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• What is dyslexia?
• Associated strengths
• General information
  
• Impact on employability skills and attributes
• Areas where ‘reasonable adjustments’ may be required
• General advice
• Resources/references

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia affects the area of the brain that deals with language leading to differences in the way information is processed and affecting the underlying skills needed for learning to read, write, take notes, spell and/or with calculation and/or self organisational skills.


Associated strengths

Some of the characteristics associated with dyslexia can also be seen as positive attributes. These can include:

• Creative and original thinking;
• Good strategic thinking and problem-solving;
• Being determined and hard-working;
• Being good at seeing how lots of things are connected, how things work;
• Thinking holistically;
• Being able to develop innovative strategies to overcome the difficulties experienced;
• Increased self-awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses.

General information

As a result of their language processing and short-term memory difficulties, dyslexic students rely heavily on meaning and understanding. This requires:

• A highly personalised approach to learning,
• A need to have the learning process and conventions made explicit,
• A need to understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ in order to learn.

Impact on Employability Skills and Attributes

• Information Processing
  
• Self Organisation
  
• Sight (NB Not all people with dyslexia have visual disturbances)

Although most people depend on the above abilities in the following employability skills, this does not mean that people who have dyslexia cannot possess these skills; rather, they may need reasonable adjustments to practice to enable them to develop or evidence the skills.



NB: The experience and characteristics of different impairments/conditions are highly variable between individuals. For this reason it is really important that you never make assumptions about what a person can or cannot do. Though someone may have significant difficulties, they may also have devised sophisticated means of compensating for these, so talk to the person concerned and make judgements only on an individual basis.


Areas where ‘reasonable adjustments may be required

Reading- Reading forms a major part of most curricular activities. If a student has, for example, half the reading speed of other students, this may put an immense strain on their studies by significantly increasing the time required to complete the reading. In addition, a weakness in short term memory will affect their ability to remember what has been read. Vocabulary levels may also be poor and so comprehension suffers. Students with dyslexia may experience any or all of the following:

• Visual stress.
• Reading overload.
• Lack of speed with reading.
• Difficulty summarising.
• Difficulty sorting and selecting materials for study.
• A lack of understanding and retention of what has been read.
• Difficulty extracting the main points from what has been read.
• Misreading, including assignment and examination questions.
• Finds it easier to read and write if there is a personal interest in the subject matter.

Spelling – People with dyslexia can experience problems with written expression and vocabulary to the point where it affects a tutor’s understanding of their work. Also the error may be too significant for the spell-checker to suggest the correct spelling

Note-taking - The difficulties experienced by some students with dyslexia might include some or all of the following:

• Difficulty writing and listening simultaneously
• Difficulty making detailed notes and understanding what has been written when reading it back
• Difficulty extracting the main points during taught sessions
• Problems copying quickly and accurately

Writing - Students with dyslexia may experience problems with their written work including some or all of the following:

• Poorly constructed and slow handwriting interfering with their ability to get ideas down
• Difficulty planning and structuring written work
• Problems with the transition of ideas
• Difficulty relating theory to practice
• Poor written expression and/or sentence structure
• Difficulty understanding conventions in writing
• Difficulty relating abstract to particular
• Problems editing and proof-reading

Organisational Skills - Most dyslexic students experience short-term memory problems. This can affect note-taking, reading, writing and organisation and it can also make it difficult to organise their time and meet deadlines.
These difficulties tend to be the ones that are most often ignored and, because of this, dyslexic students can sometimes be judged as being lazy, unmotivated, sloppy or careless.

Calculation - Many students with dyslexia are mathematically very able; however, some may have difficulties resulting from visual perceptual or short-term/working memory problems. Some dyslexic students may also experience some or all of the following mathematical difficulties:

• Visual problems such as reversals and substitutions.
• Transcription errors between media (e.g. copying from overheads).
• Losing their place in multi-step calculations or failing to hold all aspects in mind.
• Difficulty remembering sign and symbols.
• Problems remembering formulae and theorems.
• Difficulty retrieving specialised vocabulary.
• Difficulty with arithmetic and basic numeracy.
• Difficulty moving from concrete to abstract.
• Difficulty remembering sequences but not patterns.
• Difficulty learning or applying rules or generalisations - from the particular to the general.

General advice

Most students who have dyslexia would benefit from the following approaches:

• Show the whole 'picture' first before presenting the steps or details. When giving a presentation, provide a mental map of the session.
• Chunk information into small bite sized pieces.
• Experiential learning
• Concrete tactile learning and learning with the help of colour, humour, stories, images, etc. .
• Provide concise, clear summaries of information in verbal or written form whenever possible
• Ask questions in a straightforward way. Unnecessarily abstract or contrived language can be confusing.
  
• Not being able to read is still associated in some people’s minds with being unintelligent; be sensitive to potential stigmatisation. Many people who have dyslexia have low self esteem and need positive reinforcements and encouragement.

Resources/references

About dyslexia - adults and employment: British Dyslexia Association

Adult Dyslexia Organisation

BRAIN.HE - Best Resources for Achievement and Intervention re Neurodiversity in Higher Education, BRAINHE.com is a resource website for students and staff in higher education run by De Montfort University to help students with SpLDs (specific learning differences) and staff working with them.

Dyscalculia and Dyslexia Interest Group - Loughborough University

Dyslexia Checklist (So you think you may be dyslexic?):

Dyslexia in Higher Education  - Student Support at Strathclyde:

Dyselxia Unbound: a short film by Jane Clark and Rob Lemkin, case studies of dyslexic students at Oxford University.

Embracing Dyslexia, Creating Futures, Improving the Employability of Dyslexic Art & Design Graduates