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32 terms

Glossary

The words you meet in assessment reports, research and support schemes, in plain language. Some terms mean different things in different countries; where that happens, the definition says so.

Access to Work
A UK government grant for practical support at work that goes beyond what an employer must provide, such as equipment, assistive software or a support worker; it does not have to be repaid.[1] It covers people 16 or over in paid work in England, Scotland and Wales, names dyslexia as an example condition, and does not require a diagnosis to apply.[2] Northern Ireland runs a separate scheme.[3]See also: Reasonable adjustment, Equality Act 2010, Assistive technology
Accommodation
In US law, and in Canadian and Irish usage, a change to how a job or course is done that lets a disabled person take part on equal terms, such as screen reading software, written instructions or extra time.[4][5][6][7] Under the ADA a request can be made in plain English, and an employer does not have to provide one that would cause undue hardship.[8][4] The UK term is reasonable adjustment.See also: Reasonable adjustment, ADA, JAN (Job Accommodation Network)
ADA
The Americans with Disabilities Act, a US civil rights law. It defines disability as an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, a record of such an impairment, or being regarded as having one, and Title I, on jobs, covers employers with at least 15 staff.[9] Reading, learning, concentrating and thinking are listed as major life activities, and the definition is to be read in favor of broad coverage.[10]See also: Accommodation, Section 504, JAN (Job Accommodation Network)
Assistive technology
An umbrella term, used by the World Health Organization, for products and related services that help maintain or improve how a person functions, including in cognition and communication; digital examples include speech recognition and captioning.[11] For reading and writing it usually means tools such as text-to-speech, dictation and screen readers, many of which are now built into standard software.[12] US special education law has its own, narrower definition.[13]See also: Text-to-speech, Dictation, Immersive Reader
Comprehension
Understanding the meaning of what you read. A US Department of Education practice guide says reading comprehension depends on several underlying parts, including decoding, knowledge of word meanings, fluency, and the ability to understand spoken language.[14] The 2025 UK Delphi paper notes that some people with dyslexia have comprehension difficulties while others use strong language skills to avoid them, and it treats comprehension problems as a possible secondary consequence.[15]See also: Decoding, Fluency
Decoding
Working out a written word by using knowledge of how letters and groups of letters correspond to speech sounds, as when sounding out an unfamiliar name.[14][16] Reading comprehension depends partly on it.[14] Some assessment tests use made-up words for this, because they cannot be recognized from memory; the TOWRE-2, for example, times the reading of real and nonsense words.[17]See also: Phonics, Phoneme, Fluency
Dictation
Speaking so that a device types the words, also called speech-to-text or voice typing. iPhone users turn it on in the Keyboard section of General settings; Windows starts voice typing with a keyboard shortcut (Windows logo key plus H); Word's Dictate feature needs a Microsoft 365 subscription.[18][19][20] Spoken commands can add punctuation and make edits.[18]See also: Text-to-speech, Assistive technology
Disabled Students' Allowance
UK funding that helps students in higher education with extra study costs caused by a disability, including a specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia.[21][22] In England it depends on individual needs rather than household income, is not repaid, and for a specific learning difficulty requires a diagnostic assessment by a practitioner psychologist or suitably qualified specialist teacher.[21][22] Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own versions.[23][24][25]See also: Specific learning difficulty (SpLD), Assistive technology
Dyscalculia
A lasting, specific difficulty with grasping numbers, which in the BDA's definition then spreads into many areas of mathematics.[12] SASC's 2025 definition singles out trouble processing numerical magnitude, the size of quantities, as the most common feature.[26] Wider maths difficulties are more common than dyscalculia itself, according to the BDA.[27] It often occurs with dyslexia.[15] DSM-5 calls it specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics.[28]See also: Dyslexia, Specific learning difficulty (SpLD)
Dysgraphia
Difficulty producing handwriting that is readable and comes without conscious effort, often extending to writing numbers, as the Learning Disabilities Association of America puts it.[29] The NCIL definition is wider and adds spelling and recording ideas.[16] The word is common in US usage but absent from DSM-5, whose closest category is specific learning disorder with impairment in written expression; some UK specialists prefer the phrase handwriting difficulties.[30][28]See also: Dyslexia, Specific learning difficulty (SpLD)
Dyslexia
A persistent difficulty with word reading and spelling. Definitions differ: the 2025 UK Delphi definition, adopted by the BDA, describes a set of processing difficulties affecting how reading and spelling are acquired, with reading fluency and spelling as a key marker across languages and ages.[15][31] The International Dyslexia Association revised its own definition in 2025.[32] Only a diagnostic assessment can identify it.[33]See also: Specific learning difficulty (SpLD), Learning disability, Screening
Equality Act 2010
A UK anti-discrimination law that applies in England, Wales and Scotland; Northern Ireland has separate legislation.[34] Under section 6, someone is disabled when an impairment affects ordinary daily activities in a way that is substantial and lasting; official guidance includes dyslexia in its list of developmental impairments.[35][36] Employers and education providers must make reasonable adjustments to avoid substantial disadvantage.[37][38]See also: Reasonable adjustment, Access to Work
Executive function
A set of mental skills used to plan, focus attention, switch between tasks and juggle several things at once.[39] A 2013 review names three core parts: inhibition (holding back an automatic response), working memory and cognitive flexibility.[40] It is not a diagnosis; a CHADD article notes that executive function issues are not a medical diagnosis recognized by the APA or WHO.[41] Stress, poor sleep and loneliness can also make these skills look weaker.[40]See also: Working memory
Fluency
Reading accurately, at a suitable speed and with natural expression. A US Department of Education guide defines oral reading fluency as reading a passage aloud accurately, at an appropriate rate and with expression, including pausing and phrasing.[14] Expression is also called prosody.[42] In the 2025 UK Delphi definition, weak fluency, together with spelling, is the main marker of dyslexia at any age and in any language.[15]See also: Decoding, Comprehension, Rapid automatized naming
IEP
An individualized education program: under the US Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a written statement for a child with a disability that is developed, reviewed and revised under federal rules.[43] IDEA services cover ages 3 through 21 but stop once a student earns a regular diploma.[44][45] Colleges do not run IEPs, and the Office for Civil Rights says an old IEP usually will not be enough evidence there by itself.[46]See also: Section 504, Accommodation
Immersive Reader
A Microsoft reading tool built into Edge and Word. It can read text aloud, change text size and spacing, change the page color, focus on a few lines at a time, and, in Word, split words into syllables.[47][48] In Edge it opens with F9 or the icon in the address bar; in Word it is on the View tab.[47][48]See also: Text-to-speech, Assistive technology
JAN (Job Accommodation Network)
A US service that gives free, expert and confidential guidance on workplace accommodations, funded by the Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy.[49] For learning disabilities, its suggestions include tools that read text aloud and instructions given in writing.[5] It also explains when and how people may choose to disclose a disability at work.[50]See also: Accommodation, ADA
Learning disability
A term that means different things in different countries. In the United States it usually means a specific learning disability such as dyslexia, dyscalculia or dysgraphia.[51] In the UK it usually means a reduced intellectual ability that lasts a lifetime and affects everyday activities, and Mencap describes dyslexia instead as a learning difficulty that does not affect intellect.[52] Check which meaning a document uses before drawing conclusions from it.See also: Specific learning difficulty (SpLD), Dyslexia
Morpheme
The smallest unit of meaning in a word.[53] "Unreadable" has three: un-, read and -able. Knowledge of these meaningful parts, such as prefixes, suffixes and base words, is called morphology.[14] A study of adults with low literacy describes morphological awareness as understanding how words can be broken down into smaller units of meaning.[53]See also: Orthography, Phoneme
Orthography
The written form of a language, including how its words are spelled.[16] Orthographic knowledge is the information stored in memory about how spoken language is represented in writing.[54] Dyslexia shows up differently across writing systems: in languages with very regular spelling, difficulties may appear mostly in reading speed, while in English they often affect both accuracy and speed.[55][15]See also: Morpheme, Dyslexia
Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound in a spoken language. The word "go" has two phonemes and "cat" has three.[56][16] Phonemes are not the same as letters: "ship" has four letters but three phonemes. A phoneme can be a word on its own or combine with others to make a word.[14] Awareness of individual phonemes is a type of phonological awareness.[14]See also: Phonological awareness, Phonics, Decoding
Phonics
A way of teaching reading that stresses how letters and groups of letters correspond to speech sounds and spelling patterns.[56][16] The US National Reading Panel noted that phonics is often confused with phonemic awareness, which involves working with sounds in speech and can be taught without any letters.[56] Phonics names the teaching; the skill a reader uses is decoding.[14]See also: Decoding, Phoneme, Phonological awareness
Phonological awareness
Recognizing that spoken words are made of smaller sound units, and being able to notice and work with them. It is an umbrella term covering awareness of words in sentences, syllables, onsets and rimes, and individual phonemes.[14] Phonemic awareness, the ability to notice and manipulate individual phonemes, is one type of it.[14] Assessment batteries such as the CTOPP-2 test it with tasks like blending sounds and elision, which means saying a word with one sound removed.[17]See also: Phoneme, Phonological processing
Phonological processing
Using the sound structure of language: hearing, storing, recalling and producing speech sounds quickly and correctly.[16] Researchers often group it into phonological awareness, phonological memory (such as repeating digits) and rapid naming.[57] The 2025 UK Delphi panel agreed that a difficulty in phonological processing is the most commonly observed cognitive difficulty in dyslexia, while noting that it does not explain all the variation between people.[15]See also: Phonological awareness, Rapid automatized naming, Working memory
Rapid automatized naming
Naming a grid of familiar items, such as letters, digits, colors or objects, as quickly as possible.[57][16] Often shortened to RAN, the task is used in reading research because it draws on many of the same processes as fluent reading.[58] Rapid naming appears on the UK list of suitable assessment tests alongside phonological awareness and phonological memory.[17]See also: Phonological processing, Fluency
Reasonable adjustment
The UK term for a change an employer, college or service provider must make so that a disabled person is not put at a substantial disadvantage, including providing information in an accessible format.[37] At work, GOV.UK gives examples such as doing things another way, changing equipment and letting someone work from a different location.[59] Acas guidance says a diagnosis is not a precondition for support.[60] The US and Canadian equivalent is accommodation.[4][6]See also: Accommodation, Equality Act 2010, Access to Work
Screening
A brief check used to decide who might benefit from a fuller assessment. Screening results are not diagnoses; the BDA reserves formal diagnosis for a full diagnostic assessment.[33] Screeners also miss people. When researchers tested an adult checklist in 2024, its higher cut-off caught about three in four of the adults who identified as dyslexic.[61] The WordRhino self-check is not a screening tool.See also: Standardized test, Dyslexia
Section 504
Section 504 of the US Rehabilitation Act bars disability discrimination in programs that receive federal financial assistance and in federal agencies.[62] It covers colleges and universities as well as schools.[63] At college, students ask the disability services office for academic adjustments, and the Office for Civil Rights says a high school 504 plan is generally not sufficient documentation on its own.[46]See also: IEP, ADA, Accommodation
Specific learning difficulty (SpLD)
A UK umbrella term for conditions that affect one or more specific aspects of learning, such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia.[64] The BDA uses it for a wider group of associated learning differences that can affect literacy, memory, coordination and work with letters and numbers.[30] UK assessments for student funding are diagnostic assessments for SpLDs.[65] It is different from the UK meaning of learning disability.[52]See also: Learning disability, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia
Standardized test
A test whose content has been checked through research, which is given and scored the same way every time, and which has norms.[66] Norm-referenced results describe a person's performance in relation to others who took the same test.[67] In dyslexia assessment the age range of the norms matters: UK standards note that few tests have norms for adults over 25.[17]See also: Screening, Dyslexia
Text-to-speech
Software that reads digital text aloud in a synthetic voice, often highlighting words as it goes. It is built into major platforms: Speak Screen and Speak Selection on iPhone, Select to Speak on Android, Read Aloud in Word and Immersive Reader in Edge.[68][69][70][47] Pooling 22 studies, a 2018 meta-analysis reported a small-to-moderate average gain in comprehension for students with reading disabilities who used it.[71]See also: Dictation, Immersive Reader, Assistive technology
Working memory
Holding information in mind for a short time while working with it, such as keeping a sentence in your head while writing it down.[40] A 1992 review in Science describes working memory as providing temporary storage and manipulation of the information needed for tasks such as comprehension, learning and reasoning.[72] The 2025 UK Delphi panel agreed that working memory, along with processing speed, can contribute to the impact of dyslexia.[15]See also: Executive function, Phonological processing

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