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Talk;Higher Ed

Thursday stream 5 Session 14.00 - 15.40 Length 25 minutes

Manifestations of dyslexia in university students: implications for assessment and diagnosis

Claire Jamieson, Nata Goulandris, Aideen Hasson and Tan Phuon

University College London. c.jamieson@ucl.ac.uk

Abstract

The focus of this study is the nature and severity of the residual difficulties experienced by university students who have been diagnosed as dyslexic. In particular the study seeks to throw light on the persistent features of developmental dyslexia in well compensated adults, both at the cognitive and at the behavioural level (Frith 1995). Over the past four years, data has been collected through the UCL dyslexia clinic, on the underlying ability, literacy strategies and attainment, and phonological processing skills of students presenting for assessment. Students attended the clinic voluntarily, sometimes at the recommendation of their tutors. They undertook a range of assessment procedures including subtests from the WAIS- R, single word and prose reading, spelling, phoneme deletion, non-word repetition, spoonerisms, digit naming speed, and fluency tasks. The performance of forty of these students, who, following assessment were diagnosed as dyslexic, is compared with a control group of forty university students with no history of literacy difficulties. Multivariate analyses of variance are used to investigate differences in the quantitative performance of the two groups. In addition, self reports of the strategies adopted by individuals in the experimental and control groups will be presented.