Many people are worried that they or their child may be dyslexic or experience some other form of learning difficulty. The first step is to find out what the difficulty is.

Our assessments are carried out by experienced Chartered Psychologists who have to follow the guidelines on confidentiality laid down by the British Psychological Society (www.bps.org). They also have had enhanced CRB checks.

We first of all ask the person or their parents to complete a simple questionnaire. This tells us what the difficulty is and if there is any other important information we need to know. The person may have

• other disabilities
• medical conditions
• eye or hearing problems
• issues in early development
• English as a second language, for example.

Schools or employers are also asked to complete a short questionnaire which asks what their view of the difficulty is.

HDL psychologists use a range of tools to closely examine each person’s thinking skills profile. People usually find the assessment experience enjoyable. They are asked to carry out several tasks, guided on a one-to-one basis by the psychologist. We find out how well people use language to solve problems, look at their hand/eye skills and also at some aspects of memory.

We believe that everyone has a unique mix of relative strengths and weaknesses. The profile will tell us what the person is good at and the ways they learn best. Our main goal is to find out if there is a specific reason why the individual is experiencing difficulties.

It’s not just dyslexia we’re looking for. Some other things we may find are:

• Dyspraxia (Developmental Coordination Disorder)
• Nonverbal Learning Difficulty (NLD),
• Attention problems (ADD and ADHD)
• Asperger’s Syndrome and other Autistic Spectrum Disorders

• Of course, the thinking skills profile will also show if there is no underlying difficulty! We can “rule out” certain difficulties.