Welcoming a dyslexic or learning-disabled trainee: practical accommodations

A trainee rereads an instruction three times without grasping it, withdraws during written exercises, and visibly struggles more with writing than with speaking. Too often, the provider reads this as a lack of attention or motivation. In a meaningful share of cases, it is an undisclosed — sometimes even undiagnosed — specific learning disorder. Adapting your welcome to this reality is not a nice-to-have: it is exactly what indicator 26 of Qualiopi expects in practice, classified as a major non-conformity. Here are the accommodations that genuinely work, and the evidence that documents them.

What “specific learning disorders” cover

The umbrella term covers a family of neurodevelopmental learning disorders that persist into adulthood, even when they were compensated for during schooling:

• dyslexia (reading) and dysorthographia (spelling), often found together;
• dyscalculia (numerical reasoning and manipulation);
• dyspraxia (motor coordination, including handwriting);
• developmental language disorder (oral language).

An adult with one of these disorders has no deficit in intelligence: the difficulty lies in accessing information, not in understanding it. That distinction should guide every accommodation — the goal is to remove the technical barrier, never to lower the pedagogical bar.

What the auditor checks on indicator 26

Indicator 26 expects three concrete elements, whatever the disorder involved: an identifiable, reachable disability officer, a documented welcome and accommodation procedure, and evidence of a network of partners that can be activated when the accommodation exceeds in-house means. We cover this triptych in our guide to the disability officer in a training organisation, and the expected evidence is listed in our article on indicator 26: evidence.

What the auditor is not looking for is medical expertise from the trainer. What they are looking for is a repeatable procedure: how a need is spotted or disclosed, who decides on the accommodation, how it is implemented, and how it is recorded. For learning disorders specifically, that triptych takes a very concrete shape, covered below.

Spotting the need without forcing disclosure

Nothing obliges — and nothing entitles — a provider to diagnose a disorder. The entry-level positioning assessment is, however, the right moment to open the door: a simple, non-stigmatising question such as “do you need any accommodation to follow this course under good conditions?”, built into the enrolment form alongside a question about catering or premises accessibility. That neutral wording, which does not name the disability, makes voluntary disclosure easier — the only legitimate route.

A late warning sign during the course (a sudden drop-off on written exercises, repeated requests for oral rephrasing) should also trigger a one-to-one conversation with the trainer or the disability officer, free of judgment or pressure.

Pedagogical accommodations that actually make a difference

On course materials

• A sans-serif typeface (Arial, Verdana, or a typeface designed for the purpose, such as OpenDyslexic), at a sufficient size, with generous line spacing and left-aligned rather than justified text.
• Short sentences, one piece of information per line in instructions, and avoiding combined bold-and-italic formatting that muddles reading.
• Handing out materials in advance, so the trainee can read at their own pace before the group session.
• Systematically pairing written content with spoken delivery: restating every written instruction out loud rather than assuming it has been read and understood.

On compensatory tools

A trainee with a learning disorder sometimes already uses digital tools (text-to-speech software, advanced spell-checkers, voice dictation). The provider does not need to supply these systematically, but must allow their use during the course and during assessment when they do not distort the learning objective being assessed — a point worth spelling out in the internal rules or the trainee handbook, on the model detailed in our guide to the trainee welcome handbook.

On pace and organisation

More frequent breaks, a sequence of activities that alternates reading, listening and hands-on work rather than concentrating all the effort on writing, and breaking long exercises into short steps with an intermediate check-in.

Accommodating assessment without distorting the certification

This is the trickiest point, and the one where good intentions sometimes produce poor practice. Extra time — often the first reflex — is not a universal fix. A 2024 study published in Cogent Education on the role of extra time in the performance of students with learning disabilities in time-constrained assessment shows that extending time mainly helps when the test itself is designed as tightly timed; it does not fix difficulty understanding dense written instructions, nor a poorly accessible assessment format. In other words: extra time treats a symptom, not the cause.

Accommodations that treat the cause work on the format of the assessment, not on its rigour: instructions restated orally, uncluttered wording, oral answers accepted where the assessed objective is not written production itself, and long assessments split into several shorter sessions. The principle to hold onto: the accommodation changes how competence is demonstrated, never the level of competence required.

For a course preparing a certification registered with the RNCP or the Répertoire spécifique, your organisation does not decide exam accommodations on its own: the request goes to the awarding body, on its own terms and timeline. Your responsibility is to inform the trainee early and help them build the file — a missed deadline closes the door on an otherwise legitimate accommodation.

The human cost of doing nothing

This is not only about documentary compliance. A 2022 study by Shae Wissell, Leila Karimi, Tanya Serry, Lisa Furlong and Judith Hudson, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and looking at the employment experiences of Australian adults with dyslexia (see the study), shows that a lack of recognition of the disorder and fear of disclosing it expose these adults to a higher risk of burnout and to limited access to support measures — a pattern that often starts in training, before employment even begins. A provider that sets up a clear welcome framework from initial training onward directly helps break that spiral.

Evidence to keep for the audit

• The need-collection prompt in the enrolment form or entry-level positioning assessment.
• An individual accommodation record, even a brief one: the need expressed, the accommodations decided, and who is responsible for implementing them.
• A record of engaging the disability officer or a network partner (the Agefiph’s Ressource Handicap Formation, for instance — see our article on the RHF) when the accommodation exceeds in-house means.
• Internal rules or the trainee handbook explicitly mentioning the possibility of requesting an accommodation and how to do so.

None of this evidence requires a formal medical diagnosis: it is the organised process, not the paperwork, that the auditor comes to check.

Take action

Formalising the welcome of trainees with learning disorders does not mean reinventing your teaching for every session: it means documenting a repeatable framework once. The Kit Certif Complet (€297, 14-day guarantee) provides ready-to-customise evidence templates for indicator 26 — a need-collection form, an accommodation procedure template, and a partner-network engagement log. Launching your training organisation and building this procedure from the design stage? The ebook “Créer son organisme de formation en 30 jours” (€67) lays the right foundations from the start, and the Kit + Ebook Pack (€347) bundles both resources together.