The Prevalence of Specific Learning Difficulties in Higher Education: A Study of UK Universities Across 12 Academic Years

Specific learning and attention difficulties are often first identified in childhood, but they can cause lifelong academic and occupational challenges. We explored the prevalence of these difficulties and the representation of sex and ethnicity amongst all first-year students in United Kingdom (UK) higher education (HE) across 12 years-almost 5.7 million students-and compared course preferences and university destinations of those with and without difficulties. Students declaring learning/attention difficulties were more likely to be White or of Mixed ethnicity and least likely to be Asian. They were more likely to attend specialist HE institutions or newer universities, and more likely to study courses in creative arts and design, agriculture and architecture than law, languages, computer science, and mathematical sciences. The number of students declaring difficulties has increased year on year, in actual terms and as a proportion of the student body, suggesting that efforts to increase diversity and inclusion have been successful. However, differences remain between students with and without learning/attention difficulties in terms of ethnicity, subjects studied, and HE institutions attended, so more needs to be done to identify and address reasons for this. While this paper reports data from UK students, it addresses an international question and invites similar explorations of other national datasets.