Graded Nonword Reading Test

A useful guide to best practice including reviews of the latest and most helpful tests available. In Part One, contributors discuss the theory of reading assessment including issues such as screening, legal aspects, memory and visual problems, computer based assessment and the dyslexias. Part Two contains the review section where experts give comprehensive reviews of named tests.

Reading with comprehension demands accurate word recognition, which depends crucially upon good phonological awareness and phonic skills. The Nonword Reading Test is an easy-to-use diagnostic test based on nonwords which conform to common and acceptable letter-sound correspondences. Nonwords are used because - in contrast to real words - they are equally unfamiliar to all pupils. They thus make a comparable demand upon all pupils. The use of regular word structures means that in order to produce the combined sound of letter strings, the pupil must use phonological decoding. The test therefore yields a measure that is independent of sight vocabulary, and provides a better and fairer assessment of the vital skills which underpin word recognition and functional literacy. Two equivalent Forms A and B allow you to assess progress over time. The Nonword Reading Test is an individual test for pupils aged from 6 to 16+, and takes just five to ten minutes to administer. At the earlier stages of learning to read, the test will help to identify pupils who are slow to establish phonological decoding skills. With dyslexic and older pupils who are reading below the level for their age, the test will help to define the extent of phonological problems and the special provision that such pupils are likely to require.

The book summarises research findings from a range of projects using a set of auditory and speech procedures designed for the psycholinguistic framework developed by Stackhouse and Wells (1997). These procedures have been used with children and adolescents with a range of difficulties associated with cleft lip and palate, dysarthria, dyspraxia, phonological impairment, Down syndrome, dyslexia, stammering, autism, semantic-pragmatic difficulties, general learning difficulties, and disadvantaged backgrounds. The procedures have also been used with normally developing children in the age range of 3-7 years. As a result, the book includes descriptions of typical performance on the procedures so that atypical can be identified more easily. In addition, as the materials were used in a longitudinal study of children’s speech and literacy development between the age of 4 and 7 years we can highlight which procedures will help in identifying children a) who are likely to persist with their speech difficulties and b) have associated literacy difficulties.

The Psychology of Dyslexia: A Handbook for Teachers Second Edition is a superb introduction to the psychology of dyslexia for teachers. New edition of a popular title that introduces the psychology of dyslexia - the most widely diagnosed special need in education - to teachers, teaching assistants and SENCOs Introductory topics include the description and definition of dyslexia, classroom observations, the history of the concept and the current relationship of SEN policy to practice In-depth coverage includes psychometrics, assessment of dyslexia, neuro-psychology, cognitive psychology, phonological development, models of reading and spelling and new research findings Package includes a CD-ROM of real case studies of children with a range of dyslexic and accompanying difficulties Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Children and adolescents with emotional and behavioural problems who are referred to mental health services for assessment often have undiagnosed mild learning disabilities, and this guide is written for clinicians involved in making such assessments. It provides full guidance on common developmental disorders and their assessment, focusing on mild to moderate disabilities in the school-aged child. It covers intellectual disabilities, dyslexia, dyscalculia (mathematical disability), autism spectrum disorders, speech and language impairment, developmental coordination disorder, and emotional and personality development. Each chapter includes an account of normal development, including developmental milestones, an overview of the disorder, and its clinical assessment. This important professional guide will be invaluable for all child health and mental health professionals and trainees, including paediatricians, psychiatrists, mental health workers, clinical psychologists and educational psychologists.

In long-ago 1999, the Dyslexia Institute and Plenum Press conceived a plan for two books which would gather the best of current knowledge and practice in dyslexia studies. This would benefit those—but not only those—many individuals who train with us, acquiring a postgraduate certificate and diploma with our higher education partner, the University of York. Since then, the century changed, the hinge of history creaked and Plenum was taken over by Kluwer Academic Publishers, but the first of the pair, Dyslexia in Practice, emerged quickly and on schedule (Townend and Turner, 2000). Written by staff and close associates of the Institute, its chapters were produced under close scrutiny and with the expedition of a command economy. To our delight, the book has seen a success which went beyond the dreams of its editors: it has been adopted by other courses similar to our own and is widely referred to. The same was never likely to be true of The Study of Dyslexia, which was envisaged as a theoretical companion volume written by authors and researchers of international repute. Nearly five years after the idea first took shape, this second volume now arrives to complete the enterprise, but it has been a very different project.

Recognizing the characteristics of children with learning disabilities and deciding how to help them is a problem faced by schools all over the world. Although some disorders are fairly easily recognizable (e.g., mental retardation) or very specific to single components of performance and quite rare (e.g., developmental dyscalculia), schools must consider much larger populations of children with learning difficulties who cannot always be readily classified. These children present high-level learning difficulties that affect their performance on a variety of school tasks, but the underlying problem is often their difficulty in understanding written text. In many instances, despite good intellectual abilities and a superficial ability to cope with written texts and to use language appropriately, some children do not seem to grasp the most important elements, or cannot find the pieces of information they are looking for. Sometimes these difficulties are not immediately detected by the teacher in the early school years. They may be hidden because the most obvious early indicators of reading progress in the teacher's eyes do not involve comprehension of written texts or because the first texts a child encounters are quite simple and reflect only the difficulty level of the oral messages (sentences, short stories, etc.) with which the child is already familiar. However, as years go by and texts get more complex, comprehension difficulties will become increasingly apparent and increasingly detrimental to effective school learning. In turn, studying, assimilating new information, and many other situations requiring text comprehension -- from problem solving to reasoning with linguistic contents -- could be affected. Problems with decoding, dyslexia, and language disorders have attracted more interest from researchers than have specific comprehension problems and have occupied more room in specialized journals. Normal reading comprehension has also been a favorite with researchers. However, scarce interest has been paid to subjects who have comprehension difficulties. This book is an attempt to remedy this situation. In so doing, this volume answers the following questions: * Does a reading comprehension problem exist in schools? * How important and widespread is the problem? * Is the problem specific? * How can a reading comprehension difficulty be defined and identified? * Does the "syndrome" have a single pattern or can different subtypes be identified? * What are the main characteristics associated with a reading comprehension difficulty? * When can other well-identified problems add to our understanding of reading comprehension difficulties? * Which educational strategies are effective in preventing and treating reading comprehension difficulties? * What supplementary information can we get from an international perspective?