There is no shortage of research, tools, products and services purporting to offer insight and solutions for teachers and learners dealing with specific learning difficulties (SLD).
A motivated corps of experts, developers, entrepreneurs and others create ways to combat the difficulties and downstream disadvantages that come with SLD such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia, or combinations of these.
How do they know what teachers and students need? How do they know where the gaps are, what makes existing interventions work and what might have changed since their previous tests or trials?
And how do specialists and class teachers know what’s new “out there” or coming down the tracks? Or how to engage with the development of more up-to-date or effective edtech?
SLD: from research to real-world results
These questions were posed by a recent UK-wide event, held at the University of St Andrews and organised by the Specific Learning Difficulties Network, which brought together interests from across the SLD sector to examine how to improve the pathway from research and development to real-world results.
Researchers, edtech entrepreneurs, specialist teachers and assessors, education authority officials and third-sector bodies assembled to hear case-study presentations from around the UK, and from a dozen edtech providers.
So what were some of the key messages about what needs to happen now?
1. More pace
All parts of the sector want the pace of research and related interventions to increase.
2. More participation
Academic researchers and commercial developers alike have trouble getting schools, teachers and local authorities to take part in research and user testing. Barriers such as workload, red tape or difficulties with “officialdom” prevent otherwise willing and interested schools and teachers from signing up to involvements that may bring benefits.
SLD are also typically considered niche, so may have less profile than developments for “the mainstream”.
3. Permission
Local authorities should empower and enable individual schools and teaching groups to work with research and new developments. Delegates’ view was that real-world testing of new products and the adoption of useful ones should be a priority.
Resistance to change has hampered progress, too. Normalising link-ups between researchers and schools could increase participation in research, promote more dynamism around new developments and expedite progress of effective improvements.
4. Co-design
Making it easier for schools, teachers and learners to work with researchers would tackle the issue of the “user perspective” not being given enough attention in the design or delivery of new research and interventions. Researchers know the value of co-designing projects, and this also needs to be understood by officials and decision makers, to help them enable such collaboration.
5. Quality standards
Some sort of official quality-assurance system should be created for interventions, so that users can be sure of the scientific or pedagogical basis for new tools and tech - a version of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) but for education.
6. Collective problem-solving
High on delegates’ wish list was more cross-sectoral interaction, so that all parties involved in a problem get around a table and focus on the minutiae of what each role can do. Practitioners need to speak to policy people as a matter of course and to third-sector bodies that also are involved as sponsors or funders of new work.
Having an open channel of communication with politicians who are motivated, well-informed and committed to progress rather than political point-scoring was also identified - this will be crucial to real improvement, in schools and beyond, where it matters most.
Gillian Stirton is research coordinator with the Specific Learning Difficulties Network, based at the University of St Andrews
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