How do students with Dyslexia navigate their assessments? How can anxiety levels be reduced through multi-sensory processes and interventions?

IDI Research Network Seminar with presentation by Dr Susie Marriott

How do students with Dyslexia navigate their assessments? How can anxiety levels be reduced through multi-sensory processes and interventions?

Dr Susie Marriott

Senior Lecturer in Marketing & Personal and Professional Development.SpLD & Inclusion Co-ordinator within the Business School, Edge Hill University.

Over 134,000 students who entered higher education (HE) in 2021/2022 had dyslexia (HESA, 2023), a statistic that does not include students with non-disclosed dyslexia.

As an invisible disability (Cullen et al, 2019; Mullins and Preyde, 2013; Nalavany et al. 2013) dyslexia might not be immediately apparent to a tutor during teaching lectures and seminars but may become apparent when marking student assessments. As outlined by Ryder and Norwich (2018), tutors might not even be aware of the range of challenges faced by a dyslexic student to fully engage in their learning and associated anxieties that exist.

This talk will explore some of the literature surrounding this and from my own research, where interventions and use of multi-sensory techniques can help to break the cycle.

My research background through my PhD began with the use of audio feedback and feed forward over a decade ago linked to the ‘Sounds Good’ Project run by Bob Rotheram. This sparked an interest in findings linked to the progress of dyslexic students who used this to support their learning. Ultimately, this area of technology and dyslexia became my research area for investigation within the PhD.

Since then, I have also completed a PGCE SpLD (Dyslexia) at EHU which has given me practical understanding of what I explored in the PhD and regularly utilise multi-sensory study skills for dyslexic and non-dyslexic students, particularly first year students starting their academic journey at university through personal and professional development workshops. I am publishing in this area to further the debate.