How NOT to Talk to a Dyslexic

so hi everyone i'm nat and if you haven't attended before i'm the head of community at exceptional individuals we are a uk-based neurodiversity employment partnership organization basically we're a social enterprise that supports people with dyslexia dyspraxia autism adhd dyscalculia dysgraphia any alternative way of thinking which isn't inherently a disability but due to the society we live in it does put added strain and challenges so we look at both the positives the hardships the medium the neutral everything between and we mainly focus towards people who are of working age but honestly this stuff can be useful to anyone now i am dyslexic myself so you know you're in safe hands so yeah let's get right into it because today's going to be a little bit sassy but in a good way hi from devon oh see oh denver yes jessica i lived in denver two years ago i love it it must be early now what as you may know we support people who are neurodivergent we get them into work we make sure they find a decent employer who's not going to discriminate them fingers crossed we make sure they have everything they need to succeed and we also work with employers to make sure they understand what is neurodiversity but also how to get the best from it so with our lovely picture side oh fyi we're 80 neurodiverse so we're a team of like-minded people so now we've gone how not to talk to a dyslexic these are some of my top pet peeves as well as some people i talk to on the internet to kind of get their opinions but i'd love to know your opinion too so i'm going to be talking mainly as if you are all dyslexic so if you aren't dyslexic respond in a way which is from the point of view of someone who you know who is dyslexic so first of all you just need to focus i am sick to death for people telling me i need to focus we don't need to focus it's part of how our brains work and you're always in school continuously being told you just need to apply yourself more you just need to concentrate you just need to keep your head in the game go to god gotta get your head in the game that's a quote from high school musical but anyway the point applies stop telling dyslexics that they need to focus it's not a matter of attention so my first question of you what did you get told to try harder at either at school or at the workplace is there something which you were doing your absolute best as it is but it never seemed good enough for a neurotypical person maybe with a lack of understanding again i do not think a lot of people go out on their way to make us feel excluded but sometimes unintentionally you can make someone feel that they're not good enough or lower their self-esteem i know we're spelling people say oh you know if you just try hard enough you'll do it and they say in a very motivating way with some inspirational music in the background or like a ted talk playing over the top it doesn't help so we've got school work math concentration spelling proofreading keeping up with note taking reading out loud school work read quicker particularly in group work typing and spelling attendance these are all really really great suggestions and sadly i can resonate with all of them so that's going to be our number one thing when you're talking to a dyslexic telling them to focus isn't going to make them focus any harder maybe we can find another way around it and it's normally because when we're trying to tell someone to focus we're telling them to learn in a way which is typical to the mass population but because their brains do not think that way you're basically telling a fish to climb a tree ain't gonna happen i was originally gonna say climb uh go upstream but there are some fish that can climb up rivers but you get the point being generally quicker at things if this counts yeah absolutely the next one is other people do not need to know about your dyslexia i'm talking to you career coaches so many people say oh at interview you do not have to talk about it keep it to yourself they don't need to know i mean this isn't like a deep dark secret it's not like my family like murdered a whole bunch of people i'm just dyslexic i'm proud of being it if people want to discriminate against me well they're gonna do it anyway but the thing about dyslexia is it's that elephant in the room it's invisible yes you can't see dyslexia but it's going to come out sooner or later so whether or not you should tell your employer at the interview stage i'll be honest with you it's up to you but what i should say is giving someone the advice not to tell isn't a great piece of advice telling them the truth like yeah you might be discriminated against or you might be able to get support early on giving someone the choice to make that decision because i can promise you they'll end up resenting you if they keep it to themselves and then they struggle late down the line and they feel that they could have had support had they have felt empowered enough to talk about it so with that my next question to you is what do people think when you tell them you have dyslexia and if you do not have dyslexia answer what was your initial thought before you knew better so the first one is it means i can't read people just assume you are illiterate yet did you know only like one percent of people who are dyslexic are illiterate the vast majority of us can read i have unique strengths yes superpower oh not many people assume that the first time you meet him i have lower intelligence huh yeah people always assume you're not the brightest spark not the brightest color in the packet and as a result i'm pretty certain most of us were all in the bottom sets in school despite not being you know we've got some stuff going on up there dyslexia and intelligence aren't the same things they're different stop putting them in the same box and i'm a good problem solver this is a bit of a mixed bag because yes dyslexics can be good problem solvers but we're not all good problem solvers it's like saying every autistic is rayman is not the case so these negative stereotypes can also be positive negative stereotypes if if that makes sense so these are really useful and at the moment sadly most of you found it meant you couldn't read or you have low intelligence and even 2021 like 100 years since dyslexia has been you know in conversation we are still referring to it as a debilitating disability which lowers your potential prospects in life it doesn't have to be that you can acknowledge the challenges without condemning it at the same time okay maybe you should think about alternative jobs when reading and solving pardon i don't know why i did in a farmer accent but so often um if you're struggling people say you know what maybe maybe collagen for you have you thought of an apprenticeship or do you know what university isn't for everyone there's a lovely job at sainsbury's going down or you know in job you know what maybe you don't want to be a direct or a manager you know there's nothing wrong with an entry-level job and all these points are absolutely true i am not dissing any of those other positions but just because i'm dyslexic doesn't mean i should be automatically pigeon-holed into a job which doesn't reach my full potential i'll tell you all a bit of a story when i was in school it was in my second to last year anyone who was in the bottom sets they weren't allowed to study english literature because apparently you'd find it too difficult and as i was dyslexic i was automatically in the bottom sets so i had some free time on my hands and no lie they made every single underachiever go and study bricklaying i'm not dissing bricklaying but i'm not a bricklayer look at me these arms aren't doing any bricklaying and yet they forced us to do it and already they set our expectations they lowered the bar they told us what we can and cannot be i refused to do that and kind of didn't attend school so automatically i'm a troublemaker as well as an underachiever as well as a bricklayer and i didn't want to be any of those things so always think when you're talking to someone dyslexia yes they are going to struggle yes they are going to find things more difficult than the average joe but that doesn't mean they have to redirect if they've got their goal on astronaut let them be an astronaut and in fact we do have dyslexics who are in nasa we do have people with dyslexia who have gone on to be doctors and lawyers we actually support a lot of lawyers you wouldn't believe it but there's a massive group of lawyers who come together who are all dyslexic so really it doesn't have to be a limiting factor i warned you today was going to be basically me ranting for a while but i hopefully you can get passionate about it too so my question to you now is have you ever been told to aim lower due to your dyslexia yes by your teachers jim maybe college isn't for you your family you know what not everyone's going to be a manager or a doctor to yourself maybe you're self-deprecating you're continuously telling yourself this isn't for you you're going to struggle it's not worth the hassle or no thankfully you live a blessed life and no one's ever put you down for thinking in an alternative way the students i counseled okay wow so the biggest villain in this story is ourselves we're normally the people who are lower expectations but let's be real we didn't get this low opinion of ourselves naturally it was something that we learned we aren't born thinking we're less good or less intelligent it's something that we pick up from our surroundings whether passively or obviously you can see the selfish steams drop and you know of course your self-esteem is going to drop you know when you start school we're all equal then suddenly you uh you struggle things are difficult so other people get ahead then you get put in the bottom sets and your office sets learn more then they get more opportunities and you get lower opportunities and slowly the gap between achieving an underachiever gets further and further apart if you weren't already at a disadvantage you definitely will be by the time you finish the educational establishment so the trick is can you hold on to your self-esteem long enough that by the time you finish school you have just enough to chuck all it behind and like go off in your own direction succeed or have you burnt out to the point where you just do not care anymore and that seems to be one of the biggest issues with the neurodiverse people we support dyslexia doesn't go away in adulthood it's there your entire life but also that baggage that you had with you also continues my next one if you don't learn to read you'll never be successful karen i sorry i appreciate there's some karen's in the group and i am sorry but just because you know it's synonymous these days but sorry if you don't learn to read you'll never be successful people would say you know there's a set way of reading like or learning or spelling these things are essential you're you know your first pass to get to where you want no no offence taken thanks karen cad was talking to a psychic at a oh physics at a level and my teacher said to me i did physics it's hard and stared awkwardly i know i wasn't allowed to do certain things at college you went you know you're going to find it really difficult okay so and what i mean by this one is people they they try to like motivate you like if you're struggling and want to give up is like this is your you've got to do this and yes it's important to encourage someone to be able to learn the the basics however there are alternative ways of doing things for example i can read but i am a slow reader so i use audio books and there's it still counts i recently just listened to the entire lord of the rings from the hobbit all the way to the return of the king and dependencies you might say that's not reading but i disagree i know the story back to front all the language the terminology i know just as much as anyone else i just happen to read it in an alternative way deneen says i heard through my middle school in high school i would struggle i definitely felt like a failure just for so many years until myself a guidance coach he told me to see my dyslexia as a strength and to ignore the past and memories it massively helped me to break free and get a regular job thanks for exceptional individuals for supporting me until i got my new job so i had to drop out of the great support sessions oh thank you karen what a great mentor denis i like that yes jessica loves audio books i mean okay penny says i'm at university and struggling i've decided to take some time out however i will not give up and yes penny absolutely university all those things are always going to be extra challenging because it was created for someone who doesn't think like you but that doesn't mean it's impossible it just means you might have to go a bit of a different route and so what if that takes a few extra years it took me like two years to get into university after leaving college because the way i learn didn't meet their entry level requirements but i got in there eventually elaine world changed with audio books read 68 in a year from previously reading two books a year i completely agree each year i struggle to read like free books now i'm getting through like i think i'm on like 28 books this year alone it's amazing i also listen at really fast and that's because my brain has trained itself to process verbal language really fast so i get through countless more i mean i read books but love audio books on youtube listen to the hobbit chronicles of nadia how's moving castle some of my favorites and that's a great thing dyslexics love reading just as much as anyone else we might just have to do it in a slightly different way so my next question to all you lovely people what have you succeeded at not despite of your dyslexia but because of it and again if you do not have dyslexia what is some examples of someone who has gone above and beyond not despite it but because of it remember it doesn't have to be the sole reason but it might be something which aided in that success jessica says i'm a big fan of speeding up my books other people say it doesn't sound like english anymore i completely agree i cannot listen to youtube videos now without not being on like a fast setting because i just don't find it as engaging but i get through so much stuff nice really great okay we've got gaining my level 7 pgce well congratulations i'm good with people absolutely passionate and kindness that is a skill which people don't often mention but i'm really glad you did problem solving love it started my business congratulations getting my uni degree good at maths patience neurodiversity advocacy yay seeing a physical solution to a problem that people have been researching in books for months and coming up short i like that you know we need people like us i'm not saying we are the next evolution no but we are equally needed in society we need people of all sorts on the spectrum from all different ways of thinking loyal nice creativity perfect thinking outside of the box love it love it love it my next top pet peeve is have you tried using a spell checker duh like what do you think i've i've been living in the closet for the last 100 years of course i've used the spell checker oh but the thing which people do not realize is with spell checkers they're only good if you know how to spell the word relatively well some words i am so far off that it doesn't stand a hope in understanding and people say oh have you used grammarly don't get me wrong i love grammarly but it still isn't perfect and when you're an adult a lot of the mistakes that you currently do time and time again are so ingrained in your brain it's very difficult to like take it away and you know how traumatizing and demotivating it is to see that little red line under everything you write did you mean did you mean did you mean yes yes yes no you know it's soul destroying sometimes and people will always comment on your work like oh yeah you know bit careless can you just spend a bit more time and i'm like i've got spell check i've got additional software i've got grammarly you know how i can't run any more computer softwares of course i've tried it and there are other software so at exceptional individuals we use a software called global autocorrect which automatically corrects the spelling as you go rather than saying did you mean because it sucks sorry so elaine says my grammar seems to be the thing had to give up learning gaelic because it has so much more grammar scenarios in english well congratulations for trying i've tried to learn french spanish portuguese chinese and i have failed out all of them grammarly makes me go a bit ocd i like grammarly but it's it's not nothing's 100 yes living with dyslexia is like living with trauma sadly yeah so people often say oh you're cheating by using audio books or by using spell checkers or this assistive technology i mean have you ever been told that what the way you're doing things that your coping mechanisms your alternative ways of solving problems is not the correct way or is cheating due to your dyslexia this normally comes from someone who say is neurotypical who for whatever reason doesn't like the way you're doing things because you found a different way of achieving with the same or if not better results having notes provided yeah i think that's a perfect one i in exams i would have someone you know in the olden days i'd have someone reading my exam questions to me and people say oh that's cheating because you know maybe they're giving you the answers trust me they were not giving me the answers longer to take a test yes extra time is another classic it's not cheating because the way my brain processes honestly if i was given the same amount of time as you i would achieved no grades and i would be on probably on benefits my entire life because i would be completely unemployable is that really cheating a system if i do not want that outcome some people say listening to a book is not reading i get that all the time oh you know so every now and then i'll say oh i've read this book recently and they'll be like whoa whoa whoa no you didn't i'm like why is that something why is that the hill you want to die on in the 80s my brother primarily prime my brother's primary teacher wouldn't let him wear blue tinted glasses in class because they were considered sunglasses see that's a perfect example of what i mean it's not cheating anya i got my accommodation if you can call them that oh accommodations ignored or revoked as my placement he seemed to think it was a perk not something to be played uh not something even to even the playing field i mean again sorry to hear this but hopefully for those of you who aren't dyslexic i'm honestly not trying to shame anyone it's just knowing that sometimes these little things that you might not think of like hey do you mind taking those blue glasses off or ah can you actually try reading the book rather than listening it might not mean much harm but the the effects that that can happen on an individual day in day out does result in lower self-esteem next you don't look like you have a disability has anyone ever told you you do not look disabled or you don't look dyslexic this is a classic one but i'm sorry what am i meant to look like quasimodo i don't know what it means to mean like okay i've got glasses you know that doesn't mean i'm dyslexic but i don't really get what you mean by that it's we assume that people with dyslexia all look like hillbillies no no no um you really can't tell the difference jackie says yes all the time so frustrating so if you are dyslexic i just want you to describe what do you look like like do you have blonde hair brown hair do you have you know like flowery clothes just what do you look like and by the way this picture is what a um can i say something oh yes please do i i know you say people with dyslexia what do they look like well you don't look disabled but i think to bully someone who other people can sense there must be something about you to approach him just by looking at you i'm bullying because i've been bullied so many times i don't know it just it just makes me this is the way i look or there must be something they can send you might not look it but there's some people who who are very tuned up hospitals they can sense like there's something about you that they can pick on yeah no thanks for sharing that forza and i i get the same vibe to be honest and i would my guess would be it comes down to confidence people can sense if you're confident or not so maybe it's that somebody looked at me and said oh um teasing me and put me down and i know she was trying to you know accept me in some way so i was thinking i've never seen her before i've never met her is this something they can sense that i've been bullied that's not just a phone just by i think i'm probably going to look but i try to master that and probably try to it's a good point i mean to my knowledge there's no like dyslexic sixth sense but i do think you know if you think differently naturally your mannerisms are going to be a little bit different so maybe people can pick up on it um but jessica says sometimes people are just mean and sadly i think that's the case not a great answer but haters are gonna hate okay we've helena says only eight percent of disabled people use a wheelchair eight percent and yet it's the only way people think of disability it's so true it's like people they're always doing the wheelchair image i mean i don't resonate with it but i was saying this image here is offensive and the image came from a police sketch you know they're um when they try to like find individuals and uh that's how they describe the person and i think a lot of the time we just associate a certain type of look and from terms of what you look at we've got people who said they've got blue eyes brown eyes brunette green eyes brown hair tall short petite blonde hazel it looks like an adult tool interestingly none of these are all consistent so if you i was to ask you to draw a dyslexic just by what you've written here you wouldn't be able to do it i know i'm calling out obvious here but you really can't tell you you can't and you shouldn't ever assume but it also works the other way that just because someone doesn't look dyslexic doesn't mean that they don't need help or just because someone looks disabled in whatever way you assume looks doesn't mean that they're incapable of doing something so it really does work both ways next what happened have anyone ever gone up to you and not when you told him you're dyslexic did he ask what happened you know did your mom smoke when you were when she was pregnant did you get dropped on the head like did you sniff glue you know did you do drugs too much as a when you were younger what happened you know was your mum like did she have special needs are your parents related have you ever been asked any of these ridiculous questions to try to rationalize or kind of like explain why you are the way you are it's sometimes people do this just to be a conversation starter i know like i said a lot of the time it sounds like i'm talking about people just being mean but the truth is it a lot of time it isn't people being mean it's just people being a bit ignorant but curious and sometimes that curiosity can come off a little bit offensive maybe not in a massive dose but if it happens to you time and time and time and time again it is going to have a knock-on effect and they said not had that experience thankfully oh i'm glad people have always asked me why i'm dyslexic i don't know i mean scientifically i know why but i don't know why why so what have people thought was the cause of your dyslexia and this is a quite an interesting one you know maybe not so much for dyslexia but with autism people love saying oh i bet you had an injection mri you know bumps and beasles or you know i bet you did lsd or there's always lots of reasons about why you had something karen says as a tutor i am delighted when people explain that they are dyslexic but as i can ask them what what support i can then ask them what would support their learning what can i do well i think that's a perfect way of doing it karen we've also got watching too much tv or sitting too close yeah that's a great one i thought oh if you watch too many cartoons you're going to end up dyslexic or you know you're not reading enough books you'll be dyslexic they use the word dyslexic and low intelligence interchangeably so anything which would result in you not learning effectively results in dyslexia being lazy yeah if you don't get off your bum you know being stupid and it's it sucks that those words have come synonymous that all kids have something now yeah that's a classic one ugh all kids adhd these days everyone's dyslexic genetic supposedly didn't pay attention in school just want a label yeah that's a great one or maybe the cause of your dyslexia is you just wanted extra time you were lazy and exactly you were lazy at school so you needed extra time or you just wanted a mac oh that was when i got at university so much as like because they allowed me to get a mac because i was doing television production and i had to use the mac because of for the the course and the equipment needed you know it wasn't a luxury but then people just assumed i was exploiting a system okay entitled great one yep okay next i would never think you had a learning disability now this one is a bit different from you look i didn't think you don't look disabled it's just thinking someone who's known you for like a couple of hours or a week or so and it crops up in conversation you know i'm dyslexic not you no and that's because the people have this idea that all dyslexics are struggling every dyslexic is fighting for their life every dyslexic really just struggles to write their name every dyslexic sees the world moving around when they're trying to read yet some people can be dyslexic and be successful and actually not just some people are a lot of people there's a countless examples of people who you know say it and i know it was earlier we mentioned about people telling you not to mention or dyslexic but also if you don't want to mention it you don't have to and not everyone needs to like fly the flag and be a uh an advocate for it sometimes it's okay just to to be jessica said some of the worst things come up when people think they are helping or think they are being nice it's not a compliment yeah no thanks jessica yeah this isn't a compliment people sometimes use it as a compliment i didn't think so either it shocked the hell out of me thanks so many actors singers and dancers are dyslexic i know this as i trained as one and so many in this industry and many others we are great we're telling stories with our voices and body danny i completely agree with you there we used to uh work in a studio space there was lots of actors and uh amazing storytellers but i promise you telling someone they do not you never thought or never would have guessed they're dyslexic is not a compliment essentially you're reinforcing that it's a negative that they've somehow managed to overcome or kind of cheat the system it's not who does not have a learning disability out of these classic celebrities keira knightley richard branson whoopi goldberg steven spielberg keanu reeves and this goes back to the previous question i wouldn't have thought you had it now for those of you who are in the neurodiversity space these celebrities crop up time and time and time again and i purposely use ones that most people know that have come out or are known to be dyslexic but when you look at them it's not your first thought kiera knightley what is your first thought amazing actor richard branston great entrepreneur whoopi goldberg really funny steven spielberg incredibly talented director keanu reeves matrix or whatever but like all these people dyslexia isn't the first thing you think of and when you're told about them you're surprised but should you be because dyslexia is does normally result in being a great storyteller it does normally have added creativity you normally do become a really good problem solver or someone who can think outside of the box so maybe when we find people are really successful and they say they're dyslexic maybe we shouldn't be so surprised or maybe be surprised if they're not i don't know these are just questions all of them have some kind disability yeah they do all of them and this is just a very very small small sample size brilliant my next one on the list is oh do you have dyslexia i've heard of that i'm sorry but every tom dick and harry thinks they're a flipping genius in dyslexia whenever i'm teaching neurodiversity i'm always teaching dyslexia dyspraxia autism and adhd because they're like the most common ones and people are never bored about dyslexia like i know that one let's focus on autism the juicy one and what i say to people is yes autism is a really complex condition and it you know i'm sure a lot of you do not know much about at the moment but do not take for granted that you think you know dyslexia like the back of your hand in anything it's one that needs more education than any of the others and that's because people think they know what it is and that wrong understanding has negative consequences for so for me that's why dyslexia is something we shouldn't take for granted we always talk about how autism is so unique you know one person with autism you know one person with autism but doesn't that apply to all of the neurodivergences i would argue yes we've got penny says many dyslexics master literacy skills completely if you just find something difficult in life you'll go above and beyond to overcome it a lot of us are problem solvers so for me i yes i struggle with like reading writing but i actually do it all the time because i love solving problems best way to learn about dyslexia is to ask a dyslexic yeah and if i could edit that a bit i'd say dislike six because we're all different jessica says people have no idea how complex all neurodiversity conditions are and how much they truly affect beyond the one or two traits that people think they are it's true if you google um traits or characteristics of dyslexia you'll get like a short list time and time again but it's so nuanced it affects so much of your life it may not be the one thing that kind of changes your entire life but every little element of your life it is going to have a slight little knock-on effect and enough of those little knock-on effects does equal a very different character for every single person you can't whistle it down to a couple of tick boxes you really can't anya says i find that with my adhd everyone assumes they know adhd completely and when you tell them you're adhd but not hyperactive what that you can it's not possible dani i think i have dyspraxia as well that's why i feel such an outsider and struggle in the education system and that's a really another good point a lot of people who are neurodivergent have co-occurring conditions or co-morbidity if you have one and another one sometimes one can cancel out the other one or one can exacerbate the other so say you're looking for all the traits of dyslexia but you also have adhd well suddenly you're gonna be looking at a very different kind of fish yeah i think so too penny sensory and emotionally regulation can also occur dyslexia completely agree and a lot of the time we're misdiagnosed under diagnosed or just have a lack of understanding and even with doctors and professionals we do not completely understand how neurodiversity works yet not even close to be honest so just because someone or a book or a doctor says one thing doesn't mean it's true i'm not saying everything's fake news but do not be scared to like poke it a little bit and you know find out for yourself so my next question to you is what does it mean to be dyslexic either for yourself or just your opinion and for this i just want to find out how similar is our views on dyslexia or do we have quite a diverse view of what we think it is karen agrees with penny watched a great neurodiversity master class by cognizant talking about the different thinking domains thanks i might check that out so what does it mean to be dyslexic being different different from what unique we're all unique changes to being being fun being different challenges to overcome resilience elaine says dyslexia halted my career when i said i thought i had dyslexia and didn't get through any other interviews since i am now seen as a troublemaker with my alternative views you're radical i mean i'd say get in touch like that is sadly is very common back here we've got slow overcoming finding it hard to read not knowing directions being different can't organize working a bit harder special as you can see again just like when you say what what you look like dyslexia means something different to every single person because with this answer you know it's a word cloud if you answer the same thing the words get bigger and that's how you know how common something is if you look at all the sizes here every single answer is unique we've not had a single duplicate yet if that doesn't tell you how like you know diverse dyslexia is nothing quill cad says working super hard yes danny says for years it meant that i was a burden on my family country and human race wow however it no noun is a cornerstone of my future career as an actor storyteller this will help me in a storytelling course at edmondson college next year congratulations so my next one i'm talking about is are you sure you're not just using this as a crutch and what do i mean by this people often assume it's just like okay you know oh you everyone's picking out the d card every time i can't do something i'm dyslexic i'm dyslexic and my friends take the mickey out of me all the time like oh i bet he's gonna say he's dyslexic again i'm not using it as a crutch you know it really does affect so many elements of my life kaz says i'm not dyslexic myself but when i went on an awesome session at awareness session at work and the tutor explained to me that it's just seeing the world in a different way i found it fascinating i wish i saw things the way the tutor did there really are benefits has anyone ever told you that dyslexia is not real have there's been any trumpians in the room anyone who says you know is fake yes or no and if no that's a great thing but there definitely are people out there who might not think it's fake overall but they might assume it's fake for you that you you've found a secret way of scamming the system you know you're a tax fraud of the education world penny says dyslexia is not an add-on it packs impacts the whole person completely agree and that's why for me personally and this is a personal choice i prefer to say i'm dyslexic rather than a person with dyslexia because for me it's not an add-on it's part of who i am but that is a very personal opinion and i think you know whatever you choose as long as it's right for you it's not fair you get extra time on exams oh man people always love throwing this at me it is fair if you understood how difficult it is you'd understand helen says i'm sure trump would think it's made up i'm sure he would the last one is i can help you overcome this this is an interesting one because this refers to the fact that there are amazing people out there who really want to help us but stop trying to be our savior you're not our jesus well you know you know allah you're not mohammed you know stop trying to be the one who saves us gonna be the one that's easy because we don't need saving we we don't we need support we need you know people to believe in us you know maybe adjustments but this isn't something which you know you need to fight a battle for us we don't want to not be dyslexic or at least most of us do not and i think this is one thing like the session how to not talk to a dyslexic do not talk to us as if this is something which needs to be overcome that you're doing us a favor we all need support in life whether you're dyslexic or not but you know just be mindful yeah and andy says we know more about our own condition than anyone and that is true remember labels are just that they're labels they you know we're all on a big old spectrum and sudden sometimes we like kind of clip little bits out and like squiggle a name on it but we flow you know we're not so black and white jessica says there isn't a cure you can provide or treatment i haven't heard of drinking specialty is the answer no but it might be healthy for you so some honorable mentions that we've not talked about today is you must hate reading we've learned today that a lot of us love reading just because you're dyslexic doesn't mean you automatically hate reading so rather than saying doria i got a different you don't have to read this ask us stop being lazy i'm not being lazy it's just my brain can't learn in the way that you're providing the information oh i'm a bit dyslexic too no no you can't use that just because you find reading and spelling hard doesn't mean you're dyslexic too you're not a little bit ocd you're not somewhere on the spectrum stop trying to do that it's offensive you're just stupid now your mates might do this as a joke like you're just stupid you know stop using the d card you know eventually it does hurt you know once or twice it's a bit funny but again and again and again for years and years it does hurt and don't worry you'll grow out of it we do not grow out of dyslexia we learn to mask we learn coping mechanisms we learn ways to like navigate the world but it still is an extra strain like chipping away bit by bit and this is why burnout happens if we didn't have to hide so much we might not burn out as much so just a few little things to mention penny says labels help to get support in society and i agree with you i'm not saying they're completely bad my mum was told she's not dyslexic she's bilingual is that bilingual labels can help get support in society helen says people assume i'm bad at spelling i'm actually pretty good at spelling reading and remembering what i've read is my remembering what i've read is the biggest challenge definitely not the genetic idea generic idea people have or dyslexia i think that's a perfect one as well people don't often assume memory challenges with dyslexia but yet the vast majority of dyslexics that we work with have uh challenges with memory so i want to know putting it all to you now are there any that i've missed are there any common things that people assume or say to you as a person who is dyslexic which you want them to stop doing because it's just not right or hurtful or just wrong anything that i've missed or maybe you have some questions or statements today was very much an opinion session normally it's based on more facts and evidence but i do think it is good to just know that you are not alone maybe something i said today has resonated with you and you're like i'm glad i'm not the only one pena says mental health problems are huge for dyslexic pupils even in children anxiety and depression are common absolutely penny and that's because of the burnout you know if you're continuously a fish trying to climb a tree you're gonna have a bad time and that will result in mental health so though they aren't exactly aren't related in terms of guaranteed they do go hand in hand unfortunately sorry it's aina by the way oh no sorry that's what it's like oh my god no it happens all the time every time i do it correct me i've had not corrected someone for ten years and then i thought i should i should stop i should be more serious so you do pretty well uh what was my question um some of these um you know like these symptoms of dyslexia and dyspraxia and all the other ones they're sounding i just call them adhd like how do you know whether it's adhd or whether it's they just seem to overlap so much what is the distinguished factor that separates them like how do i know that i don't have dyslexia or something and this is part of my adhd does that make sense yeah it's a good question and the truthful answer is you don't you you don't know but the way i think they do when they go to diagnose people is they look at all your characteristics and they see how many you have that relate to a certain one but more importantly how much does it affect you and that's the thing because all of us struggle with depression you know sticking memory issues retrieving like all the characteristics of dyslexia and autism and adhd we all have but does it negatively impact your way which stops you from living your best life and that's normally like the criteria which kind of tips you over the edge from having something diagnosed and just experience something yeah because like i've been um told that my adhd is pretty uh like pretty impairing um i think the other point i was going to bring up was just to go on a tangent is that sometimes um the perception of like if you had good grades for example that can work against you as well because they don't realize that you're practically having a nervous breakdown doing that you know you don't want to worry yeah and then it's like you have no idea how much i need help you know like that's why yeah so i just thought that was a point to bring up no thank you and i'll try my best for next time to uh remember the pronunciation of your name it's just because i read phonetically do not take it back that's okay so for the rest of you who want to know we record all our webinars and we upload them to our youtube channel and we've got ones like understanding the equality act from a neurodiverse individual what is the pop culture of adhd their brief history of neurodiversity you know we do a whole wide range so this is what you do next if you like what we do today get in touch and we can give free support to any individuals and if you're an organization maybe we can partner but i really hope you enjoyed it and have a great rest of your day so jackie thanks so much very interesting more tool supporting our diverse pupils and clients honestly jackie it's great to have you i'm always seeing your advocacy online really great to have you corinne thanks so much lovely stuff bye everyone a nasty question please yeah go for it uh i want to know if you can help i'm trying to access your sparky profile my second question is i want to know i know you do i've got complex needs i want to know if someone can do a one-to-one coaching session with me on what tech information i need because i need that put in place my colleague class and then they asking for other things that help me which i really can't think of which i'm sure you can think of to help me put them in communities at college and the other thing is and last person i've got a nephew my nephew's got adhd and he is coming very hard on top of him and he's got to point he wants to scream because his parents don't have much knowledge of it and they put in a normal [Music] his emotions and anything that's not clear is there anything you can help to do to help him come over his barriers to help him learn itself because he's not learning like anything he's just telling him [Music] we aren't necessarily experts in uh children but obviously we naturally learn that stuff as we go along i'd say it's definitely worth going to the gp i'm not saying medication is the way forward but it's definitely something which is an option you've also think is that type of school right for you again i do not think it's always the right thing for like to be in a special education school but it's another option which you can investigate i think a lot of the time if something's not working keep trying it like trying to focus on it isn't going to work you have to like mix things up a bit i wish i could give you more advice on that but you know i that just isn't my era of specialty and as for the spiky profile i will speak to the team straight after this and make sure it's all working and if you're having difficulties drop myself or the team an email and if you drop it to me nat exceptionalindividuals.com i will definitely make sure that someone is able to reply to you asap i found a question about tech sport i want to know how we can i want to know if someone can have that one-to-one session i don't know if you can do that because i've got complex mental conditions i've got ocd dieting depression i've got dyspraxia and i want to know how what's that i you can absolutely have a one-to-one with us um the easiest way to do it is by booking on our website if that's something you challenge with you can call us or you can drop us an email but if if any of those methods i mean i'll be honest with you there's a little bit of a waiting list just because we've got a lot of people interested at the moment but as you've been coming to our webinars so frequently i can definitely put you as a priority and you know putting a good word oh pointy yeah okay well all right everyone i am going to leave now because i'm talking for a while but thank you so much again for attending [Music] you

Channel: Exceptional Individuals

Views: 21,896

Keywords: neurodiversity, dyslexia, How not to talk to a dyslexic, what not to say to dyslexics, what not to say to someone with dyslexia, webinar

Id: n-xf_VodfFU

Length: 51min 40sec (3100 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021