Spelfabet

Free learning difficulties screener

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For my sins, I’m now the President of SPELD-Victoria, our state’s peak not-for-profit organisation for people with learning difficulties. We met yesterday to talk about the next strategic plan (Melbourne in July, a good time to be indoors).

One topic we touched on was the cost of assessment for kids with learning difficulties. Unless it is provided by the school/education department, an educational assessment by a psychologist costs $1500+. Parents often don’t know whether this is necessary, or if it is, how much/what type of assessment to request. Screening for learning difficulties isn’t yet done consistently in schools. Some online screening tools cost $200+ (!!), and take a while to provide a report. Gah.

Happily, AUSPELD (the peak body for the state-based SPELDs) has a free online screener for learning difficulties.

I just tried it out, using an imaginary upper primary student with significant writing/spelling difficulties and a family history of learning difficulties, who I named “test” (so the good folk at AUSPELD know it’s not a real person).

It took a couple of minutes to complete, and here are screenshots of the report I was emailed straight away:

For a fast, computer-generated report for the imaginary child I had in mind, I thought this was fairly well-targeted, informative and helpful. The links in the report screenshots above aren’t active, but the links below are:

• AUSPELD bookshop (which also has Pam Snow and Caroline Bowen’s new book “Evidence-based support for children and young people with additional needs“, ask your local library to get a copy).

• Understanding Learning Difficulties for Parents

• Spelling Remediation for Upper Primary and Lower Secondary Students

• Written Expression Remediation for Upper Primary Students

I didn’t take screenshots of the logos, addresses, phone numbers etc of the state-based SPELDs which were at the bottom of the report, but they’re in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia as well as Victoria.

Unfortunately, the Victorian SPELD waiting list for assessment is months long, not sure about other states. SPELD Vic staff are still in temporary accommodation following a building fire, but finding permanent premises (know somewhere great? tell us!) and hiring more psychologists are in the plan.

If you’re in Melbourne and want a briefer, more affordable assessment of phonological processing, word-level reading and spelling with a report and recommendations (but not a full Specific Learning Disorder diagnostic report), our waiting list at Spelfabet is currently weeks not months. We can also assess speech and language. Click here to make a referral.

Please encourage relevant people/schools to use AUSPELD’s free learning difficulties screening tool.

Alison Clarke

Speech Pathologist