Support beyond an assessment
A dyslexia assessment answers one specific question, and answers it thoroughly. Sometimes what emerges during an assessment suggests that a different kind of professional input would also be useful. This page explains those roles honestly, so you know what you would be asking for.
The principle
Most people who have an assessment need nothing more than the recommendations in their own report, applied well. Some benefit from specialist teaching, and a smaller number from input that sits outside dyslexia assessment altogether.
Diagnostic dyslexia and SpLD assessment, access arrangements assessment, SEN consultancy and SENCo cover, staff training, and post-assessment advice about the findings and recommendations.
Speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, educational psychology, ADHD or autism diagnosis, ongoing specialist tuition, eye care, and other specialist support.
Explaining which profession answers which question, and pointing you towards the right kind of service. It is not a referral, a recommendation of a named provider, or a guarantee of anything.
Professional routes
Deliberately brief. The point is to help you recognise which question you are actually asking, so you can approach the right profession.
Speech and Language Therapists work with speech sounds, spoken language, understanding language, and communication.
It may be helpful to explore this where there are concerns about how someone speaks, how well they follow spoken instructions, word-finding, or expressing ideas out loud, particularly where those concerns sit alongside, or seem larger than, the literacy picture.
Occupational Therapists look at everyday functional skills, including motor coordination, handwriting mechanics, self-organisation and sensory factors, within their own professional scope.
It may be helpful to explore this where handwriting is physically effortful, where coordination or motor skills are a concern, or where sensory factors affect someone's ability to work in a classroom or workplace.
Educational Psychologists take a broader view of learning, development, emotional wellbeing and educational need, and work with schools, families and local authorities.
It may be helpful to explore this where the picture is complex, where several areas of development are involved, or where a wider view of a child's needs within their educational setting is being sought.
A dyslexia assessment and an educational psychology assessment answer different questions. One is not a lesser version of the other.
Formal diagnosis of ADHD or autism is carried out by appropriately qualified diagnostic services, usually medical or multidisciplinary.
Where information gathered during an assessment suggests attention, activity level, social communication or sensory factors are worth exploring, it may be helpful to raise this with your GP or an appropriately qualified diagnostic service.
Defining Dyslexia does not diagnose ADHD, autism or DCD, and does not assess for them. Signposting is never a suggestion that someone has a condition.
Specialist teachers and dyslexia tutors deliver structured, cumulative teaching in literacy, spelling, reading, written work and study strategies.
It may be helpful where an assessment has identified specific areas that would benefit from targeted, structured teaching over time. Not everyone whose assessment identifies dyslexia needs tuition.
Defining Dyslexia does not currently provide ongoing specialist tuition. Mark can help you work out what to look for in a tutor.
Optometrists and other appropriately qualified eye-care professionals check eyesight and visual function.
It is sensible to rule out uncorrected eyesight difficulties where reading is effortful, and to raise any visual discomfort with an eye-care professional.
Visual difficulties are not a cause of dyslexia, and correcting them does not remove a dyslexic profile. They are simply worth ruling out.
Dyscalculia specialists, SEND consultants, workplace support services, wellbeing and mental-health services, and local or national charities all support different needs.
Different needs call for different expertise. Where a need falls outside what a dyslexia assessment can answer, the right step is a professional whose scope covers it.
Suggesting that something may be worth exploring is never a statement that a person has a particular condition. Diagnosis of anything outside Mark's professional scope, including ADHD, autism and DCD. Is a matter for appropriately qualified services.
Working together
The best outcomes usually come from everyone working from the same understanding of the same profile.
Being honest about this
Defining Dyslexia is a small practice building genuine professional relationships over time. Rather than filling this page with names, it explains what each profession does and signposts you towards the right kind of service.
For professionals
If you support children, young people or adults, as a Speech and Language Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Educational Psychologist, specialist tutor, SEND professional, diagnostic service or otherwise. You are welcome to get in touch and introduce your service.
Tell us who you are, what your service does, who it is for, and where you work. Choose 'Professional or referrer' on the enquiry form.
Usually a short call so we each understand what the other actually offers, and where our work does and does not overlap.
Where a genuine fit exists, we can signpost people towards your service when their needs sit outside a dyslexia assessment. No referrals are promised, and nothing is reciprocal by arrangement.
If a professional directory is published in future, inclusion will follow a review of appropriate information, not the submission of a form. There is no self-publishing route.
Knowledge Centre
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Read the articleWhere are you on the journey?
Most people arrive here from one of these.
