Young adults with dyslexia struggle with specific problems during their studies. They therefore need specific types of support. Only few studies focus on the target group of young adults and little attention has been paid to the broader context. The present studies aimed to get an overview of the effective and ineffective aspects of support in higher education. The ultimate goal of this research was the development of an evidence-based support program.

The first study focused on the experiences of young adults with dyslexia and their network. To this end, young adults with dyslexia, their parents, tutors and therapists took part in a semi-structured interview on the impact of dyslexia, effective and ineffective aspects of support, and experienced needs.

A second study, quantified these findings: what works for most young adults? A questionnaire was administered to 102 students with dyslexia.
In a third study we examined the effectiveness of this support program by means of a pretest-posttest design with a waiting list control group. Participants were 41 students with dyslexia.

The results of Study 1 and 2 revealed effective (e.g. a contact person at school) and ineffective (e.g. no evaluation of accommodations) aspects of support. The results also showed that, although the ‘core’ difficulties match those observed in the literature, other difficulties (e.g. reading comprehension) turned out to be more prominent in the experiences of the participants. We discuss the implementation of the results of Study 1 and 2 in a support and coaching program. The program starts from the perceived needs of the student and integrates psycho-education with the implementation of compensatory strategies and tools into the individual study method. The results in Study 3 show the effectiveness of the support program: the experimental group reported an increased effectiveness of strategies and tools and a reduced impact of dyslexia.