Digital Tool

In recent years, a growing number of students with dyslexia is entering higher education. To accommodate their learning, they can often apply for special resources and facilities. To be eligible for such arrangements, they have to submit proof of dyslexia. If students suspect they have dyslexia, but have not yet received a diagnosis, their reading and spelling skills still need to be assessed. However, in many countries there is a lack of dyslexia assessments that have been developed specifically for the adult population.

Furthermore, a consensus has not yet been reached on which skills individuals with dyslexia use to compensate for the deficit in phonological processing that (often) underlies their reading difficulties. It has been suggested that they use their relatively intact morphological and semantic skills in order to facilitate reading. Moreover, they have been argued to rely on larger linguistic units, such as syllables or onset and rime, to make up for their less robust connections between letters and sounds. So far, these hypotheses have only been studied in experimental settings, yielding mixed results.

Therefore, the aim of this PhD project is twofold. Firstly, we are developing a digital assessment tool to test (young) adults for dyslexia in Dutch and English, in order to fill the current gap in diagnostic materials. The tool is geared towards native speakers of Dutch and English, as well as second language speakers of English. The last target population makes the tool particularly useful in a (Dutch) higher education context, where many courses and programmes are taught in English. Since the assessment is digital, it can be completed without the help of a psychologist or speech and language therapist, and it is more portable than traditional pen-and-paper test batteries. Lastly, the tool can record more information than traditional tests, making it possible to determine underlying problem areas by analysing accuracy and reaction times on the word level and taking (psycho)linguistic properties into account.

The second aim of the project is to add to the theoretical knowledge on dyslexia. More specifically, we aim to determine the influence of a variety of (psycho)linguistic variables on the reading and spelling performance of Dutch- and English-speaking students with dyslexia. We want to discern the relative strengths and weaknesses of this population in order to improve the diagnostic process and the support offered during their studies. Furthermore, we will investigate the role of orthography in explaining the diverging previous findings in different languages. Finally, we will examine the influence of second language learning on the English performance of Dutch individuals with dyslexia by comparing them with native speakers with dyslexia.

This project is a part of the Idealab PhD programme in collaboration with Dr. Lisi Beyersmann of Macquarie University Sydney. The following people at the University of Groningen are involved in the project: