy demands but doesn’t assess for them on entry
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13. Other SpLDs
If they are in DSM IV they are theoretically medical
diagnosis: this is true of ADHD, ADD, Dyspraxia and so on.
Much more difficult to test for: normative tests aren't usually
very useful.
Therefore DSM criteria allied to checklists, self reports and
(given agreement) reports from others along with
observation during the assessment are the basis for
“diagnosis.”
In HE any people with these sorts of difficulties tend to get
swept up into the “dyslexia with additional difficulties”
categories and may therefore need referring on.
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