Dyslexia Assessments for Looked-After Children: What Carers, Schools and Professionals Need to Know

When a looked-after child is finding reading, spelling or written work difficult, the adults around them often ask the same question: is this dyslexia, or is it explained by everything else that has happened in this child's life?

It is a fair question, and it does not have a simple answer. Children in care are not a single group. Each child brings their own history, their own strengths and their own pattern of learning. Some looked-after children will have dyslexia. Some will have literacy difficulties that are better explained in other ways. Some will have a combination.

The central message of this article is straightforward: a complex or incomplete history does not necessarily make a dyslexia assessment impossible. It does, however, make careful evidence gathering, professional judgement and multidisciplinary working particularly important.

Assessment is about more than test scores

A robust dyslexia assessment has never been simply a matter of giving a child some tests and reading off the scores. Standardised test results matter, but they are interpreted in context. Understanding the child's developmental, educational and literacy history is an important part of deciding what the assessment findings actually mean.

For a looked-after child, obtaining that history can sometimes be more complicated. There may have been changes of school, changes of placement, periods of disrupted education, or gaps in early developmental information. Records may be held in different places, and the adults who knew the child at five may not be the adults supporting them now.

Depending on the individual child and their circumstances, useful information may come from:

• •the child or young person themselves;
• •foster carers, kinship carers or other carers;
• •the school, including teachers and the SENCo;
• •the designated teacher for looked-after children;
• •the Virtual School;
• •the child's social worker;
• •Personal Education Plan (PEP) information;
• •previous schools and educational records;
• •previous assessments or reports;
• •and other professionals involved with the child, where appropriate.

Not every assessment will involve every source on this list. The point is that, for a child with a complex history, the evidence is often distributed across several people and several settings, and part of the assessor's job is to bring it together.

Not every assessment will involve every source on this list.

Trauma, disrupted education and dyslexia

Experiences such as disrupted schooling, changes of placement, inconsistent educational opportunities and trauma can affect learning and literacy development. A child who has missed significant teaching, or whose early experiences have affected their ability to settle, concentrate or feel safe in a classroom, may well be behind their peers in reading and spelling.

These factors need to be understood when interpreting an assessment. However, their presence does not automatically rule out an underlying specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia. A child can have experienced disruption and have dyslexia. Equally, literacy difficulties should not automatically be attributed to dyslexia without considering the wider evidence.

The purpose of the assessment is to understand the most plausible explanation for the child's particular pattern of strengths and difficulties. Sometimes the evidence will point towards dyslexia. Sometimes it will point elsewhere. Sometimes it will suggest that more than one thing is going on. All three outcomes are useful.

What if we do not have the child's full history?

Gaps in developmental or educational information are not unusual for some looked-after children, and they should not, on their own, prevent an assessment from being considered.

A careful assessor will establish:

• •what information is available;
• •what further information can reasonably be obtained, and from whom;
• •what the different sources tell us, and whether they tell a consistent story;
• •whether there is evidence of longstanding literacy difficulties;
• •whether other factors could help explain the difficulties;
• •and whether there is sufficient converging evidence to support a robust diagnostic conclusion.

Where important information is missing, that should be acknowledged rather than assumed. A responsible report will say clearly what evidence the conclusion rests on, and where uncertainty remains.

An initial discussion before assessment is arranged can be particularly valuable here. Talking through what is known, what is missing and who may be able to contribute helps everyone decide whether now is the right time, and how to make the assessment as useful as possible. You can read more about preparing for a dyslexia assessment and what information helps.

Why multidisciplinary working matters

Different adults often hold different pieces of a child's history. A foster carer may understand the child's current day-to-day learning — what homework looks like, how they approach reading at home, what frustrates them. A school may hold evidence about progress, intervention and how the child responds to support. Previous records may show whether literacy difficulties were present earlier in the child's education. Other professionals may provide relevant contextual information.

Bringing this evidence together can help the assessor build a much clearer picture than any single source could provide. For children with complex histories, good multidisciplinary working can be one of the most valuable parts of the assessment process.

It also means the assessment is more likely to result in recommendations the child can actually use, because they are grounded in how the child learns across settings, not just how they performed on one afternoon.

What can an assessment provide?

The purpose of an assessment is broader than obtaining a diagnosis. A good assessment can help identify:

• •areas of strength;
• •areas of difficulty;
• •patterns in literacy and underlying processing;
• •appropriate support and reasonable adjustments;
• •areas that may require further investigation;
• •and practical recommendations for school and for those supporting the child.

Where the evidence supports dyslexia, a diagnostic conclusion may be reached. Where it does not, the assessment may still provide valuable information about how the child learns and the support they require. You can read more about what a child dyslexia assessment involves and about the support available after an assessment.

An assessment should never be approached as a formality on the way to a predetermined outcome. Its value lies in understanding the individual child — and that understanding is useful whatever the diagnostic outcome.

Is a dyslexia assessment always the right starting point?

A specialist dyslexia assessment may be appropriate for many looked-after children where there is evidence of persistent literacy difficulties. It can help identify whether dyslexia is the most plausible explanation for those difficulties and, if so, what support is likely to help.

However, a dyslexia assessment will not necessarily be the most appropriate assessment in every case. Where a child's presentation or history is particularly complex, or where there are broader questions about learning, cognition, development or wider educational needs, assessment or involvement from an Educational Psychologist (EP) may sometimes be a more appropriate starting point.

This is not because being looked after, or having experienced trauma or disrupted education, automatically means an EP is required. It is because the right route depends on the individual child, the questions that need answering and the evidence already available. An EP may be better placed where the central questions are about general learning, cognitive profile or broader special educational needs, rather than specifically about literacy and dyslexia.

Defining Dyslexia is happy to have an initial conversation with a carer, school, social worker or other professional about the child's circumstances and the information available. Where a specialist dyslexia assessment does not appear to be the most appropriate next step, we will say so openly and discuss whether another professional or assessment route may be more suitable.

The aim is not to assess every child who makes contact. The priority is helping those supporting the child decide what type of assessment is most likely to answer the questions they have — and, where appropriate, to arrange the right assessment at the right time.

Deciding whether an assessment is appropriate

If you are a carer, social worker, SENCo, designated teacher or Virtual School professional wondering whether an assessment would be helpful for a particular child, an initial conversation is usually the best starting point.

That conversation can explore the child's current difficulties, the information already available, who else may be able to contribute, and whether the timing is right. Complex circumstances do not automatically prevent assessment — but the assessor must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to reach a responsible and defensible conclusion, and it is better to establish that before an assessment is booked than afterwards.

If you would like to talk it through, you are welcome to get in touch.