Visual Reading Online

Disability Student Allowance

Visual Reading is approved for the DSA in the U.K. as an assistive technology for neurodivergent students. This means that an Assessor of Need can recommend our course for you if you meet the criteria and your Visual Reading course will be funded via the DSA.

The DSA Application Process

All neurodivergent students in HE in the UK are entitled to apply for the Disabled Students Allowance. The process is as follows:

If you think, for example, that you may be dyslexic, you need to get a formal assessment done by a qualified psychologist, or a qualified teacher who has a 'Practicing Certificate'. Once you have a recognised assessment of neurodivergence, you can arrange a meeting with an Assessor of Need. Their responsibility is to ensure that you get what you need to be successful at university. This will include assistive technology and supportive ‘products' such as Visual Reading. This is all free.
Even though Visual Reading is an approved product, many Assessors of Need remain unaware of it. So rather than wait for them to suggest it to you, you can ask them to recommend it for you and explain why.
If you have already had your meeting with an Assessor of Need, and Visual Reading was not recommended at that time, you are entitled to go back to your Assessor of Need and ask them to recommend it. They usually do.

Once your funding body has accepted their recommendation, suppliers become involved. The supplier will send a purchase order to us, and we immediately contact the student.

We ask you to confirm your current postal address by registering online.
Once confirmed, we send you a set of our Structured Saccade Overlays.
You tell us when they have arrived.
We agree a time for the first Zoom coaching session and take it from there.

DSA Eligibility

Student Finance England (SFE), Student Finance Northern Ireland (SFNI), Student Finance Wales (SFW) or the National Health Business Services Authority (NHBSA) can fund Visual Reading for you if you meet specific criteria:

However, it is your Assessor of Need who makes the decision to recommend Visual Reading, and SFE, SFW, SFNI or NHBSA who decide whether or not to accept their recommendation

DSA Q&A

We are pleased to confirm that Student Finance England, on behalf of the Department for Education, have included Visual Reading on their list of new products available through the DSA as it meets the needs of individual disabled students. The list that Student Finance maintains on behalf of the DSA of approved products is extensive, and as of the 9th of January 2024, we appear at position 118 on their list under a 'specialist' catogory and as an approved products provider.

Where these difficulties relate to neurodivergence (particularly when linked to dyslexia, AD(H)D or dyspraxia), the online Visual Reading course is approved and available through registered suppliers of DSA products.

Visual Reading was developed by a dyslexic academic for dyslexic readers. What makes it dyslexic friendly is:

This will depend on how much reading you do. We recommend a minimum of 10 minute reading a day using the overlays. The usual timescale is 6 coaching sessions over 5 weeks. The first coaching session takes around 40 minutes. After that the weekly coaching sessions take about 10 minutes each.

Some readers need less coaching sessions, some need more. We provide what you need to enable you to become an excellent reader (88% of DSA readers who have completed Visual Reading are in the top 1% of postgraduate readers for speed, with improved comprehension).