Most Effective Method - How to Identify Dyslexia

Around the world, clinicians and educators identify dyslexia using widely varying methods, a recent international comparison shows (Sadusky et al., 2022). That diversity troubles some researchers. Without a consensus on how the condition is identified, are practitioners missing some diagnoses? If so, students may be missing out on potentially life-changing interventions. 

In a 2021 study published in Learning Disability Quarterly, researchers addressed the urgency. Study authors wrote, “If a child who is at risk is not identified (false-negative error), the detection of risk is delayed during a period when reading instruction may be most effective, leading to a lifetime of academic difficulty for the student, with potential negative economic and social consequences.”  

What do dyslexia researchers have to say about how to identify dyslexia? Here’s a brief overview. 

1. Start with a universal screener. A universal dyslexia screener can tap those students who are at risk for the condition so that a more thorough evaluation can take place as early as possible. It’s important to look for a single screener that targets the specific skills that predict dyslexia risk. Using lots of different screeners can actually lead to less accurate scores, researchers say (Fletcher et al., 2021).
2. Assess with a developmentally appropriate tool. Oral language skills, pre-reading skills, and reading skills develop at different ages. That means a dyslexia test needs to measure the right skills at the right developmental stage. For initial screening, some dyslexia specialists recommend assessing students with language difficulties at the end of preschool (Remien & Marwaha, 2022).

   The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) suggests these time frames: 

   • • In kindergarten and early first grade, focus on pre-reading skills such as language skills, phonological awareness, memory, and rapid naming. 
     • In the second half of first grade and thereafter, expand assessment to include early word reading, decoding, and spelling. 
3. Ensure that the assessment tool measures key abilities that point to dyslexia. Identifying dyslexia isn’t as simple as measuring a single cognitive deficit, researchers say (O’Brien & Yeatman, 2021).  That may be because dyslexia is a brain-based condition that can be influenced by lots of different environmental factors.

   Students with dyslexia usually have difficulty with phonological processing. But the condition can also affect a variety of other reading skills and linguistic factors, such as  

   • • rapid automatized naming; 
     • auditory working memory; 
     • orthographic processing; 
     • reading accuracy; 
     • oral reading fluency;  
     • comprehension; 
     • vocabulary; and 
     • spelling.

   An effective assessment that’s been validated for dyslexia tracks each of these factors so you can put together a complete picture of the child’s abilities. Learn more about dyslexia characteristics at different ages in this free infographic. 

4. Rule out or identify co-occurring conditions that could also cause problems with decoding, spelling, and fluency. Some students with developmental language disorder experience reading difficulties, and neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD and other learning disabilities can also overlap with dyslexia (Hendren et al., 2018). It takes time, patience, and skill to isolate and identify dyslexia when people have several conditions at once. 
   
   
5. Select a dyslexia assessment flexible enough to be used for both diagnostic and progress-monitoring purposes. Dyslexia is a brain-based difference. Evidence-based instruction and personalized interventions can lower dyslexia’s impacts, but some differences may outlast even the most robust interventions. Progress monitoring can help you see whether a student is responding—an important factor in identifying dyslexia (Miciak & Fletcher, 2020).
   
   
6. Include information from a variety of sources. A single test can’t reveal everything there is to know about a student. Interviews with parents and teachers; classroom observations; academic progress reviews; data from validated, dyslexia-specific assessment tools—and, crucially, conversations that explore the lived experience of the student—taken together, are the most effective way to identify dyslexia.

Read more about how to conduct comprehensive dyslexia and reading evaluations.

This process may sound like a tall order, especially given the number of students in your care. Here’s the good news: When competent, caring practitioners accurately identify dyslexia using these principles, they are simultaneously gathering information needed to build an instructional plan tailored to the individual student.   

That’s how a world of change is made: one individual student at a time. 

DYSLEXIA RESOURCES 

Further Reading on Dyslexia  

• Challenges in Testing for Dyslexia 
• Are Your Dyslexia Assessments Falling Short? 
• What to Know About Dyslexia’s Comorbidities 
• How Do You Choose the Right Dyslexia Assessment for Your Student? 
• Is Pandemic Fallout Still Affecting Assessments? 
• Six Key Messages from NASP’s Position Statement on Identifying SLDs 
• How to Assess the Five Components of Reading This School Year 
• How to choose the best Dyslexia assessments for your students 

Check Out our Dyslexia Webinars 

• Best Practices in Dyslexia Assessment  
• Dyslexia 101: Understanding Dyslexia and Its Impact on Reading, Spelling, and Self-Esteem 
• Challenges in Assessing Dyslexia
• Introduction to the Tests of Dyslexia (TOD™) 

 
Check out our Dyslexia Assessment Toolkit  

https://www.wpspublish.com/dyslexia-assessment-tool-kit 

Do you have questions? Check out our Dyslexia FAQs 

• Tests of Dyslexia (TOD™)
• Dyslexia Assessment Challenges
• Dyslexia Intervention  
• Dyslexia Assessment Best Practice 

Research and Resources:

Fletcher, J. M., Francis, D. J., Foorman, B. R., & Schatschneider, C. (2021). Early detection of dyslexia risk: Development of brief, teacher-administered screens. Learning Disability Quarterly, 44(3), 145–157. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731948720931870 

Hendren, R. L., Haft, S. L., Black, J. M., White, N. C., & Hoeft, F. (2018). Recognizing psychiatric comorbidity with reading disorders. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9, 101. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00101  

International Dyslexia Association (n.d.). Testing and evaluation. https://dyslexiaida.org/testing-and-evaluation/ 

Miciak, J., & Fletcher, J. M. (2020). The critical role of instructional response for identifying dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 53(5), 343–353. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219420906801 

O'Brien, G., & Yeatman, J. D. (2021). Bridging sensory and language theories of dyslexia: Toward a multifactorial model. Developmental Science, 24(3), e13039. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13039 

Remien, K. & Marwaha, R. Dyslexia. (2022). In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557668/ 

Sadusky, A., Berger, E. P., Reupert, A. E., & Freeman, N. C. (2022). Methods used by psychologists for identifying dyslexia: A systematic review. Dyslexia, 28(2), 132–148. https://doi.org/10.1002/dys.1706.