Screening, Assessment and Identification Tools for Dyslexia

The special education process relies heavily on assessment to ascertain a student’s disability. In order to target the areas of need that call for differentiated or specialized education, teachers can target students’ strengths through an ongoing process of data collection and analysis. In order to properly diagnose Specific Learning Disability (SLD) or Dyslexia, the student’s planning and placement team (PPT), consisting of the parents of the child and trained professionals, must conduct a thorough evaluation process. People who have dyslexia are frequently misdiagnosed or completely overlooked. The assessment of dyslexia presents with difficulties, such as the use of a variety of terms, the inadequacy of current assessment models, and the dependence on phonological awareness as the only linguistic risk factor. This chapter’s goal is to address the difficulties associated with diagnosing and screening for dyslexia in children, including the use of a variety of terms, the use of phonological awareness as the single linguistic risk factor for dyslexia. In an effort to give parents, educators, and researchers a consolidated and comprehensive source of information, the chapter examines the accessibility and usefulness of screening and assessment instruments for the diagnosis and identification of dyslexia in children of various age groups