Chapter 6 - Cognitive Techniques to Overcome Barriers to Learning

Summary

This chapter provides space for students with dyslexia to talk about the innovative methods that they employ for the purposes of cognitively coping with academic learning tasks. As such, the chapter offers an array of cognitive coping strategies that students say they are applying to deal with negative emotion derived from cognitive difficulties, such as time constraints, retention and retrieval difficulties, and processing difficulties. The range of study tasks required by all university courses, such as reading, remembering reading, spelling, taking exams, producing written work and writing essays, giving presentations, using organization skills, meeting deadlines, taking notes in lectures, and contributing to seminar discussions, is presented, and student articulations in relation to cognitive techniques that they apply to overcome barriers with the tasks are provided. The chapter makes it clear that dyslexic learners at university level have progressed to this stage of education due to their resourcefulness and knowledge of types of learning strategies suitable for their own individual learning styles. The learning strategies to tackle each academic task are presented under six key themes: unique cognitive learning strategies; use of specialist technology; multisensory ways of learning; practical things; alleviating scotopic sensitivity; and use of favourite materials.