SASC Updated Guidance on Remote Assessment of SpLDS
Monday 1 March 2021
Gillian Ashley, Chief Development Officer for the British Dyslexia Association is pleased to announce the agreement reached with SASC to sanction and publish Guidelines for Remote diagnostic assessments to take place.
Evaluations of Need (EoNs), produced up to and including 30 June 2021 will continue to be acceptable evidence in support of an application for the Disabled Students’ Allowance. This extended period is intended to provide assessors the time to acquire appropriate training, test materials and technological equipment to support diagnostic assessment via remote online platform.
From 1 March 2021, diagnostic assessments, carried out in person (face-to-face), by remote video platform (remote assessment) or a combination of both methods, and which follow the recommended SASC report formats to reach diagnostic conclusions regarding the evidence for a specific learning difficulty will be accepted as evidence for application for the Disabled Students’ Allowance.
The British Dyslexia Association set up an Assessment Working Party Group which was attended by Psychologists and Specialist Teacher Assessors to discuss the potential barriers to remote diagnostic assessing and to work out a way forward to enable remote diagnostic assessing.
Gillian would like to thank all of those within the BDA and externally who contributed towards bringing their expertise to the working party group which has contributed to the BDA position paper, and which ultimately fed into change in the SASC Guidelines to bring this advancement about.
For the full Guidelines see here: