There are no statistics available on how many students in Austrian schools have to overcome barriers due to dyslexia or dyscalculia. There is no uniform legal regulation and therefore a lack in legal certainty for both handling the assessment of the performance of students struggling with dyslexia and dyscalculia and the implementation of measures compensating for disadvantages. The Austrian educational system is guided by instructions in form of decrees on how to deal with dyslexia and dyscalculia, which results in different levels of protection against discrimination in the federal provinces. There is little information on how legal regulations impact on the assessment of the performance of students with dyslexia or dyscalculia and on the implementation of measures compensating disadvantages. In particular, there is no research on the legal entitlement to measures compensating disadvantages students with dyslexia or dyscalculia face when taking tests or exams.

The study carried out under this project has the following objectives:

• Drawing up a European comparison of the legal framework with a focus on the assessment of the performance of students with impairments like dyslexia or dyscalculia and the measures compensating for disadvantages encountered by these students,
• Identifying ways in which a right to non-discrimination for students with different cognitive skills can be achieved in education,
• Identification of reasonable accommodation for students with different cognitive skills to ensure non-discriminatory access to education – the emphasis is on the assessment, of the performance and in particular on measures compensating for disadvantages;
• Drafting recommendations in the form of proposals for amending relevant Austrian laws (e.g. Federal Act on Equality of Persons with Disabilities, Act on Teaching at Schools, School Organization Act, School Supervision Act)

The output of the project is a report in German on legal certainty in the protection against discrimination in relation to dyslexia and dyscalculia, which includes recommendations for the amendment of relevant legislation.