DARE - Disability Access Route to Education

Applicants with Dyslexia must submit a full psycho-educational assessment, as specified below. Where information has been omitted from the report, applicants should request that the psychologist complete the ‘Psycho Educational Assessment Summary Sheet’.

• Cover sheet, including the student's name, date of birth, age at assessment, date of assessment, school, college or university attended, course (if relevant) and year of study.
• Introduction. Referral information; family, developmental and educational history; any relevant medical information and the student's perceptions of his/her challenges. Any previous assessments should be summarised. Where English is spoken as a second or additional language, details of the student's language history and current levels of competence should be included.
• Test behaviour, i.e. behaviour during the assessment that may have affected the results.
• General Level of Intellectual Ability. Measures of verbal and non-verbal ability should be reported. Profiles of scores should be discussed, with particular reference to any significant discrepancies between verbal and non-verbal ability.
• Cognitive Processing, including Processing Speed, Auditory Processing, Visual Short-Term Memory, Long-Term Memory, Receptive Language, working memory, Psychomotor Speed, Visual Processing, Auditory Short-Term Memory, Working Memory, Expressive Language Vocabulary, Perceptual Organisation and speed of processing. Where a full assessment of cognitive ability has been obtained, these may have been reported in the previous section. Performance in tests of motor control and/or attentional functioning may be included.
• Attainments in Literacy, including single word reading, non-word reading, text reading and reading comprehension. Results should cover qualitative analysis of errors, evidence of strategies being used, fluency, reading speed and ability to extract information from text. Information about spelling will come from a graded spelling test and from a piece of free writing, which will also yield information about ability to write grammatically, the complexity of sentence structures, the coherence of writing, use of vocabulary, writing speed and legibility of handwriting. Performance should be reported as standard scores and percentile points; age equivalent scores are not acceptable.
• Attainments in Arithmetic, should be included if the student has difficulties in this area.
• Attainments in Language, and if the student will have difficulty studying a modern continental language.
• Conclusion. It should be stated whether or not the student has a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) and whether their condition is disabling in the context of studying at second or third level. The effects of SpLD on the students' literacy and study skills should be outlined, taking account of compensatory strengths.
• Recommended Support. As students have an assessment of need on entrance to third level education, it is not necessary or appropriate to make detailed recommendations about technical support. A brief statement about the type of support which might help the student should be made here, particularly in relation to study skills tuition.
• Appendix, including a list of tests used in the assessment (with references) and scores achieved in these tests.
• Summary.

These guidelines are based on the ‘Report of the Department for Education and Science Working Group on New Guidelines for Assessment of Specific Learning Difficulties for Disabled Student Allowance by Dr Chris Singleton, University of Hull, July 2004. These were updated by the SpLD Test Evaluation Committee (STEC) (DFS Guidelines) for 2007/2008. A list of suitable tests is available from http://www.texticweb.com/patoss/downloads/STEC_DfESGuidelines_200708.pdf

Tests should be age appropriate in all cases.

Student’s personal statement should outline the impact of disability on their academic and educational experience to date.

Academic Reference provides background information on the student’s educational experience and can confirm challenges, stating the educational impact of disability and describing the need for any teaching and learning adjustments. This form also helps to determine appropriate supports at third level.

The candidate is eligible for consideration where the psycho-educational report states that attainment is at or below the 10th percentile/SS 81 in two literacy areas, and that there is a significant discrepancy with general ability.

Literacy difficulties should include two of the following: reading, reading comprehension, reading composite, reading speed, spelling, written expression, writing composite, writing speed, pseudoword decoding.