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Identifying dyslexia at the university : Assessing phonological coding is not enough
Ottosen, Helle Fredslund Bønnerup, Katrine H. Weed, Ethan Parrila, Rauno
Ottosen, Helle Fredslund
Bønnerup, Katrine H.
Weed, Ethan
Parrila, Rauno
Abstract
A dyslexia diagnosis in Denmark can have significant consequences for individuals, as support is not available to others with reading difficulties. Currently, the diagnosis is given solely on the basis of an electronically administered test consisting of two tasks assessing grapheme-phoneme correspondences. To examine whether the Danish diagnostic test is sufficient to identify university students with dyslexia, we compared the performance of 239 Danish university students who reported literacy difficulties and were tested for dyslexia with the Danish diagnostic test on three word-level tests (low-frequency word reading, high-frequency word reading and spelling to dictation) with the performance of separate control groups for each test: 220, 212 and 218 students, respectively. The results showed that 61% of students labelled “not dyslexic” by the Danish diagnostic test performed significantly worse than controls on at least two out of three word-level tests. In terms of self-report of literacy difficulties, students labelled “not dyslexic” by the diagnostic test were indistinguishable from those labelled “dyslexic.” These findings suggest that the current method of diagnosing dyslexia in Denmark is too narrow and that adding a few simple tests of word reading and spelling would minimize the risk of overlooking students in need of literacy support.
Keywords
diagnosing dyslexia, literacy difficulties, self-report, university students, word-level difficulties
Date
2022
Type
Journal article
Journal
Annals of Dyslexia
Book
Volume
72
Issue
1
Page Range
147-170
Article Number
ACU Department
Faculty of Education and Arts
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Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled