AUA Blog

Opinions on Dyslexia: a label to get you off the hook?

I am sending a post on the blog in response to the article in last Friday's (1 June 2007) AUA News Digest on Dyslexia: a label to get you off the hook? by Pete Bee.  I found the comments by the author and subjects interviewed unfair and prejudicial.  How can this be justified?  There are a vast number of students within HE who do not receive a formal diagnosis of a disability until they start their studies and are therefore quite vulnerable.  From personal experience of living with a disability, I find that those students who declare a disability or medical condition on their UCAS application form genuinely do so because they feel that they don't want to be disadvantaged during their studies and I think this article will now see students wishing not to declare their disability upon their application.  I think the same may go for disabled administrators should they apply for positions within HE institutions.  Having not received a formal diagnosis of my disability until my teens, I can emphathise with those in a similar situation as myself who may have a condition which has gone undiagnosed.   Fortunately, this has not disadvantaged me within both my university studies and HE administrative career.  Should the student be diagnosed with or declare a disability, they are entitled to apply for Disabled Student Allowance to assist with their studies and not be placed at a disadvantage as a result of their disability.  However, students who wish to apply for this have to provide medical evidence of their disability or medical condition as part of the application process such as a report from a psychologist, psychiatrist or even evidence of Statement of Special Educational Need (England/Wales)/Record of Need (Scotland).  Therefore, how can the author justify stating that students use dyslexia as an excuse to succeed in their studies.

What the psychologist doesn't realise that there are more dyslexic people because of better diagnostic techniques, better awareness of the condition and more tactful attitudes towards disabled people.

Finally, it is ironic that this article was written by an educational psychologist, the very 'professional' who is supposed to diagnose and advise potential university students about how to handle their medical condition or special educational need.  Therefore, the author needs to get their facts straight before prejudging this.

Thank you.

 

Workload capacity planning models

Do any colleagues work in departments using workload capacity planning models?  If so I would welcome information about them - how they work (e.g. activities covered, tariffs allocated to different activities, etc.), how effective they are thought to be (both from a management perspective and from the perspective of staff whose portfolios are planned using them), and how well they are accepted within the institution.  I am interested in trying to deploy such a model to deal with growing pressures to take on ever more activity in a situation where resources are tight.

Bruce Nelson

University of Edinburgh

d.b.nelson@ed.ac.uk