Students’ Experiences of Academic Success with Dyslexia: A call for alternative intervention

This paper reports a small-scale study exploring the perspectives of five undergraduate students with dyslexia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in two universities in the UK. The interviews explored participants’ perceptions of their dyslexia label and how it had affected their academic success. The aim of the research was to identify facilitating factors that supported participants with dyslexia during their education. The following themes were identified: age of dyslexia identification, family support, dyslexic identity, self-advocacy skills and learning resources. The study makes a case for an intervention for children and young people (CYP) with dyslexia that, in addition to remedial literacy support, explores self-advocacy, thinking and study skills and facilitates positive academic self-concepts. Future research could evaluate such an intervention for its effectiveness on CYP’s social emotional well-being and literacy skills.