Recalling our Unique Dyslexic Get Creative Campaign

 

A Unique Dyslexic badge I designed a while back

Hello everyone, hope you are all well.

Been experiencing quite an increase in numbers of people visiting my Unique Dyslexic Blog recently. Alwasy nice to see my readers increasing.

Today, I want to share videocast I did a while back in which I recorded easly COVID:

This was recorded quite near the start of lockdown. All my dyslexia work had stopped, as had my HND / HNC course in Broadcasting. I think I had just started my Unique Dyslexic Eye podcasting channel. I am wearing my first t short logo designed by myself for the Unique Dyslexic Campaig.. Talking about our successful Unique Dyslexic Eye campaign. Talking about our response to COVID.

Thanks for watching, your comments and share of this blog are invited.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me:

Steve #UniqueDyslexic Eye McCue

A vision which nurtures and values dyslexic diversity

 

Dyslexia: deficites, disorder and discrepancy? I dont believe so.....

me in the Boom radio station during the my Unique Dyslexic Boom radio broadcast

 Hi readers hope you are all feeling fab

Almost all new ideas are generated by individuals but they are given life by and nurtured by communities and the cultures they create.

If we are ever going to move away from a negative medical model of dyslexia that has nothing positive to say to dyslexics or about dyslexia. We, as dyslexics, need to come together and create a coherent global dyslexic community. A global dyslexic community that has a more positive social model of dyslexia vision delivered through social enterprise.  vision  A vision which nurtures and values dyslexic diversity and difference and celebrates all that we have achieved and are still to achieve in the future.

We need to consign the medical model of dyslexia to history where it belongs because it has failed us as dyslexics. The medical model defines us in terms of deficits, disorder and discrepancy. Its a model that has nothing positive to say about dyslexia or to dyslexics.

The social model of dyslexia defines us by what we can do and achieve, it empowers us and it frees us from the negative medical model stereotype that tells us being dyslexic means we are disabled is some way.

That's why I believe that dyslexia is a difference that reflects diversity and that neuro diversity is as important as biodiversity. My organisation Dyslexia Pathways CIC was the first dyslexia focussed social enterprise in the world and we have embraced and promoted the social model of dyslexia.

Why not join us and let's create a global dyslexic community and culture. One where we dyslexics can move take our future in our own hands and forward and enable our dyslexic kids to thrive and succeed.

Anyway many thanks for reading, you are invited to leave comments in the comments section.

Peace love and groovyness to you all

 #PeaceLoveAndGroovyness from me, Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Why it makes business sense to be dyslexia and disability friendly

Hi blog readers hope you are all well

Well every business person in the county is well aware that budgets are tight for all businesses. But every business benefits from a healthy and motivated staff.

Healthy and happy staff are more productive, less likely to take time off due to illness and stress and be far more motivated. 

A business can also serve its dyslexic / disabled customers more effectively by being dyslexia and disability friendly and it makes sound business sense as well.

Remember one happy and satisfied disabled or dyslexic customer, indeed any customer will tell their friends and give positve feedback on social media and in turn will come and buy from your business and / use your services. Every business in the country benefits from returning customers. 

Whilst I do not see dyslexia as a disability it is recognised as a disability under the disability discrimination act. Employers are required under this legislation to support disable and dyslexic staff by making reasonable adjustments.

There is support available for employers to support dyslexic / disabled staff through the government Access to Work scheme. They can provide funds to buy assistive tech software if it required for dyslexic and disabled staff. Last time I worked with Access to Work they were able to provide 90% of the costs towards equipment for dyslexic / disabled staff.

Businesses, training organisations and charities have to remember that 20% of the uk population is disabled, around 10% are dyslexic. Meeting their needs effecitvely can increase business turnover and enhance corporate image and create a more productive workforce. So it makes sound business sense to be dyslexia / disablity friendly.

Disability and dyslexia friendly solutions can benefit non dyslexic staff. Speech to text software is a far more effective and efficient way to input text into a computer.

There are also many ways to enable dyslexic and disabled staff to use the computer more effecivley.  For example many dyslexics can benefit from using different colour background colours on computers.  This could also help non dyslxic staff avoid eyestrain. This is a simple and free solution and there are many others.

Dyslexia Pathways CIC run regular dyslexia awareness training sessions which can be run for whole organisations or in groups with people from other organisations. This is probably the first step in raising awarness of dyslexia.

Then its about providing a safe environemnt where staff can discuss any dyslexia / disability disclose they are dyslexic / disabled. Maybe have a named person in HR where people feel able and comfortable to disclose.

I know it is not easy for small organisation to do this but the benefits from supporting disabled and dyslexic staff far outweigh any possible percieved negatives.

Below are links to my organisation's web sites:

http://www.uniquedyslexic.com/

http://www.dyslexiapathways.com/

Many thanks for taking the time to read my blog

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me,

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Dyslexia Pathways CIC and Unique Dyslexic Eye progress

 

Images from our, " I am Dyslexic Gallery

Welcome to my Unique Dyslexic Blog

In this episode I talk about  Dyslexia Pathways CIC and Unique Dyslexic Eye progress over the last few months as we navigated our way through COVID.

There is also an article of free options of assistive technology.

Finally, there is a new short track from me.

This show has been: presented, mixed down, edited and produced by myself.

Just click on the link below.

Epispde 6 from series 2 of my Unique Dyslexic Eye Podcst

Your comments and feedback are welcomed, subscribing to my blog and podcast channels are  invited. Both are totally free.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness 

from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

My dyslexic mind working hard early in the morning

 

I read a blog about dyslexia and employment and it got me started lol. Oh the joys of having a brain that wakes up at 4am and won't stop lol

Hi blog readers

As I see it there is a deluge of information out there about dyslexia which is, in the main, quite negative, untrue and misleading to say the least. I am a dyslexic person and I am also a disabled person but that does not mean I am unable to work or be good and positive asset to any employer.

I am just going to focus on dyslexia from now on in the response. But I would say the same can be applied to disability as well.

I know I bang on about the social model of dyslexia and that it is society that disable us. Society can also enable us. A good employer can create and inclusive working environment and reap tremendous benefits from doing so. But I would say they are very few and far between.

I am not going to say there are a lot of bad employers out there I am just going to say many just do not know how to create an inclusive working environment. Many just have a misinformed negative impression of dyslexia and have little to no idea of what a positive skills and abilities a prospective dyslexic employee can bring to their organisation.

I believe we have to look at the negativity surrounding the medical and charity models of dyslexia that effectively shackle us to a very negative stereotype. We cant spell, our short term memory is crap our brains do not work properly, somehow we are not normal sigh. This does not promote a positive image of dyslexia nor does in talk about celebrating diversity or difference.

Education has to take some responsibility for the fact that many very bright and capable dyslexics fail at school because the education system fails them. As a result many leave school with few or no qualifications and as a result struggle to find work. Why is it the 35% of entrepreneurs are dyslexic? Yet over 50% of people in our prisons are dyslexic?

But the dyslexia industry also has to shoulder some of the responsibility for this situation. I was looking to update my Dyslexia Pathways CIC website a couple of months ago and was looking at a couple of dyslexic screening tests I had put up. It got me thinking about these tests. 

Many of there screening tests focus on negatives and what we struggle with. In the end I decided against putting up the screening test. Now this seems like a bit chicken or the egg situation here. I can hear you all asking, “you must take a screening test to find out if you need a dyslexia assessment?”

But go take a look at these screening tests, put yourself in the eyes of a prospective employer, what do these screening tests say to any employer about dyslexics? What do they say to many of us dyslexics taking them?

Moreover, what do these screening tests say to the dyslexic that takes them? Maybe we need to be looking at more positive ways of screening? I know of good screening tool out there called Quickscan which I have used for a number of years but that’s all.

Now back to the dyslexia industry which sells assistive technology which promotes itself as accessible technology. Have you looked at the prices they sell these things for? Over £300 for one particular text to speech software package.

It costs around £100 for a speech to text package. Not very accessible in terms of costs for the average dyslexic in the street? Also this technology is sold as a panacea for all dyslexics but quite clearly they do not work for all dyslexics. No doubt these software packages can be very liberating for some dyslexics but not for all.
 
On the positive front in around 30 to 50 years writing by hand will be being lamented as a lost art. Maybe even the keyboard will be lauded as an outmoded and old bit of technology that has had its day.

Its a slow and laborious was of communicating and in business time is money. Speech to text technology will become the main way we communicate in writing. It will become everyday life, it will be seriously much better than it is today but more importantly this technology will be cheaper as it becomes more mainstream

Books will slowly start to die out to be replaced by screens that are light and easy to carry and store and can change the background colour, or the size and font or use text to speech technology. Just look at MP3 players. Maybe 8 years ago I would have to carry around my music on CDs and I could carry maybe 10 CDs around with me in a bag. Now I can carry my whole collection of music in a very small MP3 player in my pocket.

The same will happen, is already happening, with books.

Give me 10 dyslexic is a room and oh the problems we could solve together with our unique dyslexic minds with our dyslexic think tank. Who is up for putting one together with me?

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Dyslexics can and do succeed but many do so in spite of their education not because of it.

 Dyslexics can and do succeed but many do so in spite of their education not because of it. 

photo above: we must enable dyslexic kids to fly and learn together with their disabled, neuro diverse and non dyslexic peers

Hi all:

We must change how we think about what it means to be dyslexic in a society that disables. We must change how we think and talk about dyslexia.

We have to challenge the current medical discrepancy of dyslexia. It is a model that has nothing positive to say about dyslexia or to dyslexics. It is a model that has only served to trap us behind a narrow one dimensional negative stereotype definition of dyslexia. A definition that totally ignores and stifles our potential and strengths.

That is why I support the social model of dyslexia. It talks about dyslexia in terms of diversity and difference and it recognises that it is society that disables us.

#dyslexia is a difference that reflects #diversity. We need to unleash and nurture that potential not remediate or stifle it.

What are your thoughts on this? please comment


Anyway that's enough from me apart to say my #dyslexia blog has had over 295.000 reads. Ta to all who read and contribute to my blog including guest bloggers. Hope you enjoy and share my latest one.

many thanks for reading and your support

#PeaceLoveGroovyness to all my blog followers and readers

Why not visit my Unique Dyslexic Eye podcast page and join fab dyslexia / neuro diverse clan.

Unique Dyslexic Eye Podcast Page

Be seeing you there soon

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness

from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Pretty serious eye health issue for me,

Hello sweeties lol

Hello all, hope you are all well out there

Over the past few days I have been experiencing an issue with my left eye. 

It came out of the blue on Thursday 9th January. I woke up in the morning and the sight in my left eye had become quite blurry. The blurryness came and went a few times that morning.

In the end I went to A&E  department of the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. After 5 hours and a couple of assessments the hospital advisded me to visit an opticians. It was to late to go that day, so went the next day and was taken throungh a few more tests, including having a 3D photo of my eye. Again, they could net see any issue. They advised me to see my doctor as soon as I could. I was given an appointment for Friday 17th.

I went back home, the next day, my left eye just went pretty dark and blurry.

I went back to A&E again on Saturday 11th January. This time I was seen by an eye specialist. His test showed I had an occlusion in the left eye. He went on to say it has recently happenned. 

I am ok in myself, but it is a bit of a worry living with it.

Still, things could have been so much worse.

I will let you know once I get test results.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Unique Dyslexic Get Creative video

Hello all, hope you all had a restful Christmas and New Year

The Unique Dyslexic Get Creative movie that shows some of the work people created at the five Unique Dyslexic Get Creative workshops. There is an introduction from myself and an introduction to campaign and being positive about dyslexia.

Filmed, scripted, edited and music put together by myself.

I had two heart attacks in the middle of delivering Unique Dyslexic Get Creative. It kinda got in the way a bit. I had planned to make a more extenisve video with more subtitles etc. But I was struggling with meeting Lottery deadlines. Thank you to everyone who funded and supported the work and to all those who came along to the workshops.

Unique Dyslexic Get Creative workshop video

Your comments and feedback are welcomed

Thanks for taking the time to watch the video.

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Supporting the social model of dyslexia.

 

social model of dyslexia and social enterpsie a more empowering, inclusive and positive way forward

just a photo of me with my I am dyslexic logo

Good day to all my blog readers

I believe the medical discrepancy model of Dyslexia has gotten us pretty much nowhere. The dyslexia is about deficites, disorder and discrepency. This model say it's we dyslexics that are the problem. It makes no mention of diversity and difference. 

That's why my social enterprise, Dyslexia Pathways CIC, (Community Interest Company,) promotes and support the social model of Dyslexia. 

We see the social model of dyslexia together with social enterprise offers the dyslexic community a more inclusive, positive and empowering way forward. The social model tells us it is society that disables and here is how society does. 

My own research showed only 19% of dyslexic adults were assessed while at school. That the majority of adults assessed as dyslexic were assessed while at university. 

But you have to remember only about 5% of undergraduates are dyslexic while in the UK research shows around 10% of the population are dyslexic. Society disables us in so many ways and this disabling starts from day one at school for many of us and does not stop even at higher education level.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic Mccue