Neurodivergence amongst people has come up a lot this week, working with occupational health and learning and development teams in healthcare and clients from both the 3rd sector and public sector. People whether they are on the frontline working, or backend support/business services. It’s so important that the conversation on neurodivergence is spoken about. Neurodivergence is the disability with reading, numbers, coordination, and includes names like ADHD, Autism, etc.
One of the most important factors that came out of the conversations and dialogue was whether someone was actually diagnosed with one of these disabilities or was it a case of lack of education. Lack of supportive education in various forms is no bodies fault. There are many reasons to why people do not have the access to a good education. However, by looking at this fact, many people can feel that they are disabled, or that struggling with reading, writing or digital literacy is disabling them. It’s a fact that the difference in are minds response to different information can affect our emotional wellbeing. Furthermore, it may discourage some of us to not go forward in different areas of our working lives. It can be distressing to want to move forward but the system or workplace you work in does not recognise or support the idea of the difference in neurodivergence or deprivation in education and understanding the difference in these. Understanding if someone is neurodivergent is one thing, but knowing if our education as a child or young adult wasn’t the easiest or even if we had a good one is another. How do we have these open conversations in regards to the skill sets we have.
Is it rude to ask about our level of literacy and did our pass learning play a big part of our development of learning. Having open discussions and honest views on this will help leaders and other team colleagues understand are capacities and where we would need support to learn. One of the solutions that came up was training staff on how to learn and focus. There is a brilliant book by Benedict Carey called How We Learn.
Sometimes we ourselves can find it difficult with how we process information. We all have different minds and are unique, with having strengths and weaknesses in different areas. Accepting our strengths and weaknesses are key to moving beyond what holds as back. It’s never too late to start to learn how to learn regardless of your educational background. If you fall into one of the neurodivergent paths it’s also possible to find new ways to learn.
Overall, our conversations concluded in the fact that it doesn’t really matter what you can grasp or what you can’t, what matters most is that you have a supportive and understanding workforce that gives you time and space to do the work at your pace and learn at your pace regardless of the outcomes, goals and targets. This is inclusion at its best, knowing that we all are different, we have disabilities and also seeing that some of us never had the opportunity to learn in a good school, or be nurtured by our guardians in how to learn, which again may not be their fault or neglect, this could just be a lack of time and knowing how to teach themselves.
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