1. Training for Silver Award
Identification of Dyslexia and Other SpLD
Building an Identification Toolkit

2. Session overview The case for early identification.
What is assessment.
The nature of SpLD and Dyslexia.
First steps in a graduated response.
Intervention Placement Tests (criterion referenced).
Levels of identification.
Checklists and Screeners.
Choosing Individual Assessment Tools (WM/PA/PS/Lit/other).
Assessing areas of difficulty.
What do standardised tests tell us.
Diagnostic Reports: Structure and Use.
Choosing and Planning Interventions.
Monitoring Progress.
Where can you find out more? 2

3. Early Identification The SEND Code of Practice
‘All schools should have a clear approach to identifying and responding to SEN. The benefits of early identification are widely recognised – identifying need at the earliest point and then making effective provision improves long-term outcomes for the child or young person.’ 3

4. Early Years: Identifying Children ‘at risk’
Research clearly indicates some characteristics are closely correlated with later difficulty.
False positives and negatives unavoidable.
Areas of concern in EYFS:
Receptive and expressive language development.
Vocabulary development.
Alphabet knowledge.
Phonology.
Memory.
Attention.
Motor-coordination.
Main carer concerns. 4 4

5. What is Assessment? Gathering information to make a decision.
How things are and why.
Derive intervention plans.
Different types of assessment.
Criterion referenced – to a fixed benchmark.
Norm referenced – to peers.
Ipsative – to self over time: monitoring progress.
Psychometric testing.
Summing up information in numbers. 5

6. The Nature of SpLD and Dyslexia What might we want to investigate?6

7. The Nature of SpLD and Dyslexia
What might we want to investigate?
Verbal Working Memory.
Phonological Awareness.
Verbal Processing Speed.
Visual Perception.
Motor skills.
Visual memory.
What else might be useful?
Receptive and expressive language.
Literacy attainment.
Maths Attainment.
Other? 7

8. Assessment: a graduated response
Observation and Background Information.
Intervention placement tests, e.g. ALK
Checklists.
Commercial screeners
Assessment for individual difficulties.
Diagnostic assessment

9. Graduated response: first steps
Identifying children ‘at risk’ of future failure.
Class teacher observations.
Child view.
Parent view.
Family history.
Medical issues.
Examining response to appropriate adaptions to teaching and previous intervention. 9

10. Intervention Placement Tests
Criterion referenced – what a child does and does not know, regardless of age.
Tailors the intervention precisely to the child.
Where to start – slightly below level better than slightly above.
Placement test can be re-administered to evaluate progress and impact of the intervention. 10

11. Checklists and Screeners
Checklist is a basic type of screener.
Help identify patterns of difficulties.
Checklists and screeners do not diagnose.
High percentage of false positives/negatives.
Judgement and caution need to be exercised.
Format may disadvantage some.
Screener information can inform direction of further assessment. 11

12. Case study: Tim

13. Choosing Individual Assessment Tools
When is more formal assessment needed?
What is the purpose of testing?
To identify/confirm a specific difficulty.
To measure the extent of a difficulty.
To observe a difficulty under test conditions.
To monitor progress – check retest intervals.
Will the test measure what you want it to measure? 13

14. ‘The purpose of identification is to work out what action the school needs to take, not to fit a pupil into a category…..The support provided to an individual should always be based on a full understanding of their particular strengths and needs and seek to address them all using well-evidenced intervention targeted at their areas of difficulty and where necessary specialist equipment or software.’
SEND Code of Practice 14

15. Choosing Assessment Tools
Consider:
Is it reliable? Is it valid? Is it well standardised?
How old is the test? Norms out of date?
Age range of test. Extremes are not as reliable as those in the middle.
Check item difficulty. Are the earliest items accessible?
UK or US norms. US children start school later and so exaggerate the abilities of young UK.
The impact of EAL.
Administration and scoring instructions. Are they clear? 15

16. Action
Choose current tests that have been standardised on a large representative sample.
Check that it comprehensively tests the particular skills you want to investigate.
Check the reliability coefficient.
Check that the individual is well within the age range and can access the lowest items.
Check administration instructions and do not deviate from them in any way. 16

17. ‘Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed.’
Rose Review 2009 17

18. Assessing Verbal Short Term and Working Memory
A key area for learning and beyond.
Verbal short term memory is often tested using the repetition of increasing sequences of number/letter/word strings.
Verbal working memory is tested via the manipulation of the above strings.
Always ask what strategies were used. Visual strategies would invalidate result as a test of verbal working memory.
Observations can also be made in other areas of testing which load on the working memory, e.g. comprehension and composition.
Tests of visual memory may be useful. May indicate a strength or a double deficit. 18

19. Assessing Phonological Awareness 1
Core difficulty of dyslexia.
Need to identify where a child is developmentally.
Typical development:
Syllables.
Onset/rime awareness (alliteration and rhyme).
Consonant blends/individual phonemes.
Final blends and unstressed sounds (e.g. m/n).
Need to use tests with sufficient detail and challenge.
Test items must be unseen by the child (auditory input only).
Degree of accuracy and efficiency (speed). 19

20. Assessing Phonological Awareness 2
Ask about strategies, e.g. are they using spelling knowledge rather phonological awareness?
Areas tested
Syllable awareness.
Segmentation skills.
Phonemic awareness.
Blending sounds.
Manipulating sequences – spoonerisms.
Also include observations of spoken language and background information, e.g.
Late to talk and/or history of SaLT.
Mispronunciations and malapropisms. 20

21. Assessing Verbal Processing Speed
The ability to bring well known information to mind quickly is needed for reading and writing.
Well correlated in young for later reading success.
Often tested through Rapid Naming of letters/numbers/objects/colours.
Some caution needed for letter/numbers.
Can also be indirectly investigated through timed literacy tests. 21

22. Assessing Co-occurring factors
Visual memory.
Visual processing speed.
Motor co-ordination.
Visual motor-integration and visual perception.
Maths.
Dyslexic type difficulties with maths.
Specific difficulties with maths (dyscalculia).
Maths anxiety.
Concentration and attention.
Strengths.
Visual stress (Meares-Irlen syndrome). 22

23. Assessing the Impact on Literacy Attainment
Basic knowledge and informal testing.
Reading accuracy – untimed single word/timed/text based.
Reading comprehension.
Level of text and comprehension.
Reading aloud or silent.
Able to refer back to the text or not.
Compare with listening comprehension/silent reading. 23

24. Assessing the Impact on Literacy Attainment
Reading Speed.
Spelling.
Phonic and/or visual strategies.
Sequencing.
Automaticity.
Handwriting Speed.
Composition.
Skills when multi-tasking. 24

25. Assessing Underlying Abilities
Is it necessary? And approach with caution
Verbal abilities.
Verbal reasoning .
Identifying links and relationships. Later items may require general knowledge.
Vocabulary Knowledge.
Receptive/expressive language – defining words out loud given out of context.
Receptive language – matching a spoken word to a picture.
Non-verbal abilities.
Visual reasoning.
Identifying visual relationships between pictures.
Visual-spatial ability.
Construction problem solving using concrete shapes. 25

26. Assessing EAL pupils
Check child has sufficient English to understand test questions and instructions.
If not fully fluent, administration may have to be adapted so test will no longer be standard.
Use observationally.
Where possible, use tests which included EAL in the reference sample.
Be aware of cultural bias.
Research sound structure of first language to assess impact on phonological skills, reading and spelling.
Research written structure of first language to assess impact on writing. 26

27. The EAL assessment additions
Receptive language test.
Phonological awareness – use non-words.
Consider administering the following informally in the first language, then in English.
Short term and working memory.
Rapid Naming.
Reading speed.
Free writing.
Pay particular attention to comparisons, types of errors and strategies used. 27

28. SEND Code of Practice
‘Slow progress and low attainment do not necessarily mean that a child has SEN and should not automatically lead to a pupil being recorded as having SEN. Equally, it should not be assumed that attainment in line with chronological age means that there is no learning difficulty or disability.’ 28

29. What do standardised tests tell us?
Raw Score.
Standard Score and Scaled Scores.
Percentile.
Age equivalents, e.g. reading age. 29

30. What do standardised tests tell us?
Confidence intervals/ranges/bands.
Score descriptions – consistency.
Composite scores.
Comparing scores from tests.
Observations during testing. 30

31. Action Don’t quote raw scores to parents.
Standard scores are preferred over percentiles and age equivalents.
Percentiles may be used to highlight a particular strength.
Use consistent confidence intervals throughout, e.g. 95%.
Use consistent score descriptors throughout. 31

32. Diagnostic Reports: Structure and Use
Interpreting and using reports.
Usual format.
Summary.
Background Information and test conditions.
Literacy attainment test scores and observations.
Cognitive test scores and observations.
Verbal, non-verbal, working memory, phonological awareness, processing speed.
Other.
Conclusions.
Recommendations.
Appendixes summarising test scores, etc.
References detailing tests used. 32

33. What has the process told us?
Comprehensive picture:
Current concerns (child’s/parent’s/teacher’s, etc.).
Response to previous intervention.
Adaptations already in place.
What the child knows.
Gaps in learning.
Learning strengths.
Learning weaknesses.
Need for further referral? 33

34. Signposting for further assessment
Specialist teacher.
Dyslexic characteristics and initial investigation into other SpLD, depending on individual knowledge.
Educational Psychologist.
Complex profiles, co-occurring difficulties beyond SpLD.
Social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.
SaLT
Articulation issues, delayed language, social communication issues.
SLI characteristics.
Audiologist.
Hearing or auditory processing issues. 34

35. Signposting for further assessment
Paediatrician/GP
Medical issues, including sudden motor coordination deterioration.
ADHD or autistic spectrum characteristics.
Developmental delay.
Mental health.
OT/Physio
Motor co-ordination.
Behavioural Optometrist
Difficulties with visual acuity/visual perception/tracking/squint/etc. 35

36. Choosing and Planning interventions
Identifying current need and minimising future risks (e.g. vocabulary development).
What is achievable?
Child view?
Who will be involved?
Need for further staff CPD?
Role of assistive technology?
‘What Works’ - Greg Brooks. 36

37. ‘A good indication of the severity and persistence of dyslexic difficulties can be gained by examining how the individual responds or has responded to well founded intervention.’
Rose Review 2009 37

38. Monitoring Progress What would progress look like for this child?
Child view.
Parent view.
Acquisition of literacy/maths skills (criterion referenced).
Progress on standardised tests.
If standardised scores do not increase is that still progress? 38

39. Where to find out more Lucid www.lucid-research.com
GL Assessment
Pearson 39

40. Further CPD 40