Abstract
For languages other than English there is a lack of empirical evidence about the cognitive profile of students entering higher education with a diagnosis of dyslexia. To obtain such evidence, we compared a group of 100 Dutch-speaking students diagnosed with dyslexia with a control group of 100 students without learning disabilities. Our study showed selective deficits in reading and writing (effect sizes for accuracy between d = 1 and d = 2), arithmetic (d≈1), and phonological processing (d>0.7). Except for spelling, these deficits were larger for speed related measures than for accuracy related measures. Students with dyslexia also performed slightly inferior on the KAIT tests of crystallized intelligence, due to the retrieval of verbal information from long-term memory. No significant differences were observed in the KAIT tests of fluid intelligence. The profile we obtained agrees with a recent meta-analysis of English findings suggesting that it generalizes to all alphabetic languages. Implications for special arrangements for students with dyslexia in higher education are outlined.
Highlights
An increasing number of students with dyslexia enter higher education, most likely due to better assessment, guidance and remediation in primary and secondary education [1,2]
All data were first checked on normality and equality of variance between groups
The data were analyzed with the nonparametric Mann-Whitney-U test and converted into the appropriate d-value by means of the equation given in Field ([61], p. 530 on how to transform a U-value into an r-statistic) and an equation to derive the d-value from the r-statistic
Summary
An increasing number of students with dyslexia enter higher education, most likely due to better assessment, guidance and remediation in primary and secondary education [1,2]. This creates a need for information about the characteristics of these students and the best ways to support them. Higher education differs significantly from primary and secondary school. There is a need for scientific evidence about the cognitive profile of students with dyslexia in higher education, for non-English speaking countries. There are a number of manuals about adult dyslexia and dyslexia in higher education (e.g. [6,7,8]), which contain valuable information for students with dyslexia and their counselors and tutors, but they mainly base their information and recommendations on clinical and educational practice and they focus on the state of affairs in English-speaking countries
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