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Friday stream 6 Session 16.10 - 17.25 Length 25 minutes
Isobel M. Calder
Department of Special Educational Needs, Jordanhill Campus, University of Strathclyde isobel.calder@strath.ac.uk
Abstract
The volume of reading and the kind of academic discourse required to complete a university degree can sometimes bring to light difficulties which students have with literacy which have not been apparent in their education so far. Additionally, as the education system becomes more inclusive students with learning difficulties are receiving the support they need in schools in order to achieve university entrance. We can, therefore, expect to see more students coming into higher education who cannot sustain the level of literacy required without the support which was available to them in school. This paper describes the educational experience at one university of students who have been identified as dyslexic. It is argued that, if we are to succeed in developing a more inclusive ethos in our educational system, we need to allow students with learning difficulties to achieve academic success at the very highest levels. Providing good quality support to those who need it can provide a basis for future success. Additional practical tuition in study skills and examination techniques linked to emotional could, in some cases be very effective. This will require the university to consider using organisational models familiar to schools, which are not currently evident in higher education.
Introduction
This paper details a piece of small scale research carried out over one year in the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. It will describe and analyse the experience of students at the university who have been identified as dyslexic and suggest ways in which organisational models familiar in schools might be used in Higher Education to support students experiencing literacy difficulties.
A European Community report published in 1996 estimated that twenty-five million Europeans have dyslexia. Of these an increasing number will continue to study after leaving school. In recent years access to further and higher education has widened and continues to widen. This is largely due to government initiatives to attract previously under represented groups, including those with disabilities such as dyslexia, into education (Hurst, 1998). The Disability Discrimination Act, soon to apply to education, will also have an effect on the numbers of disabled students in higher education. Teachers in school are becoming more aware of dyslexia, more skilled at identifying dyslexic difficulties and more willing to give support to dyslexic pupils. This has led to an increase in the number of pupils with dyslexia gaining university entrance qualifications. Additionally, mature students arriving in higher education through access courses have often been labelled as failures in school and have been identified as dyslexic only when they have enrolled in college or university courses. (Preston, 1996) As mature adults with a motivation to learn and less regard for peer pressure when they re-enter education, they can sometimes deal with the angst and pain of failure and search for the root cause of their problems. The discrepancy between their oral and written skills is recognised when they find more socially acceptable ways of explaining their difficulties and asking for help than they were able to do in school. Finally there appears to be a group of students whose dyslexia has not previously been recognised, who start to struggle academically with the increased literacy demands of a university course. This may be due to the fact that their level of intelligence has been high enough to allow them to find ways round their disability so far and to disguise it so that it has remained undetected. (Loughborough University, 2000, Dayan, 1992, York University 2000, Baum, 1990). The groups identified above have, therefore, added to the numbers of students in universities whose difficulties stem from dyslexia. (HEFCE, 1996) The fact that the Disabled Students Allowance, which has made it easier for students with disabilities to be supported through university courses, is given, in 50% of cases, to dyslexic students (Preston 1996) indicates that this is an area worthy of study.
Until eighteen months ago I was employed as a Learning Support teacher
in a Scottish secondary school. My work was influenced and guided by the
Scottish Inspectorate report "Effective Provision for Special Educational
Needs," known as EPSEN (SOED, 1994), which suggested ten distinctive features
of good practice for meeting the needs of children and young people with
learning difficulties.
These ten features were:
I carried out five roles laid down by her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools in the report which were:
The active support with an emphasis on needs which is offered to pupils in secondary schools, based on the principles listed above is not evident in the university setting where I now work. The lecturer / student relationship and the traditional autonomy of individual members of university staff does not often allow a collaborative supportive structure to exist. EPSEN covered effective provision from pre-five up to further education and it seems logical that the indicators of effective provision for special educational needs should be extended to cover learning and teaching in higher education.
Not long after being appointed to this university I was asked to review the guidelines issued to staff working with dyslexic students. As a recently appointed member of the university staff I was interested to find out if dyslexia was a significant difficulty in this university. The way in which dyslexic students viewed their experience and the university's perceptions of the support offered would allow me an insight into the situation. Finally I wished to use my experience as a learning support specialist in secondary schools to consider what improvements might be possible to allow dyslexic students fuller access to learning opportunities.
At the time of my research the University of Strathclyde, was leading a consortium of Glasgow Higher Education institutions to look at 'teachability' in a project funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. Part of the mission of this project was to produce staff development materials to allow Higher Education staff to reflect on ways of providing effective access for students with disabilities. (University of Strathclyde, 2000) Dyslexic students had just been interviewed for this project and I was able, therefore, to use the transcript of that meeting in order to assess student views. Staff of the Special Needs Service of the university were conducting the research for the project and were able to assist my understanding of the difficulties of dyslexic students from the perspective of those trying to support them. I also contacted students identified by the Special Needs Service and set up interviews. Four students, one in each of the faculties of Education, Arts, Science and Engineering and in years 1 to 4 of their studies agreed to be interviewed. Two of the students had been identified as dyslexic at school. The remaining two had had their dyslexia identified only since starting their courses.
Findings from the Project
Figures provided by the Special Needs Service and the official university statistics indicated that of the 4729 students studying in the university in 1998, 660 had been identified as being disabled. Of those declared disabled, 97 were dyslexic. 14%, therefore, of the total student body has a declared disability and 2.1% of the student body had been identified as dyslexic. The percentage of dyslexic students in this university is much lower than the number implied by Pumfrey(1998) when he says that "Proportionately, dyslexic students, represent the largest and most rapidly increasing group of disabled students in higher education.
The figures showed that Arts and Social Sciences have the highest number of students who have declared their dyslexia, followed by Education. Engineering has the lowest number. In addition the raw figures showed that more women than men have declared their dyslexia. This is significant since research elsewhere has proved that a majority of dyslexics are male. It is unlikely that fewer dyslexic males are applying for university entrance or more men are being denied entrance. Therefore it seems likely that men are more reluctant than women to declare disability and this is showing up in the figures.
Meetings with the Special Needs Service staff gave information about the assessment of students suspected of being dyslexic. Some students arrive at university, having already been identified as dyslexic at school. However a significant number are either referred to the Special Needs Service by their tutors or self-refer because of worries about their performance in written work. Before a student is officially recognised by the university as dyslexic a report is required from an educational psychologist. Sometimes a recent report from school is available but normally a new one is completed by one of five psychologists employed by the service. Of the five, two are employed by the university's own department of psychology and the others are employed elsewhere. The first principle that the psychologist is asked to accept is a definition similar to that given by British Dyslexics (2000) that these students are 'intelligent, bright or even gifted individuals'. Therefore no IQ test is used in the assessment. Rather, the educational psychologist is asked to assess the nature of the student's specific learning difficulty. This points to an approach like Reid's (1998) which is being used to "unearth a pattern of difficulties (which) can help the teacher decide on the nature of the …difficulties and so can assist in the planning of appropriate programmes of work" Emphasis is, therefore on an assessment of need not on what is wrong. (Broomfield and Crombley, 1997). The psychologist normally uses the DAST (the Dyslexia Adult Screening Test) and an example of the student's written work, for example an essay or, perhaps, a piece of writing produced specifically for the assessment. Suggestions are then made to the student about how to deal with the dyslexia in a university context. One copy of a report making recommendations is given to the student and another is given to the Special Needs Service.
It is important to alert staff to the needs of the student (University of York, 2000) and, therefore, once an assessment is completed and an identification of dyslexia is made, the Student Support Service sees the student individually. Departments are informed and a report of the student's needs and the recommendations made by the psychologist to meet those needs is sent. Students are encouraged to take responsibility for informing their own tutors although departments are also expected to take some responsibility for this. The reason stated by the Student Support Service for not informing tutors directly is that there are 660 students in the university with a declared disability and the task of informing every tutor of every student individually would be impossible. This is an example of the difference in culture between schools and universities, since in schools, it is expected that learning support staff will keep colleagues informed of pupil needs no matter the size of the problem in a particular school.
So as not to penalise students for their literacy deficiencies, students are often given support, especially in written assessments. A first year student might be given additional exam time especially if (s)he has had extra time for his/her Highers and if the time needed is minimal, but significant support needs a recent educational psychology report..
Other supports offered to students with difficulties include:
The transcript of the Teachability Project meeting with dyslexic students gave a much wider picture of students' views than had been anticipated. The information given by students mirrored the ideas on the York University web site. From the transcript of the meeting information was categorised under the following headings:
The most significant difficulties in lectures occurred when no notes were given out or were given to the student either during the lecture or even, on occasion, after the lecture. Students found it difficult to listen, read overheads and write down notes at the same time. The dictation of notes caused difficulties for students. The lack of structure of some lectures also presented these students with difficulties.
Students reported that lecturers could have a negative attitude to dyslexia and that this caused difficulties for them. For example, some lecturers did not believe in the concept of dyslexia or thought that university was no place for someone with dyslexia. Some lecturers knew nothing about dyslexia and did not understand the problems faced by dyslexic students or in some cases blamed the students for their difficulties. Help might not be offered when the problems became apparent; there was a feeling that helping dyslexic students was unfair to students without these difficulties or there was an unwillingness to devote resources to helping students with dyslexia. It was also said that some lecturers would not change their teaching styles to suit dyslexic students or that, if students without dyslexic difficulties were also having difficulty, then lecturers thought that dyslexia could not be the cause of the difficulties.
The specific problems listed by students reporting for the Teachability Project were, generally the same as those listed by Davis (1992), Loughborough University (2000) and York University (2000). The main difficulties seemed to be:
At the meeting students frequently talked about their feelings. They spoke about:
Organisational difficulties were also a topic of discussion in the meeting. Difficulties with reading or even finding notices on boards led to students missing important information. When lecturers forgot to make special arrangements this proved difficult. Although some people found coloured paper helpful, others found it caused them difficulty. Prior knowledge of what might be expected in a certain circumstance, for example in a lab, was found to be helpful. Students pointed out the difficulties of using taped lectures. It could take at least three hours to listen to four hours of lectures again and then even more time to transcribe them. This all added to the extra time which dyslexic students spent on studying.
Computers, which were often seen as the answer to help dyslexic students were seen by the students themselves to have limited value. For example, some things, like maths problems, could take longer on a computer and others, like Greek symbols or complicated diagrams were almost impossible. Spellcheckers were not always helpful because the alternatives given could be too similar. Students found that word recognition software was difficult to set up. Suitable software to cope with specific tasks was not always easy to find out about. Keyboarding skills were not always adequate to cope with, for example, typing notes in lectures.
Significant points made by the four students interviewed individually, tended to reiterate and, generally, to confirm what had been discussed in the Teachability Project meeting. Particular points were that:
Students at the Teachability Project meeting were fairly clear about what kind of support they would find useful. In lectures they argued for more participation and for more demonstration by the lecturer. They thought that it would be very helpful to be able to access lecture notes on the internet. Mindmapping and diagrams were both mentioned as important aids to memory. Computers were seen as useful in structuring essays, in cutting down the time necessary to finish work and in reading textbooks when the software was available to scan the text in.
Two of the students interviewed wrote up notes in different formats for different subjects so that they could visualise their notes in order to recall content. Worked examples were found to be useful for revision. A desire to talk to other dyslexic students, especially those on the same course was expressed, and a suggestion that e-mail could perhaps be used to set up a support system was made. Students wanted to understand their dyslexia and would have liked to speak to someone about it, perhaps a psychologist. Practical help, for example study skills, exam techniques and organisational skills would have been appreciated
The Special Needs staff identified several areas where additional
support for students might be given.
These were:
Support for dyslexic students: the literature
Tait and Purdie (2000) point out the importance of teacher skill and attitude in the success of inclusion. The attitude of many lecturers seemed to very negative and this was an issue addressed by Hurst(1998), who suggested that everyone should have disability awareness raising and that lecturers need to think more carefully about their teaching strategies. The strategies could follow the guidelines outlined by Corlett and Cooper (1992) and could include asking questions in a clear straightforward way; avoiding written work which is made public to a group; giving students practice in constructing a reasoned response and then finding time for constructive feedback. As Hunter (1996) pointed out for learning to be effective, the teaching must fit the student's learning style. This requires lecturers to operate a policy of differentiation which would need to take account of the student, the course materials and the activity of the teacher (Simpson, 1995) by using a model comprising the input, cognition and output (Reid, 1998). Dodd's (1996) assertion that the area between input and output is the most important is perhaps one which these university lecturers have tended to ignore. Perhaps lecturers in this university and in these studies were exhibiting the tensions (Riddell, Brown and Duffield,1996 and Dyson and Skidmore, 1996) between the needs of this specific group weighed against the needs of the much larger group, but as my own experience has shown and as Hall and Tinklin (1998) suggest, teaching which benefits dyslexic students is likely to benefit all students.
The emphasis which some of the students put on emotional difficulties and the fact that all four students interviewed mentioned their feelings is witness to the fact that, as Philip (1996) explains, "Often the dyslexic learner is a very bruised and damaged individual and this needs to be appreciated in developing resources." Given (1996) also addressed the need for emotional factors in the learning process to be considered. As Lewis & Howell - Jones (1995) pointed out motivation and self - esteem are both crucial to successful learning.
Many writers have described the poor organisational skills of students with dyslexia (Russell, 1996, Reid, 1998) and this was mentioned by many of the students as a difficulty. One of the students interviewed had led a chaotic life and now only in his thirties was he beginning to create some order. Davis (1992) mentions the two extremes of disorderliness and obsessive tidiness and, while one student. lay at one end of that spectrum, another reported being annoying to his flatmates because he could not help tidying up all the time.
Discussion
The students interviewed demonstrated in different ways many of the issues surrounding dyslexia which have been reported in research (Wolfendale and Closs, 1996, Reid, 1998, Pumfrey and Reason, (1991). The only female student interviewed described how her dyslexia had not been recognised by her school until drawn to their attention by her mother who recognised the symptoms because of similar difficulties experienced by her older brother. Another student gave graphic details of his parents' marriage breakdown, his move to a new school and his experiences in the bottom class and subsequent lack of achievement in school. His dyslexia remained undiagnosed until he started to have difficulties at university and, himself recognised the symptoms when he picked up a leaflet on dyslexia while waiting to see someone in the Student Support Service. Two of the students described the relief, well documented in the literature of being told that their problems were as a result of dyslexia. Five Highers at A, despite many school changes and undiagnosed dyslexia, stood as proof of one student's intellectual ability to find ways round his difficulties until the demands on his literacy skills just became too great. While being interviewed, all mentioned the effect which dyslexia has had on their personal life and relationships. complaining of having few friends and of finding it difficult to make friends. In both these instances there seemed to be a difficulty in engaging in small talk. This was explicitly stated by on student who also explained that, when he was upset, he started to stutter which was an added complication. Dyspraxic difficulties, often an accompanying problem, was also mentioned. Visual means were used to help students to remember notes. All of the students talked of their need to do more in life than study. For example one was an accomplished horsewoman; others liked computer games.
Both the student group and the Special Needs Service staff made suggestions for further support. The students asked for study skills teaching which could start with Reid's (1998) and Ott's (1997) emphasis on learning styles and the use of metacognitive strategies to increase learning power. Mindmapping (Buzan 1993) was mentioned on several occasions and would add to the repertoire of visual techniques which would suit many dyslexic students. As Davis (1995) reported, whereas most humans think using words, many dyslexics use pictures for thinking.
Hall and Tinklin (1998) reported experiences of students with disabilities in Higher Education similar to those which were uncovered in this project. The emphasis on difficulties surrounding access to information was evident in their research and the use of technology to overcome these difficulties was a common issue. The importance of staff understanding and interest in disability issues was also emphasised to avoid 'insensitive or inappropriate behaviour' and this was mentioned by the students at this university. Hall and Tinklin (ibid) found that information on disabilities was not widely available to staff and students and this is borne out by this research. In informal discussion with staff in my own faculty I found that few knew of the university guidelines. The experience of finding out, almost by accident that dyslexia is the cause of a student's difficulties is not uncommon and has been reported by others (Preston, 1996) The general mass of students also seem to be ignorant of the difficulties faced by their dyslexic classmates as I found in tutorial sessions conducted as part of modules on Special Educational Needs.
Conclusion
Although a bigger project might have yielded more conclusive evidence the small amount of data, which was accessed in this project points to the fact that the experience of the dyslexic students in this university mirrors that of students in other similar institutions. The stigma attached to being dyslexic reported by the students interviewed and the fears that they will not gain entry or be asked to leave courses (Hall and Tinklin, ibid) does seem to exist to some extent in the University of Strathclyde. Staff development coupled with classes in study skills and exam techniques for students might improve the experience of the students. The requirements of the ILT (Institute of Learning and Teaching) may bring about a greater emphasis on pedagogy in Higher Education. This in turn may benefit students experiencing learning difficulties because of the increased awareness of student learning needs among teaching staff. The Faculty of Education of the University of Strathclyde is currently considering the creation of a module which would help students with study skills and with the conventions of academic writing. It would be available to all students but would inevitably most benefit to those, whose literacy skills need practice. A way to offer support to lecturers in Higher Education must be found. This will involve a change of culture in which the autonomy of university staff is, in some areas of work, exchanged for a more collaborative approach to meeting the needs of students.
The inclusive movement is growing in schools. The new Scotland Schools Act makes the presumption that pupils will be educated in mainstream schools. Pumfrey (ibid) poses a difficult question, however, "Is this principle of inclusion compatible with the elitist and highly competitive 'gateway to the professions' represented by a higher education system?"
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