Home › Advice, Screening and Assessment ›

What happens during assessment?

Dyslexia Action assessment services are geared towards gaining a clear picture of a person’s strengths and weaknesses and looking at the gaps in skills and knowledge that need to be addressed.  

Our assessment services fall into three broad categories. You need to talk to your local Dyslexia Action Centre to find out more about the options and associated costs. We do offer financial support for assessment and tuition for some people. See the Funds Available section.
Individual Diagnostic Assessment
An individual diagnostic assessment is an in-depth assessment that looks at a wide range of factors that might be making it difficult for the child to learn. This kind of assessment will usually be done by a psychologist or a teacher specially trained in diagnostic assessments. A diagnostic assessment should identify dyslexia or other recognised patterns of specific learning difficulty and from this develop an appropriate programme of support.
Before a child attends for a dignostic assessment the parents will be asked to complete a Family Questionnaire. They will also be asked to invite their child's school to complete a School Questionnaire. These two documents form excellent background information for the psychologist.
On the day of the assessment the assessor will chat with them briefly before the assessment begins, and will then spend up to two hours with the child. During the assessment the child will be asked to carry out a range of interesting tasks, which most children find very enjoyable.
The assessment considers:
 
  • Background information from home about hearing, vision and co-ordination, and any other developmental issues.
  • Assessment of ability in reading, spelling, writing and number skills, general language development, vocabulary and reasoning with spoken words
  • Visual and spatial skills and the ability to reason logically with numbers and abstract shapes skills in memory and speed of processing.
When the tests have been completed the assessor will discuss the results with the parents and make recommendations as to what action to take.
A confidential report is issued within approximately three weeks of the assessment, setting out  the level of achievement in reading, spelling and usually number skills expressed in Standard Scores. The results are presented in several formats:
  • Age scores are sometimes given, but these are very rough levels of ability and can be misleading.
  • Standard scores are familiar to many people from IQ tests: 100 is the mid-point and the average range is 85 to 115. Results are also given as percentiles, which are familiar to many from weight and height charts for infants.
Dyslexia Action reports also give scores for General Intellectual Abilities, including Verbal and Non-verbal reasoning skills. If someone has reading skills in the bottom 20% but has the ability to reason with and understand spoken words in the top 20%, then this is significant. For someone in this position, the frustration of being unable to express himself in writing could be quite severe.
For a child and his parents, understanding that there are strengths as well as weaknesses is often very reassuring and it can help teachers to set appropriate targets and expectations.
Dyslexia, like other specific learning difficulties, exists across the whole range of intellectual ability and is identified when there is a characteristic profile of strengths and weaknesses, along with supporting evidence from other sources. It is the pattern of the profile, not the level, that is relevant.
For Terms and Conditions of Dyslexia Action Assessment please click here.
Individual Consultation/Screening
Alternatively, a screening session might be arranged with an experienced teacher to discuss the kinds of difficulties that a learner is experiencing. It could be done informally and may involve looking at samples of work. It may involve completion of a questionnaire or check-list along with some brief tests of key skills such as spelling and writing. A formal screening session takes about 30 minutes and there is not normally a written report.
Screening can also be used to ‘screen’ classes at school, for example.
Teaching Planning Assessment
If the screening highlights potential problems then a further assessment is useful to develop a programme of support.
A Teaching Planning Assessment looks at the skills and strategies that are being used in learning and working, and it will identify the gaps in knowledge, and the areas in need of improvement. The assessment does not provide a ‘diagnosis’ of dyslexia, or of other specific learning difficulties, but it will usually give enough information to design an individual programme of learning or support. At Dyslexia Action, this kind of assessment is carried out by a specialist teacher and takes about an hour. This assessment provides enough information from which to plan teaching to support the child.