Compensated Dyslexics in Higher Education: Examining Coping Strategies in Writing
(2024) The 10th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (BICLCE) — Location: University of Alicante (26.September.2024)
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- (en) This study explores the coping strategies that dyslexic learners of English studying at university employ when writing in L1 (French) and L2 (English). Dyslexia poses substantial challenges to academic achievement, particularly in higher education. High-functioning or 'compensated' dyslexics (Gallagher et al. 1996) are individuals who were diagnosed with dyslexia in childhood and continue, as adults, to face writing difficulties (Reis et al. 2020), but are able to compensate for these difficulties using various coping strategies. This study aims to illuminate the writing skills of compensated dyslexics, exposing their coping strategies and the nuances of their complex writing processes. The methodology integrates different complementary methods and tools. Screencasting visually captures the participants' on-screen activities, while stimulated recall provides a qualitative dimension by elucidating thoughts linked to the coping strategies. Keystroke logging offers a detailed analysis of the temporal aspects of writing, while (socio-)linguistic and cognitive information gathered from the participants allows for insights into the challenges associated with dyslexia, in both English and French writing contexts. This combined approach seeks to unravel the intricacies of dyslexic students' writing processes, examining both successful and less successful coping strategies of 15 dyslexic participants. Preliminary results highlight various coping strategies used during the L1 and L2 writing process, including word avoidance strategies, word visualization, mnemonic strategies, text spacing, and rigorous proofreading. A noteworthy finding from the data is dyslexic students' prominent use of online resources such as WordReference, Reverso, and Google in both languages. However, there were also instances of ineffectiveness, as some participants showed unfamiliarity with the tools, resulting in overlooked spelling errors. Mnemonic strategies were most frequent in French than in English. More generally, the study sheds light on the multifaceted nature of dyslexic students' writing processes, emphasizing the need for strategic and informed use of coping strategies to enhance writing outcomes.
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Radar, L., & Gilquin, G. (2024). Compensated Dyslexics in Higher Education: Examining Coping Strategies in Writing. The 10th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (BICLCE), University of Alicante. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/241335