DSA for dyslexia - what kind of help do they get.

[Lonecatwithkitten]

My DD had access arrangements for GCSE of 25% extra time and use of a laptop which being a 2020 student was only used for mocks. She then studied an OCR extended diploma where she was able to keep her logs as photos, vlogs and limited prose that she completed on her laptop. So whilst her access arrangements were in place she did not appear to formally use them.
She has a degree place and I am wondering what kind of help she can get.
She is very bright and has multiple coping methods - so often her difficulties are massively under estimated until she is assessed. In particular whilst she reads well she is very slow due to her processing - her course is a form of drama so there will be a fair number of scripts to read and learn.
I just want to make she gets the right support to ensure she is able truly reflect her abilities at Uni.

I was very surprised at both the DSA assessment interview and the one we had with the university disability team. Both were throwing support at DC - seriously we were turning them down at times. Given the complete lack of support and having to fight for things which were supposedly a given at school it is a big, big change.

DC was offered human help of mentoring as well as small exam rooms, prompter/reader, software to read text, software to record and transcribe, dictation software, coloured exam paper, oh gosh there was a lot! Laptop, printer, scanner, taxis, guaranteed accommodation for second and third year.

I supported my son through DSA process. Form and uploading evidence, GP appointment then in person assessment with DSA assessor (she said all her colleagues are trained to assess dyslexic students but often had a specialism - he is HI and she had been a teacher with hearing impaired students) As previous poster mentioned help is plentiful - he had nothing at school apart from quiet room for exams. College assessed him and qualified for 50% extra time. This assessment was part of the evidence we submitted.
DSA he was given extra time, a learning support plan to be read and implemented by all staff, note taker, library extension, laptop and bag (£200 contribution) software, printer, paper/ink allowance, radio mic and attachment for his hearing aid. Also supposed to have weekly session with specialist teacher of HI but he never managed to arrange this as there is a shortage.
I cannot fault the process but through my work I see the battle that parents whose children have more complex SEN have to get support and I feel guilty this came so easily!

I've been to a few unis over a long period of time.

From the DSA She will probably get a computer / laptop with specialist software loaded and training on its use she will have to pay £250 towards it but the computer and software will be worth much more. An allowance for things like printing if she needs to print on coloured paper.

The university is a bit hit and miss, I've had an English teacher who would go through essays with me to check the structure but obviously not help with the content. On the other hand I had one lecturer go to the student needs office to ask if I was actually dyslexic and ask to see my file, fortunately the office were more aware of data protection.

A tutor should be able to provide a 'cut down' reading list so if there are 20 books on the full list they should be able to highlight the most important 5 or 6.

She might also get a session or two with a tutor to organise things, big problem with dyslexics struggling with the lack of timetable.

She may get a note taker, some universities see note taking as a skill you need to learn, others don't. I had note takers some of the time but I have arthritis as well so note taking is a big problem for me.

Uni libraries also vary, some will allow you to take books out for longer, one uni had a 'white card' if you had a white card you could ask staff for assistance without them asking why you need it.

Most libraries will run sessions on note taking, using the library, how to do inter library loans, these are useful to all students but IMHO vital for dyslexic students.

When I'm teaching I make my notes available online for the students but a dyslexic student I might make it available the day before.

These days you are expected to do things like use your phone to photograph the board.

Fortunately lack of timetable is not one of the issues as her course is 30 contact hours per week. It is more help with slowness of processing - she already has a MacBook as she also needs video/ audio editing software so she really just needs appropriate software. I have read about 'read spell' and actually the ability for texts to be in audio as her auditory processing is excellent.
I have requested her access arrangements assessment ( a document I have never seen) school SENCO insisted on sending it direct the SENCO at college. I strongly suspect that the school were embarrassed that they had massively underestimated her needs and probably let her down by not providing support sooner. Still during Year 10 various teachers questioned her access arrangements failing to understand that she was constantly exhausted from pushing herself to keep up on class as her needs were not meet.
College by contrast have been amazing and by supporting her they have got so much back in having and engaged hard working student. Hopefully she can continued to be supported in a similar way. At school I didn't even know if she would apply to Uni she was so disengaged - she is already talking about a Masters in a particular area of her course.
I am also dyslexic and support didn't exist when I went to uni and I really don't want her to struggle like I did.

Just to say that reasonable adjustments e.g. extra time / rest breaks for exams, accessible formatting etc. don't depend on DSA. They would be organised by the university regardless of whether the student has DSA or not.

I also want to weigh in with the importance of registering with the Office for Students with Disabilities, whatever it may be called at your DD’s university. This is separate from DSA. At my uni, accommodations such as shortened reading lists, extra time on exams, a support person if necessary, etc are made through this office.

Importantly, a rep from the OSD attends each Mitigating Circumstances panel to make sure that proper procedures are being followed for registered students regarding any mitigations. At panels I have sat on, the overwhelming majority of the time the rep’s presence either has no impact ( because my School is on the whole good about honouring assessed disabilities) or a positive one.

It is very much to the student’s advantage to register with the service. But surprisingly often students do not register. They say they don’t want an unfair advantage, etc. That’s nonsense. The special arrangements merely level the playing field. If you probe gently you often find they are self conscious about being singled out from their friends, who sometimes accuse them of receiving special treatment. I am a huge supporter of the OSD for all who qualify and I recommend it to your DD most strongly.

DC's experience with DSA was as above - the assessment was all about what help they could offer her rather than her begging for it from school - a total turn around. She got a printer, an increased printing allowance from college, several reams of green paper and a chunky contribution to a Macbook and a lot of software plus training in how to use it. The assessor also contacted the college and got them to call her to discuss what they could do - gets a longer loan period from the library, own room, extra time and rest breaks in exams, extended deadlines for submitting assessments (says this is invaluable even if the work is done on time as she can submit a few hours later when the computer system isn't stuggling with last minute submissions) and is allowed to record all lessons and lectures etc.

DSA also paid the upgrade costs for an ensuite room as DC has IBS - would not have thought of that myself but MNetters told me to get her to apply for it and it was given as soon as DSA had the doctors letter.

OP

Has DD used mind maps and /or Cornell note taking? They are both worth looking at. I don't get along with Cornell but mind mapping is good and I have software that will change it to an essay plan.

Cornell is about making accurate notes - the link bellow is a good illustration.

coachingleaders.co.uk/cornell-note-taking-method/

This is really useful to read. DD3 almost certainly has dyslexia - managed ok at first at secondary school, other health issues took priority during GCSEs, and then I tried unsuccessfully throughout her A level course to get her 6th form college to agree she needed assessing. Most of the time the senco didn’t even answer my emails, I’m still pissed off.

She finished school last year, didn’t want to apply for DSA then, went to uni and had a 35 minute assessment which said her results were consistent with dyslexic traits, and that this would be enough for extra time, streamlined reading lists, etc. Anyway, she then left there in January and is going elsewhere this autumn. She has ticked the student finance box to apply for DSA this year but I’m not sure whether she’s done anything else yet. Will be coming back to this thread!

Sorry to jump in here, but can anyone explain in really simple terms what I can do to support my son. He’s currently sitting his ALevels and has a place at uni (Computer Science) for Sept. He currently gets 25% extra time and is allowed a laptop in exams (he has dysgraphia).

I have encouraged him to look into continuing this at uni, but he says he doesn’t want to as he wants to feel ‘normal’. He says he doesn’t feel the need for DSA as he already has a laptop.

What benefits would there be to applying for DSA. When do you do it? Is it too late when he gets to uni? What if he suddenly feels he needs extra time again?

Watsername contact the disability support team at uni - they are the ones who would implement things like extra time independently of DSA.

Have you applied for student finance yet?

Mind mapping is not great if your disorder is primarily a visual processing disorder. She learns mainly via auditory route recording stuff and listening to it.

Yes, we have already applied for Student Finance.

The way I talked to my DD it's not about being normal or abnormal, it's about getting the support to achieve your full potential because this is the rest of your life.

My d's hasn't really used much of the software but the time extensions and being able to keep books for longer at the library have been a big help. Some grammar mistakes get overlooked too due to get dyslexia. She's got a first, carnivorous of her as it was in hIstory which obviously does require lot s of reading and writing. She only got diagnosed at the end of first year of A levels and then had to pay for a private assessment in her uni city which they reimbursed.

I thought I would come back to this having finally seen the access arrangements document.
I always knew her CAT scores and faced a multitude of teachers telling me she didn't want to push herself as they are high. No wonder no one ever wanted to discuss the access arrangements with me her processing scores are in the bottom 2% of standardised scores. It makes me so angry that I had to beg for her to be moved down a set in maths and English as she would come home and cry about how she struggled to keep up. I was made to feel a terrible parent for making her be at the very top of a set rather than the bottom of the one above. Again I had to beg for her to be allowed to give up French - frankly however, they thought she would cope when her scores for processing her own language were so low I don't know,
Thank you everyone for giving me hope that she will finally get the support she needs rather than having to struggle along exhausting herself. The document has been up loaded to DSA and I have briefed her that this is the time to be really honest about how hard stuff is.

I also could have cried when post16 college assessed him as needing 50% extra time. I felt I’d missed this and should have asked about it. He needed the time to process too.
DSA has been great - he found out he got a 2:1 last week and this week got a job this week. It was a great support in his course. It also made him realise he needs and could ask for reasonable adjustments in this new job too.
Best wishes for the process and then uni!

I've just finished a degree as a student diagnosed with dyslexia (and later autism) through the course of the studies. I'm also a parent to a child with multiple additional needs... the DSA system compared to the school SEN system is like night and day - instead of having to fight tooth and nail for every scrap of support - they throw it at you!

To give you some idea (I've got a very spikey profile - read fine, don't retain information and process written text very well) I had provided:
Would have had access to a laptop but I had my own that met the specs (and everyone on my course did have endless bother with the DSA laptops)
Dragon dictate
Sonocent audio notetaker - records the lectures alongside you making notes and powerpoint slides
Read and Write gold - text to speech and various other bits of it (I used the collect highlighted bits function a fair bit analysing interview data for my dissertation)
Medincle - because my course had a lot of anatomical content I had this which basically imported a lot of medical terminology into my auto correct dictionaries so things had more of a chance of being spelt correctly
Also things like a decent headset with mic to use for dictation, battery pack to charge my phone if I was using that to record lectures and I turned down a lot of other stuff. I also had an hour a week mental health mentoring support and could have had a study skills tutor if I wanted to take it up - but the ones on offer really didn't have a clue with the areas I was specifically struggling with (learning phonetic transcription with all the rotated symbols etc is fun with dyslexia) so I passed up that one.
Plus exam extra time in a smaller room - once I was diagnosed with ASD I was also offered access to things like stop the clock time-out breaks if I needed them - but it was kind of pointless as by then I was past the exam-oriented part of the course and my final year was continuous assessment based!

I thought I would come back and update with the end result.
After a faff getting the right assessment to apply she got her virtual appointment.
She will be supplied with dictation software both for her laptop and phone, additional grammar software and Microsoft office - her current laptop exceeds their spec so there is no point replacing. An App for her phone to assist with organisation. A printer installed and insured by them. £150 towards ink and paper. And the very best be 45 hours of student support a year, that will be increased in her final year to assist with her dissertation.
After years of just being expected to cope she can't believe it. She final feels that someone understands just how hard she finds the academic side.

Sounds like my dd. She was only assessed at the end of y12. And then had an official assessment when she got to uni. She had money for printing, a tutor she could contact ( not sure she ever used this though) a laptop ( had to pay the first £200 herself) that they loaded some special software on and then a talking pen. And of course time extensions , which particularly came in for short loan library books.

Seen your update, that's great news.

I appreciate this thread is a little old but I’m wondering if we should pay for the full dyslexia diagnosis assessment before uni or wait until she gets there if uni will fund it? My dd 17 has screeners from a local company plus she has had the school assessor award 25% extra time due to slow processing. Got place at uni starting sept 23.

Make enquiries with the universities she is interested in to check if they will find it. Not all do. Be aware that some universities have a long waiting list if they have their own preferred assessors. Others ask you to find the assessor and either part fund or you fund.
Timelines are important as an assessor will need a week or two to write the report and your child will need to go through a further needs assessment interview as part of the process. Assessors can get booked up ahead of time too.
If seeking an assessor yourself, try the PATOSS website and look for one with APC or an HPC registered Ed psych.

Dd didn't get any financial support but had use of the accessibility team to assist with adapting the tasks, extra time etc. she didn't really need much though, just the extra time, if they have made it to degree level generally they have learned coping mechanisms

Thankyou both- I think I’ll look into getting it done over the next few months before she goes