A teenager who couldn't speak until he was three and has battled against dyslexia all his life has stunned his family by winning a place at Oxford University.

Matthew Palframan will read chemistry at St Edmund Hall College after impressing university dons with his talent and determination.

Matthew admits his spelling and writing are "awful" and was warned by his first head teacher that it would take years to catch up with other children.

But he has fought against all the odds to win the coveted spot at Oxford which he will take up next month.

It is a day his parents Janet and Brian, of Frizinghall, thought they would never see as their son could barely speak at the age of three and recently was found to have the spelling ability of a child of ten.

Salt Grammar pupil Matthew - who builds computers for fun - has been diagnosed with articulatory dyspraxia, a form of dyslexia which affects his speech as well as his ability to read, write and spell.

Despite his difficulties, academics at Oxford spotted his potential at interview and offered him a coveted place subject to him gaining just three grade Bs at A-level.

He actually achieved one A and three Bs as well as picking up a couple of AS levels.

But his exam scripts had to be copied out by his learning support assistant at Salt Grammar, Elizabeth Jowett, because the examiners would have been unable to decipher his handwriting. He also used a laptop computer to type out extended essays.

Matthew, who hopes to go on to post-graduate studies after his chemistry degree, said: "My writing is awful and my spelling is awful, and my reading is below average. I got extra time for my A level exams, and my support assistant transcribed them. Some of it I did on a laptop, because my typing is better than my writing."

Matthew attended St Barnabas First school and Wycliffe Middle School. He has benefited from extra support thanks to his statement of educational need - setting out the support Matthew needed in school - but it has not all been plain sailing.

Recalling former battles with the education authorities, Matthew's proud mother Janet said: "The schools he has attended have been super, but we have had to battle the hierarchy. At one stage the LEA wanted to stop his statement and we had to take them to the High Court. The schools we can't fault at all, but the bureaucracy has been a problem for us."

She said she first was aware of a problem when Matthew was very small.

"He wasn't talking when he was three years old, and we set the balls in motion then and took him for tests. When he first went to school, he was an August baby as well, I remember the head of his primary school saying that by the time he left school at 16 he would have caught up with the other children.

"I remember thinking he wouldn't have done, as he couldn't spell or write.

"But when he joined Wycliffe Middle School, he blossomed." He notched up a perfect 100 per cent attendance record at his middle school and secondary school by not missing a single day, apart from attending university interviews.

He has already been offered extra assistance from Oxford University in the form of a computer for him to complete his work on.

Carol Youngs, policy director at the British Dyslexia Assocation, said: "Dyslexic people just learn differently and provided their needs are met they can achieve highly. It sounds like this young man has battling parents and he has done extremely well."

Stuart Herdson, a former teacher of Matthew's, said: "He has done really well and is the first candidate from our school to get into Oxford for a considerable time."