Disability & Dyslexia Support

Students with long-term health conditions, mental health conditions, physical or sensory impairments, autistic spectrum conditions and SpLDs are all entitled to support and are encouraged to contact the Disability Team.

The university provides a screening service for students who are suspected of having a specific learning difficulty (SpLD) such as dyslexia. You may be referred to the disability service for this by a tutor or other member of staff, or you can complete our online screening tool yourself. This screening takes around 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

Following a positive screening, if you require a diagnostic assessment, you will be referred to CF Psychology to make the necessary arrangements. CF Psychology may have their own waiting list, and we cannot guarantee you will be able to be assessed immediately. You will not be required to pay for this, and assessments with CF Psychology take place online.

If you are arranging for your own assessment, you can choose any provider you like but you should check that your assessor holds a current practising certificate from their relevant professional body:

• practitioner psychologists registered with the HCPC,
• specialist teacher assessors with a current SpLD Assessment Practising Certificate.

If you arrange your own assessment, you will not be able to claim the costs back from the university.

Once a diagnostic report has been received you can use this to access support such as additional time in exams and to apply for Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA).

Our SpLD screening service can potentially pick up traits of ADHD and if this is the case, you will be referred to CF psychology for a full diagnostic assessment. Whilst an SpLD assessment with an educational psychologist can confirm you have these traits, it is not a diagnosis as such.  However, this would be perfectly sufficient in order to access support from the university, such as extra time in exams, and to be able to apply for Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA).

In order to obtain a medical diagnosis of ADHD, you would need to seek a referral to a specialist NHS service via your GP or look for a private medical assessment.  A medical diagnosis is not required by the university, as explained above, a diagnosis of SpLD is usually enough to access support in your studies.  However, if you feel you would like to explore treatment options such as medication then you would be required to have a medical diagnosis.

If you wish to explore whether you have autism, then we would encourage you to reach out to your GP, or look for a private medical assessment as we do not currently screen for this.

Applicants are advised to declare any disability, SpLD or additional needs on their application form so that we have the earliest opportunity to advise you of the support available and put any arrangements into place for you.

You are very welcome to contact the Disability Service before or during the application process to discuss your support needs.  You can, however, access support from the disability service at any point in your studies.  We do advise you to get in touch as early as possible so that we are able to ensure your support arrangements are in place when you need them.

For exam arrangements, we need to have any evidence to support your arrangements at least 6 weeks in advance of the exam to give us plenty of time to make the necessary arrangements.

In order to access support from the disability service, you’ll need to provide one of the following:

For a disability or long term health condition (including mental health difficulties)

A copy of a recent medical letter or document from GP, consultant, or other medical professional, which details the impact of your disability/health condition on your studies. You will also need this evidence to apply for DSA (see below). f you don't have any appropriate evidence, you can ask your doctor to fill out the Disabled Students' Allowances Disability Evidence Form(PDF), which we can also accept. You will also need the same type of medical evidence if you are applying for Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA).

For SpLD such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD

A copy of your most recent Educational Psychologist report diagnosing your SpLD.

Alternatively, students who do not have the above diagnostic report but who have a Form 8 dated within the last two years of their enrolment may submit this as evidence for eligibility for written examination arrangements only. Please note that we are limited in what type of support we can offer where a Form 8 is the only type of evidence and cannot guarantee we will be able to provide the same exam arrangements you may have had at school or college.  You are therefore advised to have a full diagnostic assessment in order to access all of the support you may be entitled to.  The university offers a screening service and can refer you for a full diagnostic assessment if required.

For full support such as access to one to one study skills and to apply for Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA) you will need a full diagnostic assessment report from a qualified educational psychologist, or specialist teacher/assessor.

If you are organising your own assessment, please check that your assessor holds a current practising certificate from their relevant professional body:

• practitioner psychologists registered with the HCPC
• specialist teacher assessors with a current SpLD Assessment Practising Certificate.

Advice and guidance from a disability adviser on the support available to you is available for you from the first point of application throughout your university life. Support can include the following:

• Reasonable adjustments to help you access the teaching, assessment and placement elements of your course.  Your individual reasonable adjustments will recorded on your Learner Support Plan and shared with relevant departments once you have given your consent.
• Examination arrangements such as additional time and rest breaks can be made for eligible students
• We can provide support for your application for Disabled Student’s Allowances (DSA) process.
• We will help you in setting up any one to one support such as tutoring, mentoring or other support workers.
• If you need a post-16 diagnostic report, or if you would like to explore the possibility that you have a specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia then we have a screening process after which we will arrange for a diagnostic assessment if appropriate.
• Various assistive technology is available to support you such as Text Help Read & Write (see below), as well as having Panopto lecture capture facilities.
• If you have any specific accommodation needs relating to your disability we can potentially reserve you an appropriately adapted room in our halls of residence. You are encouraged to declare your disability in your accommodation application and to contact the disability service at the earliest opportunity to ensure we are able to prioritise your needs.

Read&Write is a simple toolbar designed to help users understand, learn and express themselves with confidence. The software has a number of tools to help with learning such as reading text out loud, understanding unfamiliar words and proofing written work, as well as features supporting research and composition. These tools may be particularly useful for students with Specific Learning Difficulties or for those whose first language is not English, but anyone can potentially find it helpful. To access Read&Write on your device, follow these instructions on Canvas.

Students who have submitted relevant supporting evidence may be able to use the ‘reader’ function of Read&Write in their exams. This would need to be included as a recommendation on your Summary of Support Needs (SOSN). Please reach out to the Disability Service for further details.

You can also find additional information about accessibility features for commonly used software on Canvas.

Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA) is funding available to you through your funding body which provides support for you to enable you to access your course and o offset any disability related expenses.

• Find out more about DSA and how to apply.

Once your application has been accepted by your funding body you will be asked to attend a Needs Assessment. This is where you will have equipment and other support recommended for your individual needs.

Students who have submitted appropriate supporting evidence (see above) may be entitled to additional arrangements in exams.

Additional arrangements are recommended on a case by case basis but can include the following:

• additional writing time
• ‘stop the clock’ rest breaks,
• use of specialist equipment such as coloured overlays or ergonomic equipment
• scribes and/or readers
• large print exam papers
• use of Text help Read & Write software
• additional reading time for practical exams.

Watch this video for more information on how rest breaks work.

Further information can be found in the Additional Assessment and Examination Arrangements policy and procedures and the Frequently asked questions for additional arrangements in online exams.

Your information is very important to us. In order to provide relevant support, we will need to share your disability related information with some or all of the below contacts. We will only do this when you have signed a consent form. Limited consent may impact on the level of support that we’re able to arrange for you. Please speak to the Disability Service for further advice and information.

Teaching and support staff

You may require a ‘Summary of Support Needs’ (SOSN), which will recommend your reasonable adjustments. It will be sent to the course administrator or disability coordinator for your course so that they can ensure your needs are being met. The SOSN is shared on a ‘need to know’ basis so will not routinely be shared with all of your lecturers or tutors unless they need to know about any individual adaptations you require.

Examinations Service

We may need to inform the Exams Service what exam adjustments have been recommended for you.

Library Services

We can let the library know if you require any additional support e.g. extended library loans, loan of a laptop.

Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) funding provider (i.e. Student Finance England/NHS Bursaries/Other

We receive some of your DSA funding documents from your funding body, and may need to liaise with them to solve any DSA funding issues when required.

DSA Needs Assessment Centre

We usually receive your DSA Needs Assessment report directly from the assessment Centre and may need to liaise with them about your support when required.

Educational Psychologist, GP Practice/Consultant, CMHT/Psychiatrist

We will need to receive and keep on file diagnostic or medical evidence of your condition. It may sometimes be necessary to liaise with these services to make sure you’re fully supported but we would only contact these services with your consent or if we have safeguarding concerns.

Occupational Health/Health and Safety

We may liaise with Occupational Health if necessary about your support (please note however that your information is not routinely shared without your specific consent, so any documents you have submitted to occupational health will not have been shared with the disability service). We may need to liaise with the university Health & Safety team to coordinate Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans where required.

Professional Services Staff

It is sometimes necessary to liaise with colleagues in other teams to ensure we are fully supporting you.

e.g. student services, student systems, admissions.

Clinical Placement Staff

Where you have placement recommendations on your Summary of Support Needs (SOSN), we may share these with your placement provider to ensure they are aware of any support you may require.

External Providers of non-medical helper support (i.e. note takers, mentors, tutors)

We may need to send your DSA funding documents to the named providers, so they can set up your disability tutor, mentor, or support worker with minimal delay.

Accommodation Service

We may need to communicate information to the accommodation team about your living needs.

If you have a disability and would like additional support in the library, such as learning how to use the library or their facilities, you can contact the library team for a 1-2-1 induction.

There is an  Assistive Technology Room (ATR) at the St George's Library (Tooting Campus) with a range of assistive software packages, equipment and adaptive furniture. There is one bookable room with capacity for one person.

You can contact the team on library@sgul.ac.uk to register your interest in this. Please put ‘induction’ in the email subject. You can also follow the next link to find out about the various support services in the library.

If a student discloses a disability or SpLD to you, you could check first if they have a Summary of Support Needs (SOSN) which will detail any reasonable adjustments they are entitled to. If they don’t have a SOSN then they should be referred to the disability service to ensure that they are advised of all of the support available to them.

It is not always easy to identify a student with specific learning difficulties or dyslexia, but there are some common features which may alert you to this possibility. It is usually necessary to observe a student’s learning over time to see a pattern of difficulties. However, you may notice the following:

• a significant and noticeable discrepancy between verbal and written performance
• persistent problems with sentence structure, punctuation and organisation of written work – not due to educational background
• persistent or severe problems with spelling, even with simple or common words
• a tendency to consistently lose their place in reading, or in a diagram
• difficulty getting ideas on to paper
• poor or illegible handwriting
• an inability to identify or correct their errors in written work
• a tendency to forget things quickly and a weak working memory.

If at any point you are concerned that a student may have dyslexia/SpLD then please refer them to the disability service. We can run a screening for SpLD and if necessary will then refer them for a full diagnostic assessment. If the screening is negative the student will be signposted to more appropriate learning support to help them with their particular difficulties.

If you would like to discuss any of the above prior to making a referral please do contact the disability adviser who will be happy to help.

Any student who has accessed the disability service and is eligible for reasonable adjustments will have a Summary of Support Needs. This document is usually kept confidential, however, if it contains information that you will need to know in order to make your teaching sessions available then the course administrator or disability coordinator is responsible for passing this information to you.

Alternatively, the student themselves may give you a copy. Ideally your lectures and teaching sessions should be as inclusive as possible but there may be students who have individual reasonable adjustments, such as a deaf student who needs to lip read or a student who may need to leave the room regularly for toilet breaks which you may need to be aware of.

Making your teaching sessions more inclusive benefits all students, not just those who are disabled or who have SpLDs and reduces the need to make individual adjustments for students.

Some simple yet effective approaches are listed below.

• Making lecture notes and other material available at least 48 hours in advance. This allows students to prepare for lectures, read around the subject and contextualise what they are going to hear. This can make the process of note taking much easier.
• Recording lectures using Panopto: all students find access to recordings of lectures invaluable when it comes to revision. For many disabled students these recordings are even more important as it takes away the need to concentrate on taking notes during the lecture and allows them to listen to what is being said more carefully. For students with health conditions which affect their attendance, accessing recordings makes it much easier to keep up with work.
• Using a style guide when producing PowerPoints, handouts or other visual information. The British Dyslexia Association has a useful guide.
• Arranging for video content and online lectures to be captioned.

• The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in all aspects of Education.  It also places a duty on institutions to make 'reasonable adjustments' for students, to help them overcome disadvantages resulting from impairment. This duty is anticipatory, therefore the university is required to think ahead of possible barriers and make the necessary adjustments.
• The term ‘reasonable adjustment’ is wide ranging and there is no fixed definition of what constitutes ‘reasonable’.  Cases will be looked at on an individual basis and whether or not an adjustment is considered reasonable may depend on factors such as the impact it may have on other students, maintaining academic integrity, and resources.
• The overall aim of reasonable adjustments are to make sure that no one is disadvantaged or unable to access their course as a result of their disability or learning difficulty.   This can require flexibility in the way that courses are taught and assessed in order to ensure that everyone is given the appropriate opportunity to demonstrate their skills and knowledge.
• However, reasonable adjustments do not alter competence standards and there is no duty to make adjustments to such standards.  Therefore, if a skill or knowledge is considered to be a core competence of an academic programme there is no duty to make adjustments to accommodate a person with a disability. For example, if spelling drug names correctly is a competence standard, there should be no dispensation given to spelling mistakes due to dyslexia.  Similarly, if being able to demonstrate a particular clinical skill within a specific timescale is a competence standard then it would not be appropriate to offer any additional time for this.

Reasonable adjustments should:

• enable disabled students to demonstrate the required skills and knowledge
• ensure that disabled students are not disadvantaged as a result of disability or Specific Learning Difficulty
• be agreed and recommended via the disability service.

Reasonable adjustments should not:

• compromise fitness to practice requirements
• alter courses to the disadvantage of non-disabled students
• compromise the requirements of external bodies
• compromise academic standards.