A significant number of students studying at the University of Strathclyde and recorded as having special needs have what is called dyslexia.
While this literally means "difficulty with words", some people have a similar difficulty with numbers. The extent and precise nature of such difficulties vary considerably from person to person. A diagnostic assessment carried out by a chartered psychologist would document the difficulties, and many dyslexic students have already been assessed at school or college. Others, perhaps increasingly disadvantaged by the volume and pace of university work, seek assessment once they have become a student. Such assessment can be very helpful to the student, by confirming the nature of the learning problems and by offering strategies for improving learning, which might include recommendations about equipment, such as computers with supportive software. Assessments would also often make recommendations about special examination arrangements.
There is no one set of characteristics which defines dyslexia, and there is great variation among students in the difficulties they have.
Some students have a major difficulty in accessing written text, and work by employing readers to put text on to cassette. Some students are unable to produce written work without the aid of equipment, such as a computer with speech synthesis. Other students may have relatively minor difficulties. What follows are possible and common areas of difficulty. Not all students assessed as dyslexic will have difficulties in all of these areas, while some students will have considerable difficulty in some of these areas.
Many students who are assessed as dyslexic have already learned effective coping strategies.
But much support can be, and already in many cases is being, offered by university staff. The following is a summary of ways in which teaching staff may be able to help. As always, individual students will be the best source of information about what is likely to be helpful.
Lectures
- You can allow students who have difficulty in taking notes in lectures, practicals and tutorials to tape these. Alternatively, paper or disk copies of lecture notes and overhead projector transparencies would often be greatly appreciated, sometimes in enlarged print, and sometimes on coloured paper.
- New terminology could be written as well as spoken.
Assignments
- Advice and assistance with ways of organising thoughts for assignments can be useful. The Centre for Academic Practice may be able to help, and you might refer students there.
- Spelling and punctuation corrections on assignments are often not helpful. Sympathetic consideration might be given, in consultation with the Adviser of Studies and the lecturer concerned, to students who take longer than most to complete written work.
Tutorials and Practicals
- Students who have difficulty in reading aloud may be embarrassed when asked to do this in tutorials, and you can help by avoiding putting students who have dyslexia in the situation where they would have to do this.
Examinations
- If you are writing exam questions, it is helpful if these are phrased in a simple, straightforward way. Some students need to have exam questions read to them, or to have the question paper read on to cassette.
- Many students will require additional examination time, for reading the question paper, and for recording answers. Some students may require to use a scribe, or a computer. These requirements would be intimated to departments prior to the exam diets by the Special Needs Adviser, and they would be justified by a dyslexia assessment or report from school.
- Where handwriting is impossibly difficult to read, students could be invited to read out exam answers to markers.
Placements
- If you are responsible for placement arrangements for your student, then discussions with the student and the placement supervisor should ideally take place well in advance of the placement start date. A placement may well make demands on a student which are rather different from the more usual demands of study. These might include the need to produce high quality written work at speed or to read and digest written information quickly, and both of these demands may prove difficult for a student who is dyslexic.
Collins McKay, ASS student, writes about his experiences as a first year student with dyslexia:
"My initial problem was related to identifying myself to staff who were faced with a large number of new students. Perhaps specific meetings with disabled students and lecturers and tutors could be arranged prior to the first day of a new term. This would allow the student to explain to the staff member the exact nature of their needs and hopefully enable the staff member to become familiar with the student, particularly if the disability is not one which is visible and apparent.
Being human, lecturers tend to wander off during their presentation, making taping difficult. A table beside the lectern would give students a place to leave tape recorders. Another useful aid that some lecturers do give out is copies of lecture notes in bigger fonts. Perhaps when ordering print runs, a number of copies in larger fonts could be included as a matter of course. It is difficult to obtain this type of aid after a lecture.
It would be really useful if core texts were available in the library on tape. I did get the basic psychology text book on tape, but had to approach the Scottish society for the blind....
Overall the university provided an atmosphere which was supportive and enlightened, and this ensured that my first year of university was both enjoyable and productive."