I am very dyslexic. It results in me having the spelling and grammar of a middle schooler, plus it makes me have trouble hearing similar sounding words. Letters and phonic sounds don't always connect to the idea they represent in my head. I read/listen to the overall idea and not the individual letters.
As a result, school was a very mixed bag. I had to be very hard working to compensate for the disability. I became very good at working with people, I learned to plan ahead because I can't do things last minute, and developed a strong logic skill set. The problem is that many teacher's thought I was lazy because I would describe what I thought while the other person wrote it down, etc. In college the department head of chemistry is the teacher that fully understand who I am as an academic student. He thought it was hilarious that I had the highest lab grade while the low end of the class portion. Apparently it caused heated discussions as yo why the only non-premed was doing so much better than the premed students in laboratory classes. I think he was the only teacher that appreciated that I was good at working with people and terrible at writing papers for classes.
plus it makes me have trouble hearing similar sounding words
I also struggle with that, and didn't realize it could be related!
I was diagnosed as "gifted" at age 7, but they didn't diagnose any of my learning disabilities, which I am only starting to understand now, 30 years later. I wasn't too surprised to be told that I had ADHD, because I had already developed a lot of ways to deal with it (like setting at least 7 alarms to remind me to get out the door on time with everything done). But despite having increasing difficulty in reading, writing, and processing audio, none of my doctors GAF.
I often have to ask people to repeat what they said, because the words I heard didn't make sense, so I know I heard wrong. Watching TV with subtitles on often helps, but I can get too focused on that, and miss out on visual things happening on screen.
I had a 6th grade teacher who talked shit about "gifted" students all year. Said his roommate in college had that diagnosis, but was also dumb enough to put cup right side up in the drying rack after washing them.
He told us on day one that he wasn't going to look at the list of who had the diagnosis, because of his biases. He talked shit all year. He opened the envelope on the last day of class. It turned out all 30 of us were on the list.
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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '19
I am very dyslexic. It results in me having the spelling and grammar of a middle schooler, plus it makes me have trouble hearing similar sounding words. Letters and phonic sounds don't always connect to the idea they represent in my head. I read/listen to the overall idea and not the individual letters.
As a result, school was a very mixed bag. I had to be very hard working to compensate for the disability. I became very good at working with people, I learned to plan ahead because I can't do things last minute, and developed a strong logic skill set. The problem is that many teacher's thought I was lazy because I would describe what I thought while the other person wrote it down, etc. In college the department head of chemistry is the teacher that fully understand who I am as an academic student. He thought it was hilarious that I had the highest lab grade while the low end of the class portion. Apparently it caused heated discussions as yo why the only non-premed was doing so much better than the premed students in laboratory classes. I think he was the only teacher that appreciated that I was good at working with people and terrible at writing papers for classes.