Neurodivergent Rights...

[shadowkat]

Found on Face Book of all places:

Apparently, I'm neurodivergent - since I have a grab bag of a lot of these:



For those who can't see it? It breaks down visual and audio coordination issues into categories:

1. Dyscalculia - Difficulty with visual/spatial coordination, counting, doing numbers in sequence or sequencing (example? Unable to count by sevens), difficulty working word problems...

2. Dyslexia - difficulty reading aloud, mis-pronouncing words (often substituting words or finding another word), difficulty reading aloud, problems retrieving words, difficulty with writing or spelling, slow and labor intensive reading

3. Dysgraphia - symptoms include cramped/sore hand, poor spatial planning of sentences and margins, frequent erasing, inconsistent letter and word spacing, poor spelling and missing words and letters

4. Dyspraxia
Symptoms include: difference in speech, perception problems, poor hand-eye coordination, poor balance and posture, clumsiness, fatigue.

Better late than never, I guess? But I wish this information was more accessible and prevalent in the 20th Century and early 00s? Along with the advocacy.

Comments

[shadowkat]

Had similar issues and very similar experiences - although much later - in the 1970s and 80s, and in the 1990s. (So this went on for all the 20th Century.)

I had a poetry professor pick up on it in undergrad. I was reading a poem aloud and she was sitting next to me and caught what I was doing. I wasn't even that aware of it. I was running my finger beneath the line, sub-vocalizing it under my breath, then when I thought it was right saying it a loud. She pulled me aside and pointed it out to me, and said she thought I was dyslexic.

And I often rewrote papers six times, until my hands were sore, to ensure they were neat. (They never were - I always was using white out. I still write the wrong words now - if I'm handwriting. Typing? I proof as I type? I run my eyes back over the text, and correct it as I'm typing it. Then run it over again. And then a third time - often without thinking about it. And get really annoyed when I leave out a word or use the wrong one.) I also read it back to myself.

I didn't know it wasn't normal. I thought it was. I remember a college friend discussing her dyslexia with two people who were doing a study on it. They asked her what it was like, and she said, from her perspective, normal. It's how she sees things. She doesn't know it's different from how others see them? She doesn't know there's another way of seeing them? From her perspective - and her brain - that's how the word looks. I've never forgotten that statement - it really resonated. We see the world differently, and most of us don't realize that everyone does. That perception varies.