Different tools, same diagnosis? The influence of the choice of the assessment tool in making a diagnosis of dyslexia in young adults
Laura Bertolo, Francesca D’Agostino, Patrizio Tressoldi
The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which the use of different tests or different parameters could affect the diagnostic decision in clinical practice, comparing the tools used in the diagnosis of dyslexia in young adults. The results leave little doubt: using one or the other does not produce the same result, with the risk that diagnostic syntheses performed by different clinicians may be different depending on the tests and the parameters used. The study involved 27 subjects with dyslexia (16 males and 11 females) between the ages of 16-21 years, who were given four tests of reading a passage and two tests of reading a list of words and a list of non-words. Their performances were classified according to a dichotomous criterion of fail or pass. The results show that the administration of tests of passage and word and non-word reading, belonging to different tests, results in discordant clinical performances, indicating a different sensitivity of the instruments with the ensuing risk of exposing learning profiles that are not entirely superimposable.
Keywords
Dyslexia, adolescents, young adults, reading, speed, accuracy.