The choice to go to university has been an amazing one, and I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity and the chance to get a degree in a subject I am genuinely passionate about. It is interesting, as a dyslexic to choose a degree in the study of languages (Linguistics). Most people understand dyslexia to be a disability with reading and writing, which is correct but the way it has been presented in media is completely inaccurate to the general populations of those that are diagnosed with dyslexia. Such as the fact we don’t enjoy reading, which isn’t the most accurate, most people I know that have been diagnosed spend copious amounts of money in bookshops, (including me) and spend a fair bit of their free time enjoying amazing novelists. But due to the representation of dyslexics people often think that I don’t enjoy reading or struggle with it a lot, which I used to, I didn’t learn to read at the age that children were supposed to, but now all I do is read and write and understand how humans and animals understand language and communication. Some do not enjoy reading due to how their dyslexia affects them, and in some extreme cases some people are not able to read or write, but that is a smaller part of the dyslexic population.
Due to my openness about my dyslexia, I have had people ask me some extremely ignorant things and say, ‘How do you enjoy reading books so much if you’re dyslexic?’ It’s like I shouldn’t be able to enjoy anything that involves reading because apparently, I cannot read it. This doesn’t bother me so much, it’s the fact that one in ten 2 people in the UK are dyslexic and we still haven’t taught people about how it works and about how to appropriately ask people with disabilities questions without talking to them like they’re completely and utterly incompetent.
As of 2006 1.2 million 1 children in British classrooms are estimated to be dyslexic, and people still do not have a working understanding of how to approach their education and do not understand how to effectively accommodate to dyslexic children’s needs in classrooms. This has led to the ignorance that I have faced as a dyslexic student in university. It simply doesn’t make sense as it is one of the most common learning disabilities, we know that in a class of 30 students aren’t going to all learn in the same way, but why aren’t dyslexics put into classrooms that teach them content in a way that allows them to not feel rushed to understand it and digest the content.
Dyslexia is a disability, a disability does not mean that you are less able to do things the way someone who was ‘normal’ could, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t able to have the independence that you deserve to go forth and do things that interest you. You do not need to feel the need to be disabled enough to get the support that you deserve.
I also wanted to point out that disabilities are presented in various ways which means that an idealized version of what the disability looks like to you is not usually what most people with the disability are facing, this also includes having good days and bad days, in which tasks feel more manageable and when tasks feel less manageable. It is no reason to believe that the person doesn’t have a disability and that they are fabricating their issues, it is a normal part of being a human being with or without a disability.
Be mindful, of yourselves with the issues that you are facing and the issues that others are facing as no one deserves to fight to feel visible to the issues that they are facing, especially when it comes to something so personal such as their disabilities.