Dyslexia Assessment Appraisal

This report explores and critically analyzes the dyslexia assessment appraisal tool and evaluates its effectiveness in assessing dyslexia. It discusses the impact of dyslexia on children's educational and social experiences and provides recommendations for supporting dyslexic students. The assessment tool covers various factors associated with dyslexia and includes tests for literacy, numeracy, cognitive processing, and more.

Running head: DYSLEXIA ASSESSMENT APPRAISAL
DYSLEXIA ASSESSMENT APPRAISAL
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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DYSLEXIA ASSESSMENT APPRAISAL
Assessment of the Diagnostic literacy assessment
Introduction:
Among the various different learning difficulties that are prevalent in the society,
dyslexia can be identified as the one of the most abundantly found learning disability among
the children. As discussed by Rappolt-Schlichtmann, Boucher and Evans (2018), dyslexia can
be identified as a very common learning disability which restricts the children from reading,
writing, and spelling. Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty, although this particular
disease is not affecting the intelligence of the individuals. The impact of dyslexia is not just
on the educational life of the children, but it also deteriorates the social experience that the
child has and paves way for bullying and affected self-esteem. There is mounting evidence
which has emphasized on the developmental pattern of dyslexia and how it affects the
individuals. However, there is very minimal evidence on proper assessment of the disease
and providing adequate and timely treatment to the individuals struggling with dyslexia. This
report will aim at exploring and critically analysing the dyslexia assessment appraisal tool
and critically evaluate the existing literature to evaluate the effectiveness of such tools and
the relevance of using the same.
Assessment
Dyslexia is a hidden disability and generally exhibits a number of complex
challenges, not just with the literacy but also with processing, memory, sequencing and
organisation. Teachers needs to have an understanding of the problem that a dyslexic child
might have within the classroom situation (Reid 2016). A child suffering from dyslexia might
find the acquisition of the literary skills a bit difficult and might suffer from a lot of anguish
and trauma as they can be mentally abused by their peers and the within the school setting,

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because of their learning difficulties. Much of their suffering can be alleviated by the
integration of the child in the school environment where he/she can feel comfortable.
Educators might be particularly confused by the students who are consistent in
underachieving. Hence these child should be made to feel different from their peers and
simply because they are unable to follow the simple instructions (Bell 2013).
It is the duty of the teachers to set a classroom environment that is inclusive for these
children, which can be done by adopting special teaching strategies. But for that it is first
necessary to assess the receptive language score, phonological awareness, and phonological
memory, numeracy and the writing score of the concerned students (Bell and McLean 2016).
Such formal assessment can be useful in the development of the inclusive curriculum for
these children.
Appraisal assessment:
The assessment tool that is being utilized in this setting is the diagnostic literacy
assessment, which is a remarkable and abundantly used assessment tool in the health care
setting for learning disabilities. The assessment tool is thorough and extensive and it covers a
large variety of important factors associated with the dyslexia. As discussed by Steinbrink et
al. (2014), dyslexia, despite being only a learning disability, has association with affecting the
personal and social life of the child as well as affecting the educational life of the child.
Hence, proper diagnosis and early treatment has potential benefits in easing the life and lived
experience of the children suffering from these particular issues.
Brief overview:
The assessment tool begins with context or reasons of concern, which describes the
patient, their characteristics and the presenting problems. It has to be mentioned that it is
crucial for the assessment tools to evaluate the impact of the disability on the living

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characteristics of the patient to be able to design and implement care adequately. The next
few sections of the assessment focuses on the summary and background information about
the client, to have a clear ideation regarding the onset of the disability, its impact on the life
and living condition of the patient is considered here. The next section features a few
investigative tests that are performed to assess the extent or severity of the disability and also
confirm whether the child has the disability or if there is any possibility of other health
adversities leading to the presenting symptoms (Jaffe-Dax, Daikhin and Ahissar 2018). There
are three standard tests that are performed in the diagnostic tests that are performed for the
children such as the BPVS, CTOPP, and NARA. The BPVS stands for British Picture
Vocabulary Scale or BPVS3 is a standard English vocabulary test. As discussed by Price‐
Mohr and Price (2018), BPVS is one of the few most abundantly used diagnostic tests
utilized for assessing dyslexia or similar related learning disabilities. NARA or Neale
analysis or reading ability and CTOPP or comprehensive test of phonological processing
which is another very famous and interesting test that has been used abundantly in use for
assessing the extent that dyslexia has affected the patient (Griffiths and Kelly 2018). Along
with that the assessment has also evaluated and explored reading, spelling, writing,
numeracy, underlying ability, cognitive processing and other relevant information with
respect to strengths and weaknesses as well, which will not only help in assessing the extent
of the challenges but will also aid in developing or designing a patient centred plan based on
the identified strengths and weaknesses.
Recommendations:
There are three sets of recommendations have been provided to K, general, for
reading and for writing. The general recommendations are associated with providing 1:1
support, dyslexia friendly classroom, multisensory learning approach, and nonverbal cues of
communication, structured phonics programme, and progress review techniques. According

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to the article by Montgomery (2017), the impact of dyslexia friendly classrooms with
interactive learning modalities such as multisensory approach, nonverbal communication and
phonics program can help improve their learning process. Similarly, with reading and writing
recommendations such as phonic based reading scheme, rereading phrases, and visual
imagery based learning techniques can also help improve the learning ability and progress of
learning as well (Reid and Guise 2017).
Srivastava and Haider (2017) in their article have discussed regarding the need for
personalized interventions for the children suffering with dyslexia. In this case, the
recommendations have successfully identified the individualistic needs of K and
recommended very specialized and focused interventions for him such as structured phonic
programs such as Dandelion Readers, Jelly&Bean, Sound Start and the use of keyboard skills
such as TextEase and ClaroRead indicate at the recommendations being very specific and
personalized for him. Although the recommendations are thorough and very specific, it has to
be acknowledged that the recommendations are not enough for any teacher with no prior
knowledge of dyslexia help the student optimally. However, few of the recommendations do
feature a few whole class based recommendations such as communication improvisation and
incorporating visual imagery based recommendations for the children. Although, it also has
to be mentioned that a few key components of whole classroom strategies such as triple
exposure is not recommended for K as well.
Working memory and recognising strengths:
Working memory is a very important aspect of learning for people with learning
disabilities, in this case the working memory has not been addressed effectively in the
recommendations as well. Although, it was not evident from the assessment that whether k
had a pertinent working memory issue, however, the need for working memory oriented

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issues was not optimally addressed in the recommendations which is a definitive con.
Recovery is optimally focussed on identifying and utilizing the strengths of the student and
designing the recommendations based on the strengths as well (Griffiths and Kelly 2018).
This assessment report has also analysed and recognized the strengths of K as well, although
it is unclear whether the recommendation plan for K has followed the strengths that have
been identified as well. However, as the recommendations are highly personalized, it can be
hoped that the recommendations have also been based on the strengths along with
weaknesses.
A critical analysis of wider policy and pedagogy issues
The effect of the dyslexia can be manifested in a variety of ways and hence should not be
underestimated. The management of dyslexia is possible with the early identification of this
conditions. Instances of early identification of the condition is identifiable from the report.
The tests that have been used in this report (Reid 2016). According to the Section 19 of the
Children and the Families act 2014, children with special educational needs should be given
regards to the views, feelings and the wishes of the young person and the child (Department
for Education. 2015). The recommendations that has been given in the reported supported the
need of K, for example it can be seen that K will be benefitted from a dyslexia friendly
classroom. It has been rightly discussed that an inclusive classroom should provide a
multisensory approaches to learning, which can be related to the factors. According to the
principle the classroom environment should be designed to activate the sensory motor system
of the child (Andrade et al. 2012). The principle had always focused on the inclusive
practices and removing barriers to learning. The role of the local authorities in the decision
making process is indispensable. The local authorities should ensure that children and the

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parents of the young people should know that children, parents and the young people are
involved in the discussions and the decisions about their individual support and about the
local provisions. The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills
(Ofsted) have reviewed the needs of the children with SEN and have reviewed some
recommendations required for providing support to them (OFSTED. 2010). This also
complies with the brook’s review, where emphasis has been given on the identification and
the assessment of the child. According to the Brook’s review, it is important for the school to
evaluate the effectiveness of the tools used for the review and the assessment of the child. A
number of Test defined in the report such as assessing the rapid naming and the processing
speed, single word reading, reading accuracy and assessing the reading speed has been found
to be appropriate in testing the cognitive processing of K. According to the recommendations
it is necessary, that the early year providers, schools and the colleges should be able to meet
the wider range of the additional needs of the children. The report was provided an account of
the strengths and the weaknesses of K, which will be helpful to decide the children specific
pedagogical curriculum. It can be seen from this report that cognitive processing has been
analysed by assessing the phonological awareness of the child. For that, blending word test
and blending non word test can be used to measure the ability of the combined speech of the
child. In order to set activities that will help in the language acquisition in the child it is
necessary to assess his capability to separate phonemes and form the non- words.
Furthermore, as per the Brook’s review, it is necessary to provide additional funding for the
SEN pupil. It can be seen that the report nothing has been discussed about any kind of
governmental support. As per the Brook’s review, the schools should provide extra privileges
should be given to enable that all children gets the opportunity to develop emotional
resilience and the social skills.

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Conclusion
Children having SEN calls for special educational provisions and before forming any
curriculum framework, it is necessary to assess the needs of the children. The set of tests
reported such as assessment of the numeracy skills, assessment of the underlying ability has
been found to be ideal for assessing the cognitive status of this child. The different formal
assessment techniques that has been discussed in this report has been found to be useful in
assessing sensory motor skill and the gross motor skills of the child. Furthermore, the
recommendations that has been provided complies with the OFSTED report, which emphasis
more on the involvement of the child’s need and the early interventions to support these kids.
The recommendations emphasizes on the role of the local groups in the developing the
inclusive curriculum practices. However, very little information has been provided about the
role of the local government in developing an inclusive practice. In this paper the review has
been evaluated on the basis of the OFSTED report and the Brook’s review.

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