Social work students and dyslexia: outcomes from an empirical study and some implications for practice

Dyslexia is likely one of the most misunderstood conditions impacting on educational outcomes at all levels, in and across all practice and intellectual domains. This paper discusses a project carried out by two qualified social workers, one an academic involved in teaching and assessing social work students, the other a doctoral student with a formal diagnosis of dyslexia and dyspraxia. The research involved 9 social work students from 3 different universities who identified as having dyslexia. Semi structured interviews were held in order to identify challenges experienced by participants as well as any strategies they used to ameliorate them. The data from the interviews was coded and analysed, the findings indicated a range and variety of experiences. Participants described feeling anxious and questioned their ability to study social work, both in university and on placement. Feelings of exhaustion were noted, which indicated the need to examine and potentially to rebalance educators’ expectations across academic and practical roles, and to provide support for students to meet workload requirements particularly when on placement. Findings from the interviews were shared with academic staff and practice educators, additionally a ‘good practice’ guide was produced to support educators in placement as well as in universities

Citation

Hewson, M., & Gant, V. (2024). Social work students and dyslexia: Outcomes from an empirical study and some implications for practice. Social Work Education, 43(3), 517-529. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2022.2120192

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Journal

Social Work Education

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10034/627138

DOI

10.1080/02615479.2022.2120192

Type

Article

Description

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Social Work Education on 07/09/2022, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2022.2120192

ISSN

0261-5479

EISSN

1470-1227

Additional Links

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02615479.2022.2120192