This investigation is focused upon and examines the experiences of students with dyslexia in higher education. At the time the research project started, not much was known about the experiences of higher education students with dyslexia. An insight into their lives and experiences with a further overview of their past is evaluated. The participants in this study were students studying for a degree in Higher Education, assessed as dyslexic. For data collection, individual interviews were used as it would be very difficult to describe experiences and feelings with group interviews. It’s more than one hundred years since Dr Kussmaul (1878 cited in Selikowitz, 1998; Beaton, 2004) mentioned the case of an intelligent man who had difficulties in learning to read. He called the problem word blindness. In 1896, Pringle Morgan (cited in Beaton, 2005) introduced into the academic and medical world the first case of what we nowadays call developmental dyslexia or Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD). It was the case of 14-year-old Percy who, although he was bright and intelligent, could not read even though he had received extensive and persistent training. At the time the term ‘congenital word-blindness’ was used (Beaton, 2004:3) to describe his difficulty. Since then, because of symptoms, a diversity of definitions and different points of view have been expressed to describe the ‘phenomenon’ of dyslexia because of the peculiarity of its symptoms. The term dyslexia has been accredited to Professor Rudolf Berlin (Aaron, Joshi, Gooden, Bentum, 2008). The former is more accepted and used by people with dyslexia and their families (European Dyslexia Association/EDA, 2009), whereas professionals prefer to employ the SpLD term (Riddick, 1996). The word “dyslexia” comes from the Greek prefix ‘dys’ and the root-word ‘lexis’. The former means ‘difficulty’ whereas the latter means ‘word or language’ (Ott, 1997; Hornsby, 1992). It can be best translated as ‘difficulty with words’. As mentioned before there is no a universal definition for dyslexia. Depending on the professionals’ field of study over the years there have been various definitions attempting to identify it. Dyslexia is mainly associated with language problema, such as reading, writing and Spelling, although people with dyslexia might also experience difficulties with vision, memory and/or orientation. Several studies have shown that dyslexia, when undiagnosed, can cause a lot of frustration and anxiety in the individuals involved (Riddick, 1996; Edwards, 1994). Dyslexia is a ‘hidden’ disability (Riddick, 1996) as there are no obvious external signs for people to recognize. It is not like some other disabilities, as for example Downs syndrome, or cerebral palsy, which people can recognize from the moment they see them. People can get confused and assume different reasons for a child’s poor performance in school. This is why, when not diagnosed, characterizations like ‘stupid’, ‘thick’, and ‘lazy’ are commonly used to describe students with dyslexia since people who are not aware about dyslexia, cannot find any other explanation for them not doing well at school. This study aims to explore in depth and from their own perspectives, the experiences of a quite small number of students with dyslexia and while giving them the opportunity to share their life experiences. Our research took place in Valencia (Spain) and Milan (Italy) with the support services of two higher education institutions (Istituto G. Leopardi; Istituto Longoni) which were contacted in order to find students willing to participate in this study. All institutions were in the same city, Milano. The study took place during the last 5 years and its aim is to try to portray a wider picture of what is happening at this time to student from upper school with dyslexia. Depending on the severity of their dyslexia, students may experience various levels of difficulty that can affect, in some cases, every single aspect of their lives. This is supposed to be the last step before going to Higher Education, where these studente will be far away from their families and will have no support or help. How will they manage? The first question we tried to answer going by their own experience was: “What are the current experiences of students with dyslexia?” In order to have a better and more interesting picture, this research will establish the particpants’ experiences from primary to secondary school by semi-structured interviews. This will give them the opportunity to express their thoughts and beliefs regarding any difficulties they have experienced while in education and how they have coped and what kind of support, if any, was available to them. Our specific questions were about learning English as L2. Also, part of the interviews intented to explore any effects that dyslexia might have had on their self-esteem and social lives. The numbers dyslexical people are as follows: students with dyslexia since 2000/1 form the biggest group of people with disabilities: in 2000/1, approximately 32 % of disabled Secondary High School students were dyslexic, in Italy. This study will try to investigate and portray what does it mean being a student with dyslexia in secondary high school at the time this research project was taking place. 1.2. Outline of the study The introduction consists on introducing our work with dyslexics students and how they participate to the studying tests. Moreover we explain our personal experience with dyslexia as teachers. Chapter 2, explains the outlines of our study and it regards also relevant literature for a better understanding of the term dyslexia in conjunction with the issues of its definition and labelling. Moreover, it discusses the importance of early identification which is vital in the case of dyslexia. Research has shown that adults who were assessed late in life feel resentful for going through life believing they were unintelligent and losing opportunities for a better education and a better social position. Chapter 2 introduces a quick overview about some methodologies we can find avaible to teach to dyslexics students. Chapter 3 deals with the theoretical perspectives that people have adopted over the years in an attempt to explain dyslexia and its causes. It discusses three predominant theories that are focused on the causal effects of dyslexia: the phonological, the cerebellar and the magnocellular. It also includes the different models of the responses to disabilitythat have been developed over the years. The chapter shows that the debate about dyslexia is endless. Is it a condition or is it a disability constructed by our own society? Where a culture is not dependent on the written word, dyslexia would not be a ‘condition’ identified within that culture. Unfortunately, societies and cultures over the years have developed stereotypes about what a typically developed person should do or should not do. Everyone who does not satisfy the set criteria may be considered ‘disabled’ or ‘abnormal’. People with dyslexia are misunderstood because there are no obvious signs to make it recognisable. It is a hidden disability and only a trained or aware person can perceive the difficulties and provide the much-needed help that a dyslexic person craves for. Because of this, there are people with dyslexia who have to endure negative experiences from inexpert teachers, parents or friends who, on one hand, can recognize their potential but on the other cannot explain their academic failing. In addition, in the same chapter I focus on the social and emotional difficulties that dyslexia might cause to individuals. There is no doubt that there are people with dyslexia that go through life without any difficulty and cope with their dyslexia. On the other hand, we do not know the number of undiagnosed individuals who live their lives believing that they are stupid to certain people who were quick to attach a label to them without considering the devastating effects this might have on their lives. Moreover, chapter 4 and 5 pay attention to the higher education situation with regard to dyslexia. Years ago a law (170/2010 e i D.M. 12/07/2011 in Italy) was approved in order to regulate and give support to dyslexical people in High Secondary School and in School in general. They were given some extra time to be assessed or tested by a computer. But my interest is in the study of a second language, we mean it is very difficult for a diagnosed student to learn a new language like english. And teachers don’t know how to do it. So in these chapters we analyse the corpus obtained in part by the Secondary Schools of Milan, Instituto Leopardi I’ve already mentioned and by our lesson with students. We also included an overview of the function of memory in dyslexics students. Our last chapter deals with the questions of research methods that come to the forecasts in this study. Qualitative and quantitative research was thought the most appropriate method to use as the participants were asked to share some of their life experiences. In addition to this we collected written tests from the schools and analysed the corpus trying to find out the most common mistakes students make when they face the written English exam for the assessment. This research could intented to give statistics results by observing the students improving by passing the months, they were asked to work on yellow papers as green and red in order to point out which color is the most useful for them, they were also taught by Skype lessons and a large use of PC, and what we think is the most important: a positive attitude towards any improvement they did. Our project intented to give the students the chance to talk about their lives and have their voices heard. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data and the participants were students who had been officially assessed in the High School and had an official dyslexical certificate. Their ages varied from 8-20.Las dificultades de aprendizaje, entre las que se encuentran la dislexia, el Trastorno Generalizado del Desarrollo (TGD), el Trastorno por Déficit de Atención (TDA) con o sin hiperactividad, etc., han sido estudiadas y atendidas con especial esmero por una amplia gama de profesionales dentro del mundo de las especialidades de neurología, psiquiatría, neuropsicología, psicología y psicopedagogía, durante los últimos 20 años. A pesar de ello la dislexia sigue siendo un territorio lleno de controversias, ya que no hay un consenso interdisciplinario y esta falta de acuerdo hace que sea una fuente de confusión y desorientación para padres y docentes. Esto ha contribuido a complicar la relación familia-escuela, pues al evaluar a los alumnos de una manera no integral, el tratamiento que se realiza es un tratamiento desarticulado, en manos de especialistas diversos cada uno atendiendo al paciente de acuerdo a su especialidad. Este es el punto central de nuestro trabajo, es decir, que nuestro campo de investigación ha sido (después de haber analizado datos estadísticos que declaran la presencia en el mundo de casos de disléxicos), la evaluación y el análisis de los métodos ya existentes para la enseñanza a los disléxicos, subrayando los que según nuestro punto de vista puedan ser los fallos existentes en la enseñanza sobre todo de la lengua inglesa como L2 (lengua extranjera). Para alcanzar este objetivo tuvimos que leer una amplia bibliografía de textos sobre el argumento que ya nos había atraído la atención durante nuestra estancia en Italia. Gracias a la colaboración del Instituto Europeo Leopardi de Milán que nos facilitó la creación de un corpus a partir de exámenes y escritos de los alumnos certificados como disléxicos, hemos podido profundizar en el análisis de los errores producidos. En este trabajo vamos a proponer una muestra de los datos ya que, como nos ha sugerido la profesora Isabel Fernández de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, experta del corpus CHILDES, idear nosotros mismos cómo transcribir el corpus de textos escritos por disléxicos de forma que pueda ser útil para seguir investigando implicaría otro trabajo diferente de investigación. Tuvimos, durante la redacción de este trabajo de investigación también la oportunidad de viajar a la Universidad de Palermo y consultar igualmente con la profesora Floriana di Gesú quien estuvo siempre dispuesta a colaborar con nuestra recopilación de una bibliografía lo más actualizada posible. A la luz de cuanto se ha dicho con anterioridad, los puntos desarrollados a continuación conciernen temas como qué es la dislexia, cómo reconocerla, las leyes existentes en Italia y en España que regulan la enseñanza y la evaluación de los alumnos certificados como afectados. Hemos elegido estos dos países para poder hacer una análisis contrastivo y averiguar que no hay diferencias significativas entre alumnos que aprenden inglés como L2 si ellos proceden de una lengua neolatina como son el italiano y el español, lenguas bastante transparentes y similares en su estructura. Las leyes que regulan la enseñanza, por el contrario, sí que evidencian diferencias importantes, siendo España el país con más carencia de leyes para apoyar a los individuos con dislexia. Finalmente, dado el éxito obtenido en la aplicación de la metodología sugerida tras este trabajo, nos proponemos continuar el estudio y análisis del corpus lingüístico que poseemos con el objetivo de proseguir en la tarea de aportar metodologías adecuadas para mejorar la enseñanza del inglés como L2 a hablantes de italiano y español en casos de dislexia evolutiva. En la parte final de la tesis hemos descrito los estudios que hemos realizado trabajando con los estudiantes disléxicos españoles e italianos para poder sacar conclusiones y datos estadísticos. El grupo en cuestión es de 60 estudiantes en edades comprendidas entre 8-20 años y con los cuales hemos trabajado por un periodo de tiempo largo (3 años) analizando los resultados cada 3/6 meses dependiendo del tipo de metodología aplicada.