By I participated in the evaluation of this EU funded project run by Dyslexia Action which looked at trying to establish the best practises which are ‘language-portable’, that is can be transferred across a range of languages/situations, and others that are specific to a particular language or group of languages.
The aims of the project are to:
Try to establish a benchmark for qualitative tests for those countries that don’t have them.
Establish ways of working with dyslexia that are not purely language based.
To work to raise awareness of dyslexia.
There are several aspects associated with this project which I intend to share with you all over the next few posts as it is quite ‘meaty’.
One of the first areas tackled is the medical versus the social model of dyslexia; do we locate dyslexia within the individual- the medical model- so that there is something within the person that causes them to have difficulties or do we look at the increasing literacy demands of society as causing people to experience difficulties. The authors identify that neither model is really adequate and suggest that both limit the way that we understand and offer effective support.
They proffer the ICF (International Classification of Functioning) model which synthesizes the two suggesting that
“disability is always an interaction between features of the person and the features of the overall context in which the person lives ” (WHO 2002). They further state that
“A wide realisation of dyslexia and language related difficulties sets a difficulty with learning within a context: the learning environment is part of what must be considered”
if you’ve managed to stay with me over this post I’d be interested to hear what you think…
Thanks for letting me know how to log onto the Resources. I had expected to receive an email to let me know I could access these pages, as DA did make it clear you would not be able to do so until told. I have now successfully downloaded ALL the resources – a lot of reading material, but I’ll have a go!
If you log into the DA moodle you can access the resources until next Thursday (I think), otherwise I have saved copies of the resources.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of variation both between the different schools and within different courses/modules as to what adjustments can be made available, so it is difficult to be specific.
I have also participated in this pilot, but have yet to receive the resources, so found it quite difficult to follow without the resources in front of me. The ‘learning environment’ is of particular interest to me, as I am trying to adapt my recommendations in the Diagnostic Assessment to be relevant and practical. If I don’t have a clear picture of what is available to the student on their particular course or in their school, then my recommendations tend to be somewhat generic, which I would really like to improve. Any suggestions, particularly if you have had comments from students about what they would like to see made available to them?