Education
Cast Patrick Emily Joy Jonathan Show notes Transcript [Introduction] Welcome to LD State of Mind, a podcast about learning together and making a difference for college Students! Join us as we discuss tips and useful information with our peers and experts in the area of learner variability. [Patrick] Welcome to the LD State of Mind. My name is Patrick Young and thank you for joining us for the first episode. Today we will be talking about learning disabilities and more specifically disclosing your learning disability. [Patrick] Everybody has a story. Everybody has some way they’ve used disclosing a learning disability to do better in school, or just may be more comfortable with friends. So Emily, can you please give us a quick story about how you disclosed your learning disability when you were in school, and how you thought it helped you. [Emily] So for me, I was diagnosed with dyslexia in the second grade. I have dyslexia and a learning disability in reading, writing, and math. And so being diagnosed really young, in my household like being dyslexic and everything was nothing to be ashamed of. It was something we talked about all the time and so, that was really great to have it be such a comfortable topic of conversation at home. Because then when I went into school, it was something I was really comfortable talking about. I told kids in my elementary school class I had dyslexia. I got plenty of funny looks, and what the heck is that, but that was okay. I was happy to tell them what it was and I did get picked on a little bit for it, but it definitely was something that I was like hey, it’s okay, it’s whatever. So that led me through elementary and middle school to then get to high school and really being able to advocate for myself and telling teachers, “hey by the way I’m in your class, I have dyslexia here’s my IEP, here’s all my documentation, this is what I need okay great let’s go.” You know, and so for me, because it was so comfortable talking about it at home, it made it really comfortable to talk about it at school. It did mean that people picked on me a couple of times, but in the long run, it was really beneficial that I advocated for myself so I could get all the help that I needed. [Patrick] Thank you Emily. Now Joy, I heard you were homeschooled for a large portion of your schooling. Can you please tell us about your experience? [Joy] Hey Patrick, thank you. So, I started off learning that I had a disability when I was in fifth grade. Growing up homeschooled, I really didn’t know that anything was different. I started comparing myself to my siblings and figured out that I had a harder time with reading and writing, when I saw that my younger siblings were catching up to me. It wasn’t until it was time for me to be enrolled in our local public school that my mom decided that I would get tested for dyslexia. Following that, I found out that I had dyslexia dysgraphia and ADHD. Going through the public school system, and making the transition to five different, sorry eight different schools, in five different years, was very challenging. But I was able to figure it out and become more confident with my learning disability over time. [Patrick] Sweet! That’s great you went to a lot of different schools, public, private, and homeschool. What do you think it was like starting at a homeschool? Being compared to siblings more? And not having people you didn’t know, know that fact that you had a learning disability? [Joy] I would say that when I was homeschooled, I was definitely most comfortable with my learning disability. Entering public school and not being very confident, not knowing socially where I stood within my peers; I really tried to hide and cover up the fact that I had a difference than everyone else. When I would seek accommodations, or need to go out of the room, or go take my ADHD medicine, I would always lie to my peers,