Intervention for Dyslexia - The British Dyslexia Association

(0.56 for reading accuracy, 0.91 for reading comprehension, and 0.59 for
spelling). It should be noted, however, that very few of these schemes have
been evaluated specifically with children who have dyslexia.
21) Studies of large samples of older dyslexic pupils in UK specialist schools and
teaching centres have found the literacy progress of these dyslexic pupils is
significantly accelerated, and in many cases they achieve well within the normal
range. However, the rates of gain tend to be more modest (ratio gains in the
range 0.86–2.0) and, in some cases, further efforts will be necessary for them to
catch up with their peers. 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. Dyslexic pupils who do not
receive intervention generally decline steadily in literacy relative to their peers
and hence, arguably, the achievement of ratio gains of 1.0 or greater represents
substantial progress for these ‘hard to teach’ pupils.
Screening and assessment (Chapter 4)
22) The chief purpose of screening and/or assessment is to identify children who
require intervention. Identification of children with dyslexia was traditionally
carried out by educational psychologists using approaches that relied on the
identification of a discrepancy between IQ and attainments in literacy.
23) In response to research evidence, reliance on discrepancy has declined in favour
of using measures of cognitive factors associated with dyslexia, such as
phonological processing, verbal memory, and information processing speed.
Teachers are now using tests that measure these factors and, increasingly,
undertake the identification of dyslexic children.
24) There are many published studies on the early predictors of reading difficulties.
The strongest early predictors include verbal memory, phonological awareness,
letter identification, object naming and general language skills. Use of screening
tests assessing these skills is probably the best way to identify children at risk of
reading failure at the earliest stages of schooling. As children get older, phonic
decoding, text reading fluency and spelling are also valuable indicators.
25) Issues concerning the validity and accuracy of screening tests are discussed.
Misclassification errors in screening, i.e. false positives (‘false alarms’) and false
negatives (‘misses’), need to be minimised as these have implications for
children’s education and for the proper allocation of educational resources.
Training of specialist dyslexia teachers should include instruction regarding the
limitation of screening and how to judge the usefulness of educational tests.
26) Seven tests that are widely used in UK schools for screening for dyslexia are
reviewed; two are conventional tests and the rest are computer-based. There is
a considerable weight of evidence that screening and early assessment can
identify children at risk of dyslexia. Although there are likely to be some false
positives whose difficulties are not caused by dyslexia, these children will also
benefit from systematic, phonologically-based interventions. Monitoring or
assessment at each stage of the educational process can help to ensure that
dyslexic children have not slipped through the net.
Intervention for Dyslexia 9