Scottish
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Section 3: Experiencing Dyslexia
You probably recognised some of the areas in which you experience or have experienced problems in the previous section and some of the issues may seem irrelevant to you. This might be because:
- You do not have difficulties in a particular area. Dyslexic people do not all have the same experiences or abilities.
- You haven't been in a situation where a particular difficulty has been brought to your attention so you are not aware of that potential problem.
- You have, without knowing it found ways of dealing with that particular demand and do not therefore experience a problem.
How aware are you of your strengths and weaknesses? This is a key issue in understanding and dealing with dyslexia and what it means for you as a student in Higher Education. For more information, refer to Section 4: Understanding your report.
David McLoughlin, in his book Adult Dyslexia, talks about different levels of awareness and understanding. These levels are represented in the diagram below. You might see that you are in one of the positions most of the time or you might see yourself in different positions depending on what you are doing.
The position you are in will have an effect on how you experience your dyslexia in a given situation. It will be different in different situations and at different times depending on a number of things, including your awareness, your motivation or interest and whether you have an appropriate and effective strategy with which to approach the task. (Read more about this in: Section 10: Suggested reading - Adult Dyslexia.)
Being consciously aware of your difficulties means you can develop strategies to deal with them. These are strategies which work and are relevant to you and your current situation. It is important to realise that strategies need to be flexible rather than fixed and that different situations and contexts will require you to choose an appropriate strategy.
As the demands on your skills and your strategies increase there is an ongoing need for you to develop and learn new strategies to add to your collection.
"Because reading and writing is more difficult for me, I have to be more discerning about what I take in and what I leave out. If you're putting in twice as much effort to learn something, you have to make sure it's definitely worth making space in your brain for it."
Recognising what you need to do to be able to reach your goals, and doing it, is primarily what a strategy is about. You gather as much information as possible about yourself in order to learn how best to support yourself in achieving your objectives.
Further reading:
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