Running free to access dyslexia surgeries in 2005

 

My guitars, music really helped me cope with the trials and tribulations of being dyslexic

Hello there to you all, welcome to a new blog

The more things change, the more things stay the same?

Way back in 2005 when I was running the dyslexia department in a college in London. When I first started working there I visited all the staff rooms to introduce myself.  This lead to some very interesting conversations around dyslexia. As a result I ran a number of open dyslexia surgeries for students and staff wanting to find out more about dyslexia. As it turned out, a large number of staff took up the offer and came to the surgeries.  

Some just want some advice on ways to support their dyslexic student s more effectively. But others came because they either knew they were dyslexic or suspected they were dyslexic. 

All had some concerns that being dyslexic would hinder their career prospects and nearly all had not disclosed they were dyslexic.

As a result of this I put together a proposal for a new dyslexia focused project called Breaking down the barriers of dyslexia. 

The basic idea was to provide free dyslexia screening and assessment to staff at the college as well as provide training in dyslexia friendly work strategies.   

I managed to secure a fifty thousand pound grant from the Learning and Skills Council in London for the project.  The project itself went very well. We had a target to provide 8 free dyslexia assessments and in the end we provided 23.

However, at the end of the project despite how well it went 99% of those assessed still did not want their bosses to know they were dyslexic.

Eight years later and things do not appear to have changed much.

I was talking with a degree student yesterday who I had been providing dyslexia support over the last semester.  A very bright student as well. He was expressing an interest in becoming a teacher but felt that it was not possible for him to become a teacher because of his dyslexia. 

He was expressing his concerns about telling any prospective employers about his dyslexia. That if he did it would adversely affect his job and career prospects. He would be a great teacher as well in my opinion

There is far too much focus on dyslexia as a negative condition that adversely impacts on our abilities to succeed academically and in the work place. Let’s face it what employer wants to take on a dyslexic who can't spell, has poor memory, a brain that does not work properly, who can't read well etc. 

This is what the average person in the street believes dyslexia to be. Very few mention any of the positives of dyslexia at all. So it is not surprising many dyslexics keep it a secret, including teachers.

For every positive single article on dyslexia there and 20 or more negative ones. If we are ever to change people's attitudes and perceptions about dyslexia we need dyslexic teachers in classroom who are positive about being dyslexic and can act as role models and mentors to dyslexic children.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness

from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

A live and unscripted vlog from a very chilly day April

 

Just play the video to hear and see my Unique Dyslexic Podcast

Hi everybody, hope you are all ticketyboo out there

This is a VLOG I recorded, live and unscripted from my allotment 2nd April 2021. It was then my latest dyslexia and neuro diversity blog from my allotment in Glenrothes Scotland.

It was a chilly day in Glenrothes. In this podcast I discuss progress with my dyslexia and nueo diversity work. There is a wee call for support with developing my dyslexia websites. Finally, a wee look around my allotment.

Please leave a like, or share and subscribe.Why not join my dyslexia and neuro diversity clan. Or join mhmy Unique Dyslexic Eye clan.

If you would like to ask a question ask away. #PeaceLoveGroovyness to you all.

Here are some links to my Unique Dyslexic social media:

My Uniique Dyslexic YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVKyJJgQWkYUa93-GdtX3fg

One of my Facebook channels:

https://www.facebook.com/stephen.mccue.5

My Xcom:

My X com

My BlueSky:

My BlueSky

My PodBean:

Unique Dyslexic Podbean page

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness

from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Dyslexia neuro diversity and injustice we have to suffer in a dyslexic / neuro diversity unfriendly society.

 

Unique Dyslexic Eye logo

Hello all, hope everything is well with you

I dont suffer with dyslexia I embrace it for what it has given me. I challenge the negative medical model of dyslexia that tells us dyslexia is about deficits, discrepency and disorder. Its a model that tells us all our brains are broken. 

I was talking with one of my dyslexic students about this. He said, "nobody likes to thinks there is sonething wrong with them, exspecially if its the brain".

Our dyslexic / neuro diverse brains are not broken, they is different. Dyslexia is about diversity and difference.

Here is a link to one of my Unique Dyslexic Eye podcasts. This is episode 4 from series 2.

Below is a link to this podcast on You Tube

                       

               Episode 4 from series 2 of my podcast, Unique Dyslexic Eye

Let me know your thoughts on this podcast and please leave a review.

Many thanks for listening from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexicEye McCue

Handwriting, dyslexia and me

 

Unique Dyslexic Eye Logo

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 graphic

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 word 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.

Episode of my Unique Dyslexic Eye show, today I share results from research I carried out.

 

Unique Dyslexic Eye podcast logo

Hi everybody, hope a is well with you.

In this episode of Unique Dyslexic Eye show. I talk about the results dyslexia research I did a while back for my social enterprise Dyslexia Pathways CIC. Please leave a review or give us a like. Why not share it with your friends.

I would welcome your feedback on this show. My email is steve.mccue@uniquedyslexic.com.

If you are a dyslexic or neuro diverse musician, poet or just have something you would like to share with my listeners please send it to me and lets get you on the show.

#PeaceLoveGroovyness to you all and thanks for listening I really appreciate it.

Just click on the link below to listen to the show:

Today I talk about a little dyslexia research I did a while back

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

Dyslexia, diversity, inclusion, neuro diversity and #vivaladifference and accessibility options

 

Dyslexia, diversity, inclusion, neuro diversity and #vivaladifference

Picture above logos for Dyslexia Pathways CIC, Unique Dyslexic and Social Enterprise Scotland

 
Hi de hi blog readers. I hope you are all well and the world is being good to you.

Just a couple of little blogger hints from me here. I add captions to my photos for people who use text to speech screen readers to make my blog more accessible.

I only wish I could add a screen reader such as browse aloud but so far I have not found a screen reader widget or app that will work in blogger.

I also try and use a dyslexia friendly font. I used Verdana size 12 or 14 together with different background colours to again make my blog more accessible.

Here is a funny dyslexia short story lol I have been calling verdana veranda for ages and wondering why I was getting quizzical looks from people when I talked about fonts. lol.

I only wish I had the time and space to make more audio or visual blogs but they take me such a long time to produce. Its not really a techy issue its remembering a script lol. I think I will make a visual blog next week. 

Being dyslexia friendly can cost next to nothing and has many benefits

There are some easy things dyslexics like myself, people, parents and organisations can do to support people who are dyslexic that cost nothing or very little to  implement.

I personally find staring at a white computer screen and black text quite a strain on the eyes as well as difficult to read. So the hints below are good for all not just for dyslexics.

This includes finding a background colour which is dyslexia friendly. This is a bit trial and error because every dyslexic's dyslexia is unique to the individual so solutions are unique to the individual.

Personally I like the background colour to my blog page but I also like pastel colours like beige, blue or yellow.

Different colour printing paper is also helpful also not only for employees but for customers, clients and trainees.

Changing the font size is also a fabtastic strategy. Personally I like comic sans best but that has gone out of fashion so to speak so now I use verdana but ariel and century gothic are dyslexia friendly fonts. But its finding the font and solutions that work for you that are best and these can be found by trial end error.

Its good for dyslexic employees, good for dyslexic customers, good for business and good for inclusion and a companies reputation. A win win all round and it cost nothing or very little to implement.

What accessibility tips have you got to share with other bloggers and their readers?

Personally, I would like to record audio to go with the blog. I have done before, but it takes me a long time to get it right.

#PeaceLoveGooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic McCue

For all you dyslexic, neuro diverse and disabled gamers out there

 

Cover graphic for Ocarina of Time 3D

Hello all, hope life is treating you all well

My dyslexia work keeps me pretty busy what with providing dyslexia support to students, awareness training and all the preparation that requires. Then there are all the mundane tasks that any business has to do from updating databases, looking for new business and supporting volunteers. Not forgetting my Unique Dyslexic podcast and blog. Dyslexia Pathways etc certainly keeps me on my toes. If I let it dyslexia could take up all my waking hours and then some of my sleeping ones too.

Whenever I get the opportunity I enjoy playing computer / console games. It’s been something of a passion of mine for many years. I still vividly remember spending many happy hours playing speccy games like The Hobbit and Knight Lore way back in the early 1980s. I used to play The Hobbit with a few of the guys in one of my first bands. We got stuck on one bit of the game for ages and in the end we wrote a song about it called Gandalf Carries the Dead Butler and yes it probably sounded as bad as the title suggests. But to us it was brilliant pmsl.

I have just completed one of my favourite games of all time again Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time for the umpteenth time. It was first released on the Nintendo N64 in 1998 and was cutting edge at that time. I am not sure if its a dyslexia thing but I just love the overall ethereal feel of the game. The characterisations are brilliant as are the graphics and sound. Whenever I play it feels like meeting and old friend you haven’t seen for a while. It my best game od all time.

Ocarina of Time appeals to the dyslexic inside of me, the music is fab, game characters are almot real. In fact when ever I go back to play Ocarina of Time again its like meeting old friends. I find the introduction musc and graphis particularly haunting: 

This is the 3DS version by the way. excactly the same as the original, just better quality.

I always used to call it the Ocriana of Time a typical dyslexic mistake. Even now that’s what I the game. I will be playing the next game in the series The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask now ...... yet again.  

Any other dyslexic gamers out there want to share what their best game is?

Many thanks for ready, why not leave a review or a like or follow my Unique Dyslxic Eye blog.

#PeaceLoveGrooveyness from me

Steve #UniqueDyslexic Mccue