Your Trainer

Specialist Teacher Assessor/Trainer

Sarah Sainty

I first trained to teach people with dyslexia when I was working as an occupational therapist in a child development clinic. I had become very interested in the fact that many of the children I was seeing, for handwriting or sensory integration difficulties, were struggling with spelling too. I became a speech and language therapist about 10 years later - fascinated by the relationship between spoken and written language and the way they influence each other. One of my favourite jobs was as a speech and language therapist and Literacy Co-ordinator in a school for children with specific learning difficulties. I have worked with primary and secondary aged children, both in the UK and in other parts of the world too (India, Pakistan, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain). Most recently I was the Inclusion Co-ordinator in a trilingual school in Lisbon. I now work mainly independently, offering diagnostic SpLD assessments, speech and language therapy and support for literacy.

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Course curriculum

Course reviews

See what others thought about this session:

5 star rating

Very accurate in description

Jacqueline Crawshaw

Quality information - concise, precise and presented in an easy-to-understand way.

Quality information - concise, precise and presented in an easy-to-understand way.

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5 star rating

Awesome!

Hannah Scott-Mullen

Very accessible and useful thanks

Very accessible and useful thanks

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5 star rating

Appropriate

Goolshan Popat

An excellent course, thank you!

An excellent course, thank you!

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5 star rating

Fantastic Course

Heather Berrisford

Excellent course, full of lots of professional guidance and information which can help in assessment.

Excellent course, full of lots of professional guidance and information which can help in assessment.

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5 star rating

Excellent, practical course

Michelle Furber

Incredibly clear presentation, with a variety of presentation mediums to retain insterest. Interactive elements were really useful. Presenter was clearly ver...

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Incredibly clear presentation, with a variety of presentation mediums to retain insterest. Interactive elements were really useful. Presenter was clearly very knowledgeable. Lots of very useful, practical information - particularly the information about reporting SpLD in the DAR, using SASC headings.

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5 star rating

Excellent

Connie Hazlehurst

Sarah Sainty gave an excellent presentation on this topic. It was all useful but the section on gathering evidence and report writing was particularly usef...

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Sarah Sainty gave an excellent presentation on this topic. It was all useful but the section on gathering evidence and report writing was particularly useful. Also feel far more confident in my understanding of the difference between DLD and Dyslexia. Thanks also for the useful links and resources.

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5 star rating

Speech and language course

Emma Rawlinson

Excellent and informative

Excellent and informative

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5 star rating

Excellent course discussing speech, language and dyslexia

Susan Lyon

Really useful and informative course. Highly recommended and well presented.

Really useful and informative course. Highly recommended and well presented.

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Frequently Asked Questions

  • Is this course suitable for Post 16 Assessors?

    Sarah says: The course is not really age-specific. I hope it will give a better understanding of the developmental course of dyslexia, including the speech and language factors that have an impact on this and the two-way relationship that evolves between language and literacy. A full understanding of phonological processing does mean going back to thinking about the earliest stages of speech and language development, so in this sense some of it might seem quite child-orientated. However, when we look at the qualitive information relating to speech and language that we might gather in a diagnostic assessment, we will certainly be looking at what e.g. DLD might look like in an adult as well as a young child. When discussing how to report the information, I have included both pre-16 and post-16 format report format headings when they differ. Teachers won’t be making detailed recommendations about speech and language and the course is about assessment rather than teaching, so I won’t be focusing on that very much, but I will make sure that what I do say takes account of the different ages that people might be assessing.

  • Is this course SASC authorised?

    It does not have SASC hours attached, but does have certification that can be used for your overall CPD hours, and we are in touch with SASC to ensure complete accuracy of the content.

  • How long will I be able to access this course for?

    90 days after your date of booking, so don't panic if you can't make it live!

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