Dyslexia, struggling with reading, concentration and grief

[quandry101]

My youngest daughter is in year one at uni. She has just gone back to uni. She was home for much longer than the normal Christmas break as her dad, my amazing husband died around 3 months ago.

She’s managed to make an amazing group of friends, although most do go home for weekends atm. She will be living with them next year, so socially she is reasonably happy.

She is dyslexic. And is really struggling with the reading content. She’s also struggling with concentrating. And has only gone to one lecture this week where she said nothing made sense.

I’m in the midst of arranging some grief counselling for her. She has a history of anxiety.

I am going to be making contact with the uni next week to see what support they can provide.

She has access to read and write gold, but probably needs some support to use it.

Any ideas what else I can do to help her, or any reading strategies that have helped other dyslexics?

The poor love & you too. Is she registered for DSA support through Student Finance? That would give her a proper assessment along with specialist software, access to a mentor etc.

My own DD was determined to do things her way and has a study support plan in place with her uni, (without the DSA support) which was put in place by her College student welfare team. This has opened up a range of measures to help her, which in turn boosted her confidence.

Yes she has DSA. She’s been very reluctant to take up the additional support - she sees it as “cheating”. I’m going to talk to the uni (with her agreement) on Monday. Hopefully they can get in touch with her to encourage her to use the support

In my professional life I find that a lot of people wrongly share your DD's view & find it hard to accept that it's levelling the playing field. DD sat her first exam with additional time and rest breaks after Christmas and it made an enormous difference. She also has flexibility on deadlines built into her timetable, the option to record lectures and access them online and her timetable is spaced out to avoid multiple deadlines within the space of hours.

Sorry to hear your daughter is struggling so much. She should have received some training hours with her DSA award for her Read and Write, do you know if she has taken them up yet? The learning support department should be able to help her arrange that and also give her some additional training if required. It's a great package and it would be a shame if she didn't get as much as she could out of it. There's some good training videos by Texthelp on YouTube as well that you could look at together.

That's good that you are going to discuss her study skills support as well.

Regarding lectures, does she have permission to record them and was this mentioned her Needs Assessment Report? Again, that might be a good thing to discuss with her and her adviser at the university. That might be helpful for her so she can go back over the information in her own time. There's apps such as Glean for recording on phones or laptops, or perhaps something like a recording pen?

Thinking of you and your daughter. xx

Hi, OP -

I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your DH and your DD’s beloved father. Dealing with this on top of her dyslexia is like pouring fuel on a fire.

As someone who has sat on Mitigating Circumstances Panels I am glad to hear your DD has DSA but concerned that she, like many students, regards it as ‘cheating’. When you talk with these students, often their deeper concern is that there may be a sense of stigma attached to the use of DSA aids, especially extra time in exams, taking exams in isolation, and aides in lectures - things that mark them out. Maybe your DD shares that concern?

It is intelligent to use all the tools you are entitled to. The panels I sat on took a dim view of students who had access to these tools and did not use them, then panicked.
That view was led by our university’s DSA team.

Your DD’s stress (eg only attending one lecture and not understanding it) is hugely sympathetic. You probably know this already, but parental bereavement is amongst the gravest and most uniformly accepted of Mitigating Circumstances (as always, evidence is required) at minimum for the year of the bereavement. Best wishes to your family

Does she have a personal tutor? They can signpost her to student support and help negotiate any deadline extensions or other access arrangements.

Thank you all. She’s suffered with anxiety for many years, and indeed delayed uni for a year due to quite a major surgery she had late 2020.

I’m really pleased she’s opened up and said early on she’s struggling and is open to me engaging the uni, and is willing to speak to a counsellor. It’s a huge step for her and I hope that because she is willing she’ll be open and take on any advice/support a whole lot easier than she normally would have.

We lost her dad, having watched him fight so hard to stay against a brutal cancer that took him from us 9 months from what was initially staged as an early cancer and she was so brave and mature throughout. On top of everything else, she’s just a little bit broken so I’m so pleased she’s asking for help

I will ask her about her personal tutor. I don’t think she met with anyone one-on-one last term.

I think 100% she sees the extra support as she is getting an advantage. I’m hoping that talking this aspect through with someone other than me will help her resolve this.

Explain to her not tapping into the additional support she is entitled to because of her spld means she is giving the other students an advantage. The help is there to level up!

OP,

That your DD is willing to accept counselling is huge. I also wondered whether she has good rapport with her personal tutor? That can make a big difference.

Your family’s experience with the horrid disease that will touch almost all of us one way or another sounds particularly awful and again you have my deepest sympathy

I’ve just seen that perhaps your DD had no 121 meeting with a PT last term.

I think each UG in the UK should have a PT, sometimes called an Academic Adviser or similar. It is a national trend to provide more personal attention and most universities aim to provide a minimum of one 121 meeting per term.

Could your DD have ducked this in her grief? Again, very understandable. But it is important to inform her PT of her bereavement and get them on her side. Email is fine. They can be an important resource.

I’ve a feeling she may have avoided the 1-2-1s. It is definitely something I am going to follow up on

Dd is in her second year and only seen hers 2 or 3 times by zoom.

@LIZS -

I suppose Zoom is the COVID safe version of a face2face meeting. Three mtgs to date sounds like once per term, is that right? I don’t really think Zoom is a great substitute for human contact but everyone is doing their best to stay safe. It is a tricky balance

Does your DD think it adequate?

Not really, I think she hoped it might be in person last term as lectures, tutorials etc are f2f, but not so far. He was useful in giving her permission to move back into halls due to personal circumstances when travel restrictions applied last January.