HB 69 by Rep. Marino revises laws relative to screening for dyslexia. The measure was voted out of the Senate Education Committee favorably after being amended by Sen. Jackson and testimony from Dr. Jesse Lambert of the Louisiana Psychological Association. The amendments changed the word “diagnosis” to “identification” and the word “psychometric” to “academic.”
The measure is pending Legislative Bureau as of May 31.
The measure Was voted out of the Education Committee of the House
favorably at 11 to 0. It was voted on by the House on April 25 and passed 105 to 0.
According to the digest, the Committee Amendments Proposed by Senate Committee on Education to the engrossed bill are as follows:
1. Require the state Department of Education to select a dyslexia screener that meets certain criteria and to provide the screener, at no cost, to each public school.
2. Change the word “diagnosis” to “identification”.
3. Change the word “psychometric” to “academic”.
4. Require the core assessment for the identification of dyslexia to include a brief standardized screening tool of intellectual ability.
According to the current digest, the proposed law requires the state Department of Education to select a dyslexia screener with an area under the curve of 0.80 or above and provide the screener, at no cost, to each public school. Further requires the dyslexia screener to be administered to each student by a classroom teacher in the second half of kindergarten or at any time it is requested by a teacher or a parent or guardian. Prohibits the screener from being a progress monitoring tool and requires that it be developed solely for dyslexia; be evidence-based with proven, published academic validity; and be used for the purpose of determining whether a student is at-risk for dyslexia.
Regarding Identification, the digest says that the proposed law, relative to diagnosis, provides the following:
(1) Provides that if screening results indicate that a student is at risk for dyslexia, the school, in order to determine whether he has dyslexia, shall determine through history, observation, and academic assessment if there are unexpected difficulties in reading and associated linguistic problems at the level of phonological processing that are unrelated to the student’s intelligence, age, and grade level. (2) Provides that the core assessment for the identification of dyslexia shall not be based on a single test score or specific number of characteristics and shall include the following: (a) Tests of language, particularly phonemic assessment, real words and pseudowords, oral reading fluency, and a brief standardized screening tool of intellectual ability. (b) An academic performance review. (c) A parental interview.