For this post, I have re-visited a submission I drafted five years ago. The focus was on support (or lack of support) for students with the significant challenges of dyslexia, dyspraxia, and autism spectrum disorders in various educational contexts in Aotearoa New Zealand. This submission was added to by members of the team of Learning Advisors working at Auckland University of Technology. Our submission was duly lodged with the Secretariat: Education and Science Select Committee in Wellington, on 1st October, 2015. For this purposes of this MOOC, I have gone back to my original draft, and reflected on salient themes.

I started by observing that “one of the key aspects of efficient and integrated support is institutional awareness. This is often achieved by having an institution-wide policy on learning disabilities. Additionally, every institution – at primary, secondary and tertiary – should have a core of expertise in the form of trained staff, which should have ongoing professional development with respect to learning disabilities.” This is actually very expensive, and from my own first-hand experience, the processes are often cumbersome and bound up in ‘red tape’; however, it is heartening to see that more resources have been diverted towards provision of this support in recent years. Another observation relates to the importance of destigmatising learning disabilities. There are many ways of approaching this challenge: “This could be achieved via information and/or a reframing of terminology. This could be achieved by teachers introducing discussion among students of some of the most gifted and creative people that have been known to have dyslexia: Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Steven Spielberg, amongst others. This allows the normalizing of difference rather than focusing on a deficit model. Institutional-wide awareness could also be raised in staff. An example could be 'rule of squares': if it takes me two hours to do this, it will take a dyslexic student four hours; if it takes me three hours, it will take them nine hours. Inclusion could also be achieved by arranging consciousness-raising activities so that every student in the group has some lived experience of struggling to process complex information. This might provide a glimpse of the learning disabilities student experience.” I think it is important to remind students that many remarkable people – many of whom we might label ‘genius’ have been identified as dyslexic. Personally, I love the idea that such people are not ‘disabled’; instead, a more appropriate way of understanding my be to consider them as ‘differently abled’ – certainly, in many cases the coping strategies that some individuals devised demonstrate unusual creativity. A third observation was the importance of adapting strategies such as the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), where several avenues are provided for learners. “This allows a wider freedom to learn, a higher level of empowerment and choice from the learner, and also allows students with learning disabilities to choose a path that is consistent with their strengths and capabilities. Additionally, incorporating greater use of technology into schools would also allow students to find a better way to learn, express their ideas and understanding, rather than be limited by weak literacy skills. This allows them to focus on learning, rather than processes.” You might like to follow the link to the UDL website:

https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/universal-design-for-learning/

I work at a university, and the Government’s original focus was limited to primary and secondary schools. However, we wanted to present a team submission because we were aware that by the time any legislation arising from this inquiry became effective, there would have been a time lag and students at tertiary level would not have been screened. Secondly, and more importantly from our perspective, we were well aware that numerous adult learners who had already gone through the schooling system were then, as mature students, coming to university. Furthermore, some areas of disability may only be screened when learners are operating at a higher level of complexity. This explains why some students only discover their learning disability when they arrive at university and start working on complex academic assignments. Interestingly, others only become aware of their learning disability after they finish their doctoral studies. Therefore, we argued that screening mechanisms should exist at all educational levels, primary, secondary and tertiary.