For information of colleagues working with their 
institutions to further the recommendations of the 
Singelton report, I  copy * below  outcomes of the seminar 
held at UEA just before Easter on Dyslexia Assessment in HE.
The document is in form of extended 
minute of the day, with suggestions for how the sector 
might move forward.

Barbara Lloyd-Smith

*for some reason, the file 
doesn't show up as attaching as I directed.
--------------------------

Senior Project Officer
Support for Learning
Dean of Students' Office
UEA
Norwich NR4 6TJ
tel: 01603 593290
fax: 01603 593453
---------------------
Dyslexia Assessment in Higher Education

Outcomes of a seminar held at the University of East Anglia 
March 31 1999

Convened by Support for Learning, UEA, at a meeting of the East Anglia Regional Skill Group



Introduction

The seminar assembled to generate guidelines to support all those involved in dyslexia assessment in higher education in the East Anglia region. The aim was to establish regionally agreed standards in the light of variable approaches to students with dyslexia on the part of higher educational institutions, educational psychologists and LEA awards officers administering DSAs.

Discussion took place in the aftermath of the publication of the National Working Party Report on Dyslexia in Higher Education. Naturally, many of the outcomes of the seminar are reflected in or complement the findings and recommendations in the report.  This summary collates ideas put forward in the inter-professional group discussions that formed part of the seminar and in written feedback to seminar organisers. 

Participants were asked to suggest principles that should govern the assessment process and describe the needs of all stakeholders in the assessment process. These principles, descriptions and recommendations for guidelines are outlined below.

Groups represented at the seminar included disability co-ordinators, dyslexia support tutors, educational and chartered psychologists, LEA awards officers, and Access Centre assessors. 

The whole seminar programme included contributions from:

· Mike Adams, eQuip team, who described the national context of dyslexia support in higher education;

· Emma Smart, Hull University, who discussed approaches to dyslexia in the National Working Party Report in relation to Dyslexia, Literacy and Psychological Assessment (Draft Report by a Working Party of the Division of Educational and Child Psychology, the British Psychological Society, December 1998); 

· Bonita Thomson, Open University, who reviewed experiences of using Study Scan, a computer-based diagnostic tool;

· Barbara Lloyd-Smith, University of East Anglia, who outlined the one pattern for managing a support service in higher education, and the involvement of stakeholders in the assessment process;

· Debbie Gibberd, City University, who discussed the impact of assessment reports on students, best practice in delivering support, the importance of internal staff training, and the work of Access Centre assessors;

· Sophie Corlett, Skill, who focused on the needs of the student at the centre of the assessment process.

A longer report reviewing the whole seminar will appear in the Skill Journal; advance copies will be circulated to participants.


Outcomes


1. Principles Underpinning the Assessment Report

In relation to the educational psychologist's report which forms the interface of all professional involvement, the overwhelming consensus of the seminar was that:

· The report is the property of the student.

· Reports should look at the whole person while employing diagnostic tools appropriate to adult learners.

· Educational assessment is not merely a diagnostic tool or a trigger for funding. In common with other assessment processes in higher education, it is an opportunity for learning on the part of all those involved; reporters should aim to advise as well as to identify strengths, current coping strategies and weaknesses in specific areas.

· In reporting, strengths should be fore-grounded and a summary of all findings should be offered in simple clear language for the benefit of the student, tutors, administrators, assessors and other officers who have a stake in the process.

· The needs the different audiences should be reflected in the structure as well as the language of reports.

· For the student, an educational assessment is one stage in a continuum; other stages e.g. transition from further/sixth form education to higher education or identification of career plans should similarly be reflected in the structure as well as the content of the report.


2. Recommendations 

· Current funding arrangements can make follow-up work with those who have study skills needs, but who are not deemed dyslexic, impossible: senior management teams in universities are requested to address this problem urgently.

· There is a need to recognise existing expertise in the field of dyslexia assessment both at the stage of identification and for assessment of need in higher education. For example, agreement might be reached on those other than educational psychologists qualified to carry out re-assessments (most notably those with RSA diplomas and qualifications from the London Language and Literacy Unit.)

· Educational psychologists are not usually offered training in working with higher education students in general and with adult dyslexic students in particular. Additional training should be recognised and required before individuals come into this field.

· The British Psychological Society should offer formal guidance on the minimum components of an educational psychological assessment. This guidance might be developed in consultation with NADO (National Association of Disability Officers).

· Models whereby psychologists are employed to give guidance and consultation as well as assessment should be encouraged as examples of good practice: it can be difficult for psychologists to write fully inclusive report given the usual nature of their contact with students. Psychologists might also usefully play a wider role in systems and policy development in HE.

· Recommendations about exam and assessment approaches should always be included in an educational psychologist report since university exams officers normally require this as evidence of the need for special arrangements.

· The need for counselling support and career development advice should be reflected in the report.  Information about these professional roles should be built into training; similarly, counsellors and advisers themselves require training about adult dyslexia.

· Clarity with regard to the benefit of IT is an important component of the report but diagnostic assessments and assessments of need should be carried out by different people; the latter assessor should be conversant with the requirements of the student's course.

· The development/transfer/dissemination of teaching strategies to best support students is a joint responsibility; at noted above, the assessment report plays an important role.

· Accreditation of software used in screening and support for dyslexia is problematic and requires further inter-professional deliberation.

· Standardisation of transition practices from FE/HE, including early sharing of information and professional development of those in both sectors with regard to practice and underpinning structures, is desirable.

· Closer partnership between academic departments and learning support teams should be implemented via policy development in higher education institutions.


3. Stakeholders in the Report

The following observations were recorded in relation to all those involved.

Students

Students need assessment to be far more than a piece of paper. Feedback by educational psychologists may not generally be feasible but in some cases it is crucial.  Support tutors, co-ordinators, and counsellors should provide debriefing to those who are found not to be dyslexic as well as those who are.

Educational psychologists

Educational psychologists are under pressure to produce their assessments speedily and in an atmosphere of distrust. They therefore need improved information about higher education courses and to bear in mind that a dyslexia support tutor or co-ordinator may be able to provide additional information that is useful to include in reports. One of their primary functions in relation to LEA awards officers is to "bring the student to life" so that the individual can be understood in relation to the higher education context. Student learning can be directly influenced by using reports to disseminate teaching strategies that bear directly on success. 

 Disability co-ordinators

Disability co-ordinators have a multivalent role: they can be required to support students in the cross-currents of departmental life, make a case to LEAs, to plan and budget support provisions and take forward staff development in the field of learning and teaching.  Enhancing the learning environment is perhaps the most challenging responsibility. Co-ordinators need educational psychologists to remain aware of the funding implications of their reports whilst operating according to the principles outlined in 1.

Institutions should have regard to the HEFCE document on Baseline Provision in relation to co-ordinators' job descriptions, and to the provision of secretarial and IT support staff.

Dyslexia support tutors/learning support team

Support tutors are usually responsible for screening and referral. Information gathered at this stage of the process, including summaries of students' backgrounds, is important in building a whole picture of the individual for the educational psychologist. Tutors have an important role in the feedback process and are often responsible for "translating" reports to other staff. 

Support tutors favour more direct consultation with educational psychologists and believe that psychologists should sometimes be involved in de-briefing.. They require recommendations that are HE relevant; these will cover areas such as supporting students' writing, IT, exams, and career choice.

Academic staff 

Course tutors need information on students' learning styles, their strengths as well as weakness, suggestions for learning strategies and advice about appropriate examination and assessment approaches.  This information carries weight if it is included in the educational psychological report.  However, since it is not unknown for teachers to challenge psychologists' findings, recommendations and advice should be carefully supported.

Access Centre assessors

Assessors work under pressure; they do not usually see reports before assessing students. They need clear language and functional structure in reports. 

Counsellors 

Counsellors may be working with students who have no clear-cut identification of dyslexia as well as with those who have. Both groups may be coping with previous negative experiences, stress and anxiety. The psychologist's report is an opportunity to provide a coherent summary of the background to a student's situation and enable counsellors to offer study skills advice as well as provide emotional support.  In some institutions counsellors will be the only people in a position to provide support and their role should be recognised in the report.

Exams officers

Exams officers require clear but brief information about the individual, their difficulties, and all their requirements set in relation to mainstream arrangements.  This information is best delivered in a separate section of the report, not swamped by a mass of technical detail.  

Careers advisers

A statement of student's aims and longer-term objectives is a useful dimension in the report.  Where self-esteem and apprehension in relation to the world of work is concerned, advisers might address any need for counselling.  On the basis of clear informative reports, advisers can help students produce career plans with detailed strategies and make recommendations for skills development.  

LEA Awards Officers

LEA officers are not experts on dyslexia. They need a comprehensive summary of the evidence in each case, not a mass of detail.  For their purposes, equipment requirements and quotes must be linked to the disability, rather than the course. Currently, they experience a wide variation in detail and quality of referrals and enquiries and would welcome improved better information for students and professionals, most frequently at the time of transition. Officers should be aware that delay in processing applications further disables students on higher education courses; it would be to the benefit of all parties if the application process were rationalised and standardised.


4. Implications for staff development

Participants recorded a lack of understanding in relation to adult dyslexia and learning; this lack was present in teachers and administrators higher education as well as in LEA awards officers. Educational psychologists were often not well informed about adult dyslexia, higher education practices and examination requirements.  The fundamental importance of internal and external training to address these information gaps was widely noted in feedback. 

· The nature of student experience is frequently not well understood. Training to inform all professionals involved in the assessment process and those who support students after identification could be delivered by project workers, disability co-ordinators, support tutors, preferably working in collaboration with colleagues in the mainstream of staff development. 

· The training of educational psychologists needs to be addressed in qualifying courses. Further professional development is equally important. Such training would enable practitioners to acquire a clearer understanding of higher education processes and the needs of different stakeholders in order to be able to reflect this complexity in reports.

· Support tutors and disability co-ordinators need opportunities such as that offered by the seminar to discuss perceptions of dyslexia and assessment models with researchers and practitioners. Formal assessment processes are often insufficiently understood and continuing professional development for tutors and co-ordinators could address assessment as a process linking specific formal investigation of need to teaching and evaluation. Further training is also needed in the advantages and limitations of computer based screening approaches.   

· FE learning support staff need to be made aware of the practical issues that students will face in order to best support them.  Conversely, HE staff need to learn about and from practice in FE. Such training would contribute a 'seamless garment' (Tomlinson) of support.


5. Actions 

Participants focused on the following possibilities for individuals and professional groups: 

· Copies of this summary and any subsequent events held by HEFCE-funded projects could be sent to/discussed with appropriate members of senior management teams in their institutions. 

· The National Working Party Report and the BPS draft paper could be used as a mechanism to discuss the needs of higher education students in professional associations, regional networks and at educational psychologists' conferences. 

·  Outcomes of the seminar and the issue of standards in assessment could also be put on the agenda in all possible cross-professional settings. For example, participants from other regions could use the model of inter-professional discussion at Skill regional networks to stimulate the development of regional guidelines.

· Staff development activities outlined above could be taken forward with the appropriate individuals/groups within their own institutions and with other professional bodies.



6. Further possibilities

The eQuip team advise consideration of some of the following future actions:

· A follow-up seminar in 2000 to discuss the impact of the Singleton report on higher education institutions. 

· Members of eQuip to liaise on FE/HE transition issues with Sally Faraday at FEDA with whom they are in on-going discussion.

· The Skill conferences to be a venue for follow-on workshops.

· Contributors and others to offer consultancy to strand one projects within the new 
funding programme.

· Dissemination of outcomes to the sector via dis-forum.

· Publication of short information leaflets on topics identified at the seminar - possibly also in electronic form.

· Use of FDTL/TLTP networks (e.g. in Psychology or Education) to mainstream seminar issues.




Mike Adams
Barbara Lloyd-Smith 
April 30, 1999