Results from some dyslexia research I did a while back

Hi blog readers hope you are all well


Feedback from a little dyslexia research I did a couple months back. Ok its only a small survey but it gives some interesting insights into our experiences as dyslexics:

A couple months ago a put together a little survey on your experiences and thoughts on dyslexia which I put up on survey monkey. Its still there if anyone wants to have a look and take the survey. I will go through the questions and results one at a time.

Question 1: When and where were you assessed as being Dyslexic?

19% were assessed at school

62% were assessed in later life either at college or university with a couple being assessed privately

19% had never been assessed but believed they were dyslexic.

One responder said," my son was assessed at school as dyslexic in 3rd grade and I was a lot like him in many ways"

Question 2: What problems did you face in your personal life, education, training for work, college or higher education before you were assessed?

100% 0f those who took the survey said they experienced problems and here are some of those responses:

1. Problems in school learning to read
2. Sacked bullied and rejected
3. Frustrated by teachers at school who believed I was lazy or cheating
4. I left school at 15, probably worked 4 or 5 times harder that non dyslexics
5. I was terrified of going to school
6. Shoved in a corner left to rot
7. Lack of support and understanding
8. Test taking, making friendships, self worth. Lots of problems being put down was always being told I was not smart enough

Question 3: Did you get access to any support for your dyslexia after you were assessed:

60% said yes
40% said no

One person said, " it was patronising and irrelevant

I am leaving out question 4 because I felt it was not well put together

Question 5: Overall do you feel positive or negative about being dyslexic?

68% felt positive
27% felt negative
5% felt both positive and negative

Good to see so many feeling positive

Question 6: Are you creative in any way?

89% said yes
11% said no

Some of the responses included:

1. Yes a Masters in photography
2. Yes art, problem solving, clinical decision making
3. I am a designer
4. Yes I can always figure something out it just takes a while
5. In every way overly
6. Yes in thinking and writing short stories and starting creative projects at work

Not bad responses from unique dyslexics.

Question 7: Overall do you think society views being dyslexic as positive or negative?

82% said society views being dyslexic as negative dyslexic
18% said society views being dyslexic as positive 

Interesting to not that so many who took the survey were positive about being dyslexic. Yes so many said that society views dyslexic as negative

Question 8: Why do you think society views being dyslexic as positive or negative?

Here are some of the responses I got from that question:

1. Negative, reading problems
2. Society sees any difference from the norm as negative, dyslexia is seen as a disability so is seen in a negative light
3. it is seen as a disability
4. I say its more of a distinction
5. they don't understand and negative images are portrayed
6. no but its getting better
7. some people don't understand it I think that's the problem
8. Living in a world of people who see everything in 2dimensions bringing a person who looks at things in three dimensions causes disruptions
9. society is abysmally ignorant
10. Because its called a learning disability and therefore it id immediately stigmatised by people who find difference challenging

Lots of different responses there. What would yours be? please leave yours in the comments section of this blog.

Question 9:Do you think enough is being done to enable dyslexics to succeed in education, training for work or in employment?

93% said not enough is being done
7% said yes

Well looks like more work needs to be done by all dyslexia organisation, schools, colleges, governments and employers.

Question 10: What one thing would you like to say about being dyslexic?

Here are some of the responses form this question:

I think differently to most people and my cognitive performance is in the 99.8 percentile. It may take me a while to get the information in but I can work magic once it is 

Its amazing just try it

Think creatively

Worse things can happen it shaped me

We need more help and acceptance

I am unique

I am just me, nothing is seriously wrong, I just see things differently, different does not have to be bad

I don't like others telling me what works and what doesn't, its different for each of us

I have the ability to see what others dream of and live my life in the moment

I am happy dyslexic I fit into a group better than being called slow or dumb

For every succeeder there are a thousand suffers

It has given me a creative twist on the way I see the world

I don't want to hide it I want to celebrate and share my gifts

I am not stupid and being diagnosed confirmed it 

Well I hope you enjoyed my latest dyslexia blog. Please leave any comments you may have in the comments section at the bottom of this blog. I think there are a lot of positive from this survey. But it also tells us there is a long way to go.

PS: Some fab news we recurred some funding from Foundation Scotland wooo wooooo

Questions:

Here is a opportunity for blog readers to ask  me  questions about my life experiences of being dyslexic which I will endeavour to answer. Below are some topics questions can be about.

Dyslexia and:

1. Education
2. Employment
3. Mental Health
4. Assessment
5. Music
6. Social entrepreneurship
7. Life high and low points in my life

Just to remind you that we are a not for profit organisation.

anyway that's enough for this blog ta for reading and keep safe

regards

Steve

A pen of thorns: my dyslexic battle with handwriting

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A pen of thorns

Whenever I think about the difficulties I experienced with writing at school I am taken back to an image I used for a dyslexia project I did for my first dyslexia specialist qualification. Some of you may also remember it. It summed up dyslexia for me to a tee at that time. 

It was just a hand wearing an industrial glove and holding a pen covered in rose thorns. No non dyslexic will ever comprehend how the seemingly simple act of putting pen to paper can be so difficult and painful for dyslexics, on so many levels.

Going back to my secondary school days I can remember that I would look at others in my class writing neatly in joined up writing. All using their fountain pens in precise and delicate ballet like movements. 

They left no trail of ink or blots on the paper as their hands glided over the page with all the ease of a professional skater on the ice. Their writing flowed easily across the page like water flowing down river. Sentences and paragraphs all neat and tidy, their spelling all miraculously appeared across the pages.

I couldn't get it together at all. The fountain pen felt uncomfortable, like an alien object from some distant planet in my left hand. My writing didn't flow it stuttered like chalk screeching across a board. I had to drag it across the page like a heavy weight through mud. 

Whilst not quite as prickly as the pen in the picture it metaphorically might as well have been. No sooner had I put pen to paper there would be a mess of ink trailing behind my left hand. My hand would be covered in ink as I tried hard to engage in the act of writing on a piece of paper. In the end I used to write with my head hunched over my work and my right hand covering the top of the paper.

A pen of thorns

A few minutes after I put pen to paper my hand would start to ache and cramp up. I had to grasp the pen so tightly in an effort to keep some control over my hand writing all to no avail. Oh my head would be full of ideas of what I wanted to write but I just couldn't get them down on the paper.

Needless to say it took me ages to write anything. Then every time I handed in work a teacher would comment on my messy work. If I was lucky they wouldn't do it in front of the rest of the class.

Then there was my spelling to contend with. It was like trying to drive down a road full of pot holes. It seemed like every third word 

I would have to stop and contemplate how to spell something. Every five yards I drove down this road I would hit an pot hole then another pot hole and then another and another.

By the time I was 14 years old I have had enough of school, well the learning part of it anyway. So I stopped attending. 

Not altogether though I would go to art and music but for me the rest of school was irrelevant, boring, and painful even. I was able to express myself very well in art and music. No barriers there, my ideas flowed like mercury down a slide. I also enjoyed Religious Studies, not that I am religious in any way. But we used to discuss life and theories like ancient philosophers.  Exploring ideas in the spoken word was fun also.

It was a lot easier to skip school back then than it is now. I had lots of inventive ways of skipping school back then. The easiest one was to not wear a correct piece of the uniform. Just going into school without wearing a school tie was a good enough reason to be sent hope.

Years later in my first year at university I got feedback from a lecturer for a 2000 assignment I completed. I had spent many hours handwriting this assignment. Gawd only knows how many pieces of paper were screwed up and thrown in the bin before I had completed it. Every word was written in upper case because that’s the only way I can write legibly. I checked every word for spelling errors many times. It was like painting the Sistine Chapel for me. 

The first comment the lecturer wrote, in the dreaded red ink I might add, was,” doesn’t writing like this take a long time? How can you ever expect to pass any exam writing like this?”  His comment took the gloss off the fact I got an A- for the assignment.

I moved to a different university for my second year and it was here I was assessed as being dyslexic. It was then I was given access to disabled students allowance to buy a computer and assistive technology. 

It was then I started my journey of discovery of my dyslexia. More importantly I didn’t have to do any writing by hand. I was finally liberated from that pen of thorns by the digital marvel that was the computer and printer.

Many thanks for reading your comments and thoughts are welcomed.

#PeaceLoveGroovyness to you all.

Hi all

Here is a link to my soon to be release single Unique Dyslexic Eye single on Google Play and Amazon Music. https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/uniquedyslexiceye/eye

thanks for reading

shout out for volunteers and link to my radio show

Unique Dyslexic Eye Logo

Hi blog readers hope you are all well

Just a short one for today

Hi I am a dyslexic dyslexia and inclusion specialist and social entrepreneur. I founded my social enterprise Dyslexia Pathways CIC 12 years ago and Unique Dyslexic about 7 years ago. 

I just completed and passed an HND in Broadcasting.

Unfortunately, the corona virus got in the way and I couldn't access the studio at the college so I have been doing the course and radio shows from home.

My show is called Unique Dyslexic Eye and promotes the creative talents of people from the dyslexic and other neuro diverse communities.

I am learning as I go along and could do with any support I can get. Lol. Especially looking for some kind web savvy person to volunteer to build me a free wix web site for the radio station. 

Here is the link to my show

https://soundcloud.com/raelthing/unique-eye1-mixdown-1

my latest short vlog from my allotment

https://youtu.be/IF8DdIsAWaE

Reflections on my leadership development as a dyslexic

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Hi to all my blog readers. Thought I would do something a little different today and talk about my leadership journey. Such as it is lol. I while back I took a year long course in leadership which I passed with flying colors I might add. I had to do this for one assignment and got 95% mark for. Its a bit long I am afraid.

Question to all you dyslexics in leadership roles. Tell me about your journey.

Reflections on my leadership development

To be honest with you before taking this course I didn’t spend too much time at all analyzing my leadership qualities, strengths and weaknesses. I don’t think I even considered myself as a leader at all. I believe it may have been because I didn’t aspire to leadership. 

It just seems too grand an idea for me when I consider others in leadership roles I have admired in the past. However I could count leaders I would aspire to be on the fingers of on hand. I knew the kind of leader I didn’t want to be but I no real idea what kind of leader I could be or if I could ever be a leader.

I also believe it was an issue of confidence that I was just setting myself up to fail. As a result I struggled with motivating and communication the goals of my organisation to others as well as to myself at times.  Let alone others involved with my organization.

I wasn’t even self-managing myself effectively so how could I expect to lead others or expect others to buy into the company goals and objectives. This course has enabled myself to grab these issues by the scruff of the neck and develop my own leadership, motivation and communication skills which has been of benefit to myself, my organisation and all customers /users of the services we provide.

One piece of my leadership puzzle fell into place when we looked at emotional intelligence. I feel learning about emotional intelligence gave me a model for leadership and business that I could identify with and feel comfortable with.

Most of my own personal experiences with other leaders come from my career as a teacher in colleges. The main leadership roles in the senior management team were authoritarian.

Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People theory particularly struck a chord with me.

Review of Prevailing Leadership Style

INTRODUCTION

As I run a small social enterprise where I am the only paid employee I will be using my experiences as Co-ordinator / Team Leader / teacher for Dyslexia Support at the last college I was employed with.

Levels of motivation and commitment to the organisation values and goals

One of the main reasons I decided to embark on this leadership course was to develop my own leadership skills. In my previous career as a teacher within further education my experiences with senior management / leadership had all been quite negative.

When I was first employed as Co-ordinator for Dyslexia Support there was not a dedicated Dyslexia Support Department and I was the only dedicated dyslexia teacher nor any dedicated teaching or work space.

So to begin with I managed learning support staff who was not dyslexia specialists. I soon found there was a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the leadership / senior management team. From discussions with all of my colleagues within learning support I know they also felt the same sense of dis-satisfaction with the college principal and senior management team.  

The main leadership style was quite coercive and there was always a sense of crisis amongst staff. Goalman’s 6 Leadership Styles indicate this coercive style has a negative effect on the climate within the college. Dr Douglas McGreggor’s XY Theory indicates this authoritarian style has an adverse affect on levels of motivation amongst staff. Within learning support this lead to a high turnover of staff and low morale was prevalent within the team. There was very much us against them atmosphere between staff and management.

Yet learning support staff very motivated toward meeting the learning needs of students

This impacted of levels of motivation within my team towards the college’s values and goals.

But within my team the motivation to meet the needs of students was very high.with the college as a whole and it’s vision  

I did have some experience of leadership from my career within teaching and in project development. I had a lot of experience of taking a new idea, developing it and bringing it into fruition. 

However, when I decided to embark on the path of self-employment and starting my own social enterprise I was surprised by just how much I struggled with many aspects of leadership and self-management. This had an adverse affect on my own performance as a leader as well as the performance of the company.

Levels of Motivation and Commitment:

At the beginning of this course my goals were to:

1.     Become a more effective leader in terms of projecting my vision to others such as directors, prospective customers and others

2.    To develop better time management and goal setting skills

3.    To discover what it is to be a leader from working with others on the course

I believe I am now just as highly motivated in all areas of managing and leading my organisation as I am when working with the students at Heriot Watt University.

If you were to have asked me about my own levels of motivation and commitment 9 months ago my answers would have been quite negative. In almost all other areas I lacked direction, I couldn’t find focus and, to a large extent, was overwhelmed by the whole self-management and leadership aspects of running my organisation.  Almost other tasks such as networking, marketing and administration were an anathema. To all intense and purposes I had no motivation to do any of the tasks that I needed to do to enable my organisation to grow.

Now my answer to this would be very positive and this is mainly due to what I have learned from this course, learned from others on this course and learned from my business mentor.

I believe my own levels of motivation and commitment to my own organisation’s values and goals are high. I would hope this would be so because I was the person who set them.

A clear indication of this belief comes from the last meeting I had with my own business mentor. She said I was much more focussed on the goals of the organisation because I had set myself clear short, medium and long term goals. These goals enable me to set achievable targets and measure progress and achievement. 

The first thing this goal setting did was give me a clear direction. These goals enabled to develop a strategic plan and measure progress toward achieving these goals. This included all the doing all the mundane things that I hadn’t been doing before I started this course and began working with a business mentor.

This clarity of focus has enabled me to communicate my own vision much more confidently and effectively.

latest live session on dyslexia on Facebook

Latest dyslexia / neuro diversity live session on Facebook.

to view the session just click on the link

New Unique Dyslexic Eye broadcast

Unique Dyslexic Eye Logo

Hi welcome to my blog and new dyslexia radio broadcast

Its all a bit rough and ready because I dont have access to the radio station at college. But it works and that is all matters. Its my third broadcast so far and I am still learning the ropes as they say.

Please note there are a couple of words in one song that are not suitable for children so over 16's only for this broadcast.

https://soundcloud.com/raelthing/unique-eye1-mixdown-1

If there are any dyslexic on neuro diverse musicians who would like to share their music or poetry on the show just send me a message or e-mail me on steve_mccue@hotmail.com

I am looking for volunteers and support with the campaign. The big one is finding someone who is willing to volunteer their time to build a free Wix web site. The other big ask is support with writing funding bids for the lottery and other funders.

anyways that's it for today's blog

#PeaceLoveGroovyness #IAmDyslexic

Steve McCue (dyslexia and inclusion specialist)

Please give us a like or a follow or share with your friends.

mind map of my project plan

Couple facebook links you are cordially invited to visit and join us and also share what you do creativity 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/unique.dyslexic/

https://www.facebook.com/Unique-Dyslexic-BOOM-104707367659177/

my latest dyslexia news podcast

plan for a new project

https://www.facebook.com/1431413910440768/videos/1544922512344271/

Puddle of primordial goo

We all came from the same puddle of primordial goo. The rest is just about evolution and diversity. Nature and planet earth thrives because of diversity. The human race thrives because of our diversity including neuro diversity.

#uniquedyslexic #vivaladifference #dyslexiapathwayscic

Unique Dyslexic News

new project mind map explanation in the main body of the text

Hi Blog readers and followers. Hope you are all coping well during these challenging times.  

I have been putting together a plan for a new dyslexia project that does not have to only be for dyslexics. We know our mental health will be impacted upon by corona and lock down.

The project is designed to try and address that. I could do with some help with writing a funding bid.

Please see mind mad attached. Let me know what you think.

My HND Course news.

I had some good news yesterday I passed both parts of my broadcasting course. Even passed the law exam phew. I sweat blood and tears over that one lol.

My radio show news:

i have decided to try and make 4 half hour shows that focus on dyslexia and neuro diversity and creativity. In this case music. I will be showcasing music created by dyslexics and people from all other neuro diverse communities. I have six tracks on my first show and looking from tracks from others for my next show.

More positive news:

I have had a couple of my songs published and available to download online. I will post more about that next time.

Below is a link to my last one hour show on dyslexia:

models-of-dyslexia radio show

Anyway that's enough from me today

#PeaceLoveGroovyness to you all

#PeaceLoveGroovyness