What Happens After a Dyslexia Diagnosis?

Getting a dyslexia assessment result, whether that is a formal diagnosis or a clear needs-based picture of your child's literacy profile, is not the end of the road. It is the beginning of something more useful: a clear, actionable understanding of how best to move forward.

This page explains what happens after the assessment process is complete and what the different pathways for support look like.

First: The Feedback Meeting

Before the feedback meeting, the draft report is provided to the client, so that they can have an opportunity to provide input into the report at the feedback meeting. The feedback meeting then allows me to further elaborate on the report and discuss the findings in plain language and using visuals, so that a real sense of shared understandings is achieved covering thinking strengths, the nature of the literacy difficulties, whether a diagnosis applies and what the priority next steps are.

The goal is not simply to deliver information. It is for the individual and their family to leave feeling positively understood, empowered, confident, clear and practically equipped to know next steps.

The Written Report

Following the feedback meeting, the finalised written report is provided in the proceeding days. It is written to be as accessible as possible, minimising jargon and statistics, so that the key information is as useful as possible to families, schools and the learners.

The report documents:

• A strength-based perceptive on the individual and their whānau, and how their mind works best within and across contexts.

• The ecological context i.e., the individual's key relationships, activities and literacy-based routines, their developmental and educational history, and home and school contexts.

• The specific nature and extent of the literacy difficulties

• Priority recommendations for the development of specific literacy skills, thinking skills, oral language and wellbeing

• Practical support strategies and accommodations to strengthen learning across home and school environments

• Where applicable, a signed NZQA Special Assessment Conditions (SAC) form for NCEA examinations

This report becomes a roadmap for the family, as they can return to it whenever they want to reflect on how they are ‘building up’ their child’s brain. It gives schools the evidence they need to tailor support, and it gives the learner themselves the information they need to better understand themselves and advocate for the supports that they need in order to better thrive.

What the Report Means for School Support

In New Zealand, school support is allocated on the basis of learning need, not on whether a child has a formal diagnosis. This means a thorough assessment report, even one that does not conclude in a DSM-5 diagnosis, carries significant weight in a school context.

The report provides schools with clear, evidence-based guidance for:

• Developing or refining an Individual Education Programme (IEP) that is tailored to thinking strengths and priority needs

• Establishing appropriate in-class accommodations e.g., extended time, alternative response formats and technological supports

• Prioritising specific literacy and thinking skills to develop through home-based and classroom teaching, with specialist teacher support as needed

• Accessing NCEA Special Assessment Conditions at secondary level, where a signed psychologist's form is required

When sought, Dyslexia Assessment NZ can actively support the home–school collaboration process, bringing together families, teachers and any other professionals involved to collaborate, develop shared understandings and a coordinated IEP’s.

Intervention: Building the Skills

A diagnosis or assessment report identifies what needs to be worked on. The next step is doing that work.

Dyslexia Assessment NZ offers direct online intervention support in the following areas:

Literacy Skill Development

Specific literacy skills can be targeted using low-cost, online, research-based programmes. Effective literacy intervention follows a well-researched formula: approximately 20 minutes per session, at least three times per week, for a minimum of 20 sessions. This intensity and consistency is what the evidence shows is needed to accelerate literacy learning. Specialist teachers may also be an excellent fit for ongoing skill building; for both structured literacy instruction and wider skill building.

Cognitive Skill Building

Some individuals need intervention around the development of thinking skills that underpin literacy development e.g., working memory and sustained attentional focus.

Psychological and Emotional Support

The experience of struggling with literacy can take a significant emotional toll. Avoidance, anxiety, low self-esteem and learned helplessness are common responses, not character flaws. Therapeutic support, including approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and strategies for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Positive Psychology can be effective in helping individuals develop their sense of wellbeing, have greater psychological resilience, reduce avoidance and positively re-connect with literacy and learning.

Home–School Collaboration

Sustainable progress happens when home and school are working together. Dyslexia Assessment NZ supports the development of strength-based Individual Education Programmes (IEPs) that build on thinking strengths and what is already working, contain a small number of collaborative short and long-term goals, and create sense of partnership between families and schools. This work is rooted in the concept of whakawhanaungatanga.

For Adults: What a Diagnosis Means in Your Life

For adults who receive a dyslexia diagnosis, likely after years of uncertainty and struggle, the process can carry a different kind of significance.

A diagnosis in adulthood can provide:

• Validation and a clear explanation for experiences that may have felt so hard, confusing, shameful and/or isolating.

• Self-understanding with a framework for understanding how your mind works, what you are genuinely good at and why certain tasks have always been harder

• Practical access so supports and accommodations that many workplaces and tertiary institutions offer for individuals with a formal diagnosis

• A exciting pathway forward in which targeted supports, technologies and accommodations can be trialled and appreciated for the significant difference they can make to daily life.

The Report Is the Beginning, Not the End

A good assessment report is not a document that sits in a drawer. It is a practical, living tool; one that should inform how a child is taught, how they are supported at home, and how they understand themselves as a individual (within the context of their whānau) and as a learner (within the context of school and/or work).

At Dyslexia Assessment NZ, the relationship does not have to end with the report. Ongoing support for skill development, school liaison work and psychological wellbeing is available to all clients following assessment.

Ready to Talk?

If you have recently received an assessment report and are not sure where to start, or if you are earlier in the process and want to understand what support might look like, get in touch.

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