Cognitive profile of higher education students with dyslexia Wim Tops Maaike Callens Marc Brysbaert

Issue More students start higher education with a diagnosis of dyslexia Little is known about this group, except for the assumption that they have worse reading and writing skills Is particularly true for non-English speaking countries

Issue Need for clarification, guidelines, and regulations No general standards for compensatory measures based on scientific evidence

Issue There is little solid advice about how students can optimize their studies Manuals based on clinical and educational practice rather than empirical evidence Nearly all focus on English orthographic depth differences in educational policies

A new study 200 first bachelor students Dutch native speakers Normal or corrected to normal vision Allows us to find effect sizes from d = .4 These are effect sizes that start to require special arrangements

Participants 100 students with assessment of dyslexia Both university and non-university Mean age Comorbidity was no exclusion

Participants Diagnosis of dyslexia based on 3 criteria according to the Dutch Dyslexia Foundation (SDN, 2008) Clinical scores on word reading and/or spelling Resistance to instruction Exclusion

Participants 100 controls With no known neurological or functional deficiencies Matched on field of study, age and gender

A new study Tests IQ (KAIT: fluid vs. crystallized intelligence) Speed of processing (selective attention and task switching) Word reading (one minute test in Dutch and English) Nonword reading (one minute)

A new study Tests Test for Advanced Reading and Spelling Various STM spans Phonological awareness (spoonerism & reversals) Rapid naming (various stimuli) Vocabulary Text reading (aloud) Text comprehension (visual and auditory presentation) Word spelling English word spelling Arithmetic (four operations)

Tests

Tests

Tests

Tests Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI; Lacante & Lens, 1999) Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Hoekstra, Ormel, & de Fruyt, 2007) based on the big five Extraversion Neuroticism Agreeableness Openness Conscienciousness

Results There are no differences in fluid intelligence (d = .1). Dyslexic students are slower than controls in processing speed but they do not make more errors (d = .1). Except for phonological short-term memory (d = .6), memory spans are quite comparable (d < .4).

Results There is considerable dyslexia cost for arithmetic (d ≈ 1), which tends to be larger for divisions and multiplications than for subtractions. There is a considerable cost (d ≈ 1) for phonological processing due to the speed of processing, not to the accuracy of processing. There are no differences in the personality and study strategies inventory.

Results Sentence level did not add anything to word level L2 processing did not add anything Nonword naming did not add anything (language-specific?)

Optimising assessment protocols Two sessions of 3 hours What’s the minimum we need for good assessment? Hatcher et al. (2002): About 95% of the students could be classified correctly on the basis of four tests only: spelling, word reading, verbal short term memory, and writing speed.

Optimising assessment protocols Classification with 10-fold cross validation resampling method (Kuhn, 2008) 3 variables: 91% prediction Dutch word reading, Dutch word spelling phonological awareness task (reversals time)

Conclusions Despite the differences in language and educational context, our findings are remarkably similar to those in English. The pattern of strengths and weaknesses of students with reading disabilities is very much the same in Dutch. This is good news, because it indicates that the profile is applicable to most alphabetical languages.

Conclusions Dyslexic students particularly fail in processing speed, not in accuracy. They did not make many more errors in reading and other tasks, except for writing. Students with dyslexia tended to perform better on the text comprehension test when the text was read out. Three tasks captured all systematic variance in our study

A practical guide

A practical guide Much attention for legibility rather easy writing no citations resumé in bullets Relevant topics for HE students Tips and trics to increase chances for academic success

Content What is dyslexia? When does someone have dyslexia? What causes dyslexia? How to recognize dyslexia? How to diagnose dyslexia? Does dyslexia influence study skills? Do students with dyslexia have problems with writing?

Content Does dyslexia influence foreign language learning? Is there a relation between dyslexia and personality? How do students with dyslexia perform in higher education? Which compensations are helpful for students with dyslexia?

How do students with dyslexia perform in higher education Same chance for academic success Longer study duration More chance for change of study field Same factors predict academic success What can help? Better information special attention for study choice process Insight in own strenghts and weaknesses Awareness about the importance of good study skills

Which compensations are helpful for students with dyslexia? Made to measure and not one size fits all Few evidence-based compensations but: more time (30%) Use of a calculator Use of laptop with spelling checkers and/or text-to-speech software Active involvement of all partners increase chances to success!

Thanks for your attention! Contact w.tops@rug.nl