Guide to Specialist Assessment and Intervention for Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD)

Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs), such as dyslexia, are lifelong conditions that require timely, targeted, and high-quality support to ensure children and young adults can thrive academically and personally.

The Urgency of Early Identification and Intervention

SASC strongly advocates for a consistent, equitable, and state-funded assessment and intervention system that addresses reading and other key skill acquisition difficulties, particularly at the primary school level. Early intervention is crucial because children learning to read have a short developmental “window” between approximately 5 and 9 years old where crucial learning takes place; the longer-term impact of even a brief developmental delay during these years can be profound.

“Spend to Save” on SEND is not just a slogan; robust research and experience demonstrate that effective early intervention reduces the need for more costly measures later, such as higher-level support, behavioural support, mental health services, and additional support in higher education.

Key Recommendations for Early Assessment and Intervention:

• State-Funded Pathway: Implement a nationally accessible, state-funded pathway to the identification of SpLDs, such as dyslexia, for all children. Access to a summative diagnostic assessment should not depend on parental means.
• Frequent, Light-Touch Assessment: Set out a new national strategy for the frequent, light-touch assessment of learners struggling with literacy or other skill acquisition at regular intervals between 4 and 9 years.
• Mandatory Comprehensive Assessment: Schools should be required to comprehensively assess, by age 8/9, any child still not showing signs of significant age-related progress in literacy acquisition, despite standard interventions.
• Assessment Through Teaching (ATT) / Response To Intervention (RTI) Frameworks: Utilise these frameworks to allow for changes in teaching and pedagogy before labelling a child with a developmental difficulty prematurely. However, these schemes must incorporate a referral process for more specialist assessment and intensive interventions for children who demonstrate persistent difficulties despite the intervention program.

National Standards and Specialist Expertise

To ensure consistency and quality, SASC is ideally placed to provide guidance to the Department for Education (DfE) regarding the identification and assessment of students with SpLDs within the education system. National Standards should set consistent processes for decision-making on how a child’s needs are identified, recorded, and when an assessment should take place.

The Pivotal Role of Specialist Teachers and Assessors

The presence of specialist teachers/assessors and psychologists in or available to all schools is a recurring theme in good practice models, playing a vital role in coordinating support, providing high-quality training, and carrying out assessments.

Key functions of specialist staff include:

• Assessment and Diagnostic Decision-Making: Specialist teacher-assessors and psychologists are qualified and experienced in carrying out comprehensive assessments. In some models, a Diagnostic Decision Panel of specialist teachers reviews assessment reports and the history of need/intervention to ensure consistent, quality-assured diagnostics.
• Intervention and Training: Specialist staff can help coordinate and commission additional support, train classroom teachers in effective techniques and strategies, and provide training modules to teaching assistants in assistive technologies (ATs).
• Advising on Systems: They can help establish progressive systems in schools to assess, monitor, and evaluate pupil progress and adjust the level and purpose of assessment and interventions accordingly.

Criteria for Specialist Assessment Referral

While developing whole-school strategies for struggling readers is important, it should not delay individual assessment when a child’s difficulties persist. SASC suggests that referral for a specialist assessment could be appropriate when:

• The child’s difficulties in reading accuracy, fluency, and/or comprehension have been persisting or worsening for at least six months, despite appropriate, sustained, and monitored interventions.
• A child can sustain academic progress only with a high level of support and intervention.
• A child is showing signs of distress and/or behavioural difficulties linked to literacy attainment.
• A child’s difficulties in literacy contrast markedly with other aspects of their achievement profile.
• A range of co-occurring difficulties (developmental, psycho-social, medical) is contributing to a complex picture of need.

Models of Good Practice

A number of good practice models exist, and a coherent national system should draw upon their best-evidenced elements.

1. Local ‘Hub’ or ‘Outreach’ Specialist Multidisciplinary Team Model

This model involves a local ‘hub’ of specialist assessment and intervention services (staffed by specialist teacher assessors, psychologists, speech and language therapists, etc.) whose services are bought in by schools, Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs), or local authorities.

• Benefits: Offers specialist, evidence-based interventions; provides collaborative services working with and training school staff; offers advice on embedding ‘dyslexia-friendly’ practice; and manages parental expectations. Examples include the Wandsworth Literacy & Numeracy Support Service (L&NSS) and the Greenwich Support Team for Education in Primary and Secondary Schools (STEPS).

2. Response To Intervention (RTI) / Assessment Through Teaching (ATT) Models

These frameworks focus on improving school systems for tackling literacy difficulties for most struggling readers by adjusting pedagogy when skills are not mastered. They are influenced by reading science and promote a view of ‘faultless instruction,’ where failure to learn is seen as a consequence of what is taught.

• Key Feature: Focus on the implementation of systematic synthetic phonics, skills-based assessments, termly reassessment, and regular data collection to identify those who continue to struggle.

3. The ‘Pathway Model’ (e.g., The Scottish Dyslexia Pathway)

Scotland’s model provides a child-centred, dynamic, and holistic pathway to assessment for dyslexia, embodied in a national resource and a nationally agreed working definition of dyslexia. The pathway model, as illustrated in the document, is based on a process of:

1. Initial Concern: Teacher/support staff records the concern.
2. Appropriate Strategies Implemented: Class teacher implements strategies and monitors progress using suggested resources.
3. Continuing Concern: Monitoring continues, and a collaborative and holistic assessment process (Child Support/Planning Meeting) is undertaken, gathering evidence from all involved.
4. Ongoing Cycle: Effective communication is maintained while monitoring pupil progress, adjusting curriculum accordingly, and providing appropriate and timely transition planning and support.

Funding and Systemic Support

The historic under-funding of support for SEND is a severe crisis that cannot be allowed to continue. SASC suggests that any future accountability measures will be meaningless without the necessary funding and human resources.

Ring-Fenced Funding: A single, national funding formula needs to incorporate a ring-fenced facility for individual schools so that such funding can only be spent on SEND, including a substantial boost for specialist teaching, assessment, and support services.

Consistent Records: There is an urgent need for a consistent, ‘passport-type’ national system for the transfer of records of assessment, intervention, identification of need/disability, and access arrangements for children with SEND, which is openly accessible to parents and young adults over 16 years.

SENCO Leadership: ‘Ordinarily available provision and support’ requires that SENCOs are part of school senior leadership teams and that these teams implement SEND strategies robustly and effectively.

Teacher Training: Initial teacher training and continued professional development must embed knowledge of the needs of children with SEND and how their support is embodied in the Graduated Response.