Intervention for Dyslexia - The British Dyslexia Association

3.4 Studies in UK specialist dyslexia schools and teaching
centres
In the UK, specialist dyslexia teaching is provided in a number of different educational
settings, including some state schools, many independent schools and a limited number
of schools specialising in education for dyslexic pupils. It is also provided by specialist
organisations such as Dyslexia Action and the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre, and by a
considerable number of independent tutors. There are currently 77 independent schools
in the UK that specialise in providing education for pupils with dyslexia and are
registered with the Council for the Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexic pupils
(CRESTED). Dyslexia Action employs over 250 specialist dyslexia teachers who teach in
its 25 centres and 160 teaching locations, including many schools, around the UK. It
should be noted that these organisations tend to take children with the most severe
difficulties and co-morbid conditions and hence slower rates of progress are to be
expected.
In publications reporting the effectiveness of teaching in UK specialist dyslexia schools
and teaching centres, data are often drawn from successive cohorts of pupils over
longer periods of time, and a range of approaches may be employed rather than a
specific programme (though see above for the use of Phono-Graphix at Moon Hall
School in Surrey). For this reason these publications have been considered separately
from studies of specific programmes considered above. Unfortunately, however, few
organisations have published evidence of the efficacy of their teaching that can be
subjected to scientific analysis.
3.4.1 Hornsby and Miles (1980)
Hornsby and Miles (1980) investigated the efficacy of specialist dyslexia teaching
methods in three different settings: a hospital clinic, a university teaching unit, and a
private teaching centre. The teaching methods used in the three settings were not
identical, but all were systematic multisensory phonologically-based programmes,
delivered by qualified dyslexia teachers. The results of 107 dyslexic children (mean age
at start of teaching: 10 years 10 months) were analysed. The pupils averaged 28
months’ gain in reading age and 28 months’ gain in spelling age over the course of
about 20 months of teaching. Before the start of the intervention programmes these
children had average ratio gains of 0.53 for reading and 0.32 for spelling; as a result of
the intervention their ratio gains increased substantially to 1.4 for both reading and
spelling. This accelerated progress as a result of specialist tuition was statistically
significant.
3.4.2 East Court School
East Court School is an independent specialist school for dyslexic pupils in Ramsgate,
which opened in 1983. Thomson (2003) reported on a study of 252 children who had
attended East Court during the period 1983–2000. All the children had been diagnosed
by Educational Psychologists as having dyslexia, and most displayed significant deficits
in phonological skills, verbal memory and processing speed. On average they spent 2.5
years at the school, which had the objective of returning the children to mainstream
education, usually between 11 and 13 years of age. Assessment data included BAS Word
Reading, NARA and Vernon spelling. The average chronological age at the outset of
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