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Enabling access to text for dyslexic students in HE: A longitudinal evaluation of Asfedic tuning

Elias Avramidis

Department of Education, University of Bath E.Avramidis@bath.ac.uk

Abstract

The recent past has seen an increasing number of students with dyslexia and other disabilities entering Higher Education. At the same time a considerable growth of learning support services has taken place with the aim of ensuring that the needs of these students are being met. The study reported here forms part of a large research project which aims at reviewing Learning support for students with dyslexia within one university by evaluating the effectiveness of different intervention approaches and identifying ways of improving institution wide practice. In this paper we present an evaluation of "Asfedic tuning", an approach for alleviating visual 'stress' or 'instability'. The research adopted a multiple case-study design which utilised both quantitative and qualitative methods. The study was also longitudinal in nature since the identified dyslexic students participated to 3 "tunings" over a period of 8 months. Quantitative data relating to reading speed -both on white and optimum colour background- recorded significant gains for the majority of the participants over the intervention period. Student perceptions of the utility of the approach as articulated in in-depth interviews were also very positive. However, the success of the intervention was found to be dependent on particular characteristics of the participants' dyslexic profiles and, to a lesser extent on their full participation and completion of the programme. In this, the paper concludes that "Asfedic tuning" is a powerful, albeit underused, tool for enabling (some dyslexic learners) access to text and highlights the need for further research with larger samples.

Disclaimer: all the abstracts presented here have satisfied the academic committee as appropriate for presentation at an international conference. However, the material reflects the views of the authors, not necessarily those of the academic committee or the BDA. No endorsement of any approach, product or service is intended or implied.

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