For Dyslexia Awareness Week, I want to shine a light on how important it is to nurture neurodiversity and truly embrace it. The fact that all brains work differently is a blessing. More brains in a room? Brilliant. That brings different levels of creativity, learning styles, people skills and perspectives.
For me, I looked like I sailed through school, but I’d actually just learnt to navigate systems that made me feel vastly different from others, even if that wasn’t really the case. Dyslexia went undetected until my college years, and ADHD until my mid-30s. What people saw was largely a clever concoction of masking, the gift of the gab, an ability to think strategically, and a brain that was no less capable than anyone else’s.
Neurodiversity in the wrong settings is challenging, but it’s not only about the challenges or being seen as ‘different from the norm’. What is the norm anyway? Although my brain can struggle with some tasks, particularly reading, writing, or processing written and spoken information, it also brings strengths. For me, it means I can make unexpected connections between ideas, approach problems from different angles, and sometimes go off on creative tangents that still connect back to the wider picture of a project or task. And no, not just the stereotype of getting distracted by a squirrel, or struggling to spell the word ‘squirrel’!
What can we do to support people with dyslexia?
- Understand that people have probably spent years navigating systems that don’t work for their brains, and that is exhausting.
- Provide different formats of learning, such as audio, video and diagrams. Not everything needs to be a long document or PowerPoint presentation.
- Break information into clearer, manageable chunks.
- Avoid lengthy forms where possible.
- If you are a work place, think about how accessible your recruitment processes are.
- Listen to frustrations about dyslexia and systems that don’t work well for people.
- Recognise that what might look like disengagement may actually be someone experiencing difficulties.
- Offer support in a non-judgemental way.
- Ask people about their needs before a workshop, training session, appointment or meeting for example.
- Empower people to work in ways that suit them.
- Get to understand different project management systems or ways or working.
Hire people with dyslexia and be proud of it. Involve people with dyslexia in co-production and embed those learnings at every level of your organisation.
There are loads of strengths associated with dyslexia: creative thinking, problem-solving, thinking outside the box, seeing the bigger picture, innovation, verbal communication, resilience, adaptability and making connections that others might not immediately see.
There are also loads of barriers that stop those strengths from thriving, or stop people from thriving in certain settings altogether. In mental health settings especially, valuable support means making information easier to access, reducing barriers to services, and helping people feel understood and recognised. Mental health systems, admin, pathways and services all need to think about how support can be accessed more easily by everyone.
To end on a more positive and humorous note, one of the things my friends love about me is that I get pretty much every saying wrong, I just don’t retain that sort of information, which definitely brings a certain originality to conversations. Do you know what though? It doesn’t matter, because they know exactly what I mean every time. It doesn’t mean I am not making sense because I haven’t learnt the ‘correct’ saying.
Now I feel much more comfortable being neurodivergent. I’d actually argue that my muddled-up sayings make PERFECT sense.
I can’t tell you many examples because I genuinely can’t remember any off the top apart from this one which is actually correct! ‘you’ve knocked my duck off‘. Which I’ve learnt recently isn’t even that common?
Systems that don’t work for neurodivergent people? They have, and always will, knock my duck off.
For more information about dyslexia and Dyslexia Awareness Week, see here. This year’s theme is Dyslexia in Real Life: At Work.
