Who is running this project?
This project is led by Dr Cathy Manning, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, and Dr Holly Joseph, Institute of Education.
What is this project about?
People with dyslexia experience difficulties learning to read and write, and much of the research to date has focused on identifying the causes of dyslexia and characterising differences between those with and without dyslexia. However, unlike in the autism community, it is not yet known what research people with dyslexia would like to be conducted, meaning that there could be a discrepancy between the research priorities of the dyslexia community and current research taking place, and so the research conducted may not actually benefit the dyslexia community it purportedly serves.
This research has two stages. First focus groups with 1) adults with dyslexia; 2) and parents of children with dyslexia will gather views on current research priorities and identify areas for future research. Based on the findings from this stage, we will develop an online survey in which we will ask a larger sample of members of the dyslexia community to rank the priorities identified in the focus groups in terms of importance, as well as answering an open question about future research they’d like to see conducted.
We hope that our results will enable us and others researching dyslexia to refocus our research priorities to align with those highlighted by those with a lived experience of dyslexia because it is critical that researchers listen to those people who will be most affected by the work they do
The project is funded by the Research England participatory research fund.
