It is never too late
Many dyslexic adults reach adulthood without ever being assessed. They have coped, often very well, by working far harder than anyone noticed, by avoiding the things that gave them away, or by building clever systems of their own. Often it is a change that prompts the question: a new job with more reading, a course, a child of their own being assessed, or simply being tired of wondering.
Being assessed as an adult is not about a label for its own sake. It is about understanding why some things have always cost you more effort than they seem to cost other people, and what that means for how you work best from here. For a lot of people it reframes years of quietly feeling not quite good enough.
I am dyslexic myself, so I know how much difference that understanding can make, whenever it arrives.
What the assessment looks at
We look at reading, writing and spelling, and at the skills underneath them, such as phonological processing, working memory and the speed at which you take in and process information. If maths and numbers have always been a struggle, we can look at dyscalculia in the same assessment, and you only pay once.
I also want your own account: what school was like, how you learned to cope, what takes you longest at work or in study, and what you have worked out for yourself along the way. That history is part of the picture, and it often tells me as much as any test.
How the day goes
Assessments happen in person, usually at my garden office in Trowbridge, within about half an hour of Bath, Bradford on Avon, Frome, Westbury, Warminster, Melksham, Devizes, Corsham and Chippenham. Plenty of people come much further, from the Midlands, London, the Home Counties and the South East, and from abroad. I only see one person in a day at home, and I set aside four to five hours, so nobody is watching the clock.
Plenty of adults carry less than happy memories of being tested at school. This is not that. We take breaks whenever you want them, we talk as much as we test, and nothing we do is a test you can pass or fail. The whole point is to understand how you work.
What the report is for
You receive a full written report within two weeks. It says plainly whether your profile is consistent with dyslexia, and with dyscalculia if we looked at both, what your strengths are, and what is likely to help. I write it so that you can read it and recognise yourself in it rather than a list of things you find hard.
It is yours to use as you choose. Many adults use it to understand themselves. It can also support a conversation with your employer about reasonable adjustments at work, an application for Access to Work funding, or an application to university, including for Disabled Students’ Allowance.
AMBDA, 20/AMB04046 · AMBDA Dyscalculia, 23/AMD05008 · Assessment Practising Certificate, 26/APC05086