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being a student with a learning difficulty

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited March 27 in Work & Study
Just wanted to offload really! And get some advice if any.

I have dyslexia and dyspraxia and luckily passed first year with no help from the learning support team (they were very, very slow) But now I'm pretty much set up with equipment that would help like mind mapping software and a dictaphone and also one to one sessions with a learning support mentor once a week.

I find I'm questioning everything I do and I don't feel confident at all. I've been advised by my learning support mentor this week to keep a diary of what I do day to day, her point obviously was to show me that I'm not working as much as I should be

She also has given me a new way of processing lectures that she thinks would benefit me more rather than my current one which is... going to a lecture, recording it on my dictaphone, taking frantic notes and getting down everything I can, going home, listening to the recording and typing up the lecture pretty much word for word...which takes forever.

She thinks that I won't be processing it this way and just parroting it. So instead she reckons that I should be going to a lecture, recording on my dictaphone, jot down anything that I react to and nothing more and instead concentrate on trying to follow the argument..then to listen to the recording when I get home and stop it every 2-3 mins to make sense in my own words of what the lecturer has just said. Then if I have time listen to the recording again and add anything that I think is really important. I can see why this is a better way of doing things but sometimes I just think it's unfair that my brain is so crap that I have to listen to everything 2/3 times.

I tried her system out tonight anyway and was fine till the 2-3 minutes thing. My short term memory is VERY bad. On the tests that I had to do, I'm pretty much in the lowest percentile you can get. So I would stop it but then have no idea what the lecturer has said on the recording because my brain (on it's own it feels like..) is working hard to remember word for word a phrase or key sentence that I picked up. I know it seems like a fuss over nothing and I know lots of people have dyslexia and dyspraxia. I'm just so...ENFURIATED with it!!

Yesterday I had a lecture where I have been before quite a few times though usually with a friend and I went to the completely wrong building because my brain is so stupid. I was so annoyed because I know the reason for it and there is nothing I can do about it. Except realise that I'm pretty much lacking in that area (memory and finding places I guess) and just getting on with it or setting up ways that I will find the place every Monday..like a trail of bread crumbs!? Eurghhh.

I hate this rant because it feels like I'm attributing all of my short comings to my learning difficulties which I don't want to do or be seeming to do. I'm just despairing of my own brain really. It's sad.
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    She also has given me a new way of processing lectures that she thinks would benefit me more rather than my current one which is... going to a lecture, recording it on my dictaphone, taking frantic notes and getting down everything I can, going home, listening to the recording and typing up the lecture pretty much word for word...which takes forever.

    She thinks that I won't be processing it this way and just parroting it. So instead she reckons that I should be going to a lecture, recording on my dictaphone, jot down anything that I react to and nothing more and instead concentrate on trying to follow the argument..then to listen to the recording when I get home and stop it every 2-3 mins to make sense in my own words of what the lecturer has just said. Then if I have time listen to the recording again and add anything that I think is really important. I can see why this is a better way of doing things but sometimes I just think it's unfair that my brain is so crap that I have to listen to everything 2/3 times.

    I tried her system out tonight anyway and was fine till the 2-3 minutes thing. My short term memory is VERY bad.

    Would it not be easier to have lectures notes instead?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Melian wrote: »
    Would it not be easier to have lectures notes instead?

    Like handouts? My department don't give out lecture notes or if they do (very rarely) it's a sheet of quotations that we have to annotate.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes I do mean handouts, which I'm meant to get, but rarely get them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    On my learning plan it recommends lecturers and seminar leaders give out handouts but that's it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    We usually have slideshows accompanying our lectures, so we're really lucky.

    I'm being screened for dyslexia atm, have an appointment with an Ed. Psychologist soon, and ur not over reacting, I may not even have dyslexia, but it's still a struggle, but it is worth it. I'm in my second year of a three year teaching degree, and am really struggling with my memory atm too, I am doing silly things, such as leaving ice cream out, putting on the kettle and forgetting it etc. I use a dictatorphone too, and find it helps me. I write down the main things in the lectures, and then listen back to my dictatorphone to get anyithng i missed.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    your-babe wrote: »
    We usually have slideshows accompanying our lectures, so we're really lucky.

    I'm being screened for dyslexia atm, have an appointment with an Ed. Psychologist soon, and ur not over reacting, I may not even have dyslexia, but it's still a struggle, but it is worth it. I'm in my second year of a three year teaching degree, and am really struggling with my memory atm too, I am doing silly things, such as leaving ice cream out, putting on the kettle and forgetting it etc. I use a dictatorphone too, and find it helps me. I write down the main things in the lectures, and then listen back to my dictatorphone to get anyithng i missed.

    Yeah the extra support is really good but I think sometimes I feel so down about it. I don't know whether uni has brought more attention to everything I have trouble with or it's always been there but I get so impatient with myself.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah the extra support is really good but I think sometimes I feel so down about it. I don't know whether uni has brought more attention to everything I have trouble with or it's always been there but I get so impatient with myself.

    I havent been diagnosed yet, so i may not even have it, but after my first initial screening i just cried. Dread to think how the next one will go! It does seem tough going.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    your-babe wrote: »
    I havent been diagnosed yet, so i may not even have it, but after my first initial screening i just cried. Dread to think how the next one will go! It does seem tough going.

    Yeah I don't mean to put you off :) My uni on the whole after I was diagnosed are being really helpful. I remember my mum telling her friend who works in education at the council that I got through first year and passed without any extra help whatsoever and she said 'gosh she must be smart!' I don't mean this to big myself up but thought I'd mention it because it must surely reflect v well on you that you got through many years of education without any help :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    get a note taker!

    Or record the lectures, and then play them back and take notes when you feel you need to, pausing it anbd rewinding if needs be...

    is this person actually a specialist teacher? because it sounds like they only want to make you feel shit for having a neurodiversity...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Don't know quite how relevant this is, but it's one thing that shed a lot of light on things for me, and kind of explained why sometimes I seem to struggle so much having not had noticeable problems at all until I got to uni.

    People learn their own ways of compensating, and for most things their coping strategies work out just fine, it's when you get to uni, and the academic work is starting to properly challenge you that you basically have less brain power left over for compensating so you start to struggle more.

    Things improve again once you've found the new challenges and developed new strategies to deal with them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I have to say that I disagree with T_T and the stuff the mentor is coming up with sounds like it could be really good. The new style of dealing with lectures could take a little to get your head around but I've found it to be quite good. I don't have a dictaphone, apparently they are less good for mathsy type courses, but the lecturer has their notes which are pretty much a complete set.

    I now don't try to frantically scribble down everything they say, but take notes on the key details, the things that spark thoughts that I want to come back to etc, and then use the lecturers notes (which would be my equivalent of your dictaphone recording) to go back and go over things that I need to.

    I get so much more out of the lectures doing that, because I can actually concentrate on the overall gist of what they are saying rather than frantically doing some kind of combination of dictation and copying shapes off the board without really following what's going on.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    get a note taker!

    Or record the lectures, and then play them back and take notes when you feel you need to, pausing it anbd rewinding if needs be...

    is this person actually a specialist teacher? because it sounds like they only want to make you feel shit for having a neurodiversity...

    Ah, I'd hate to have someone take my notes. My wrists don't cramp during lectures anyway because they are just 1 hour long. The teacher is specialist but I've only had one proper appointment with her. She seems nice but I hope her plan to get me to write down how I spend my week is just about time management rather than me having no life :grump:

    Thanks SM, that helped! The only drawback that I'm seeing with being diagnosed is that I feel like I'm attributing all my weaknesses at study to my two learning difficulties, rather than taking responsibility for them..if that makes sense? I remember an appointment I had with a woman who was helping me with my DSA and I mentioned that I get tired and even nap during the day. She said that I shouldn't worry and I'm not lazy. Just that my brain has to work extra hard so I get tired more easily. Couldnt I just attribute everything to my learning difficulty then? :confused: It was nice to be called not lazy but is it a load of crap?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    have a look on the danda website...theres a lot more to dyslexia and dyspraxia than just the academic side of things.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Couldnt I just attribute everything to my learning difficulty then? :confused: It was nice to be called not lazy but is it a load of crap?

    You could just attribute everything to your learning disability, but at the end of the day, it's part of who you are and you've got to learn to make it work for you. Using it as an excuse won't get you anywhere long term, what will is recognising your strengths and limitations and working round them and making them work for you.

    The emergency sessions I had with a specialist teacher last term wanted me to write down how I spend my time, partly to do with time management, but also so she could get an idea of how I worked, and with that in mind what may or may not work as methods to help me.

    Eg. Working in my department library in the afternoons wasn't going to be a helpful suggestion because last term I kept sane by going home for lunch and curling up on my bed with lunch and a magazine and chilling for 45 mins for a combination of lunch and Neighbours and it was 20 mins from mine to the dept.

    That's a rubbish example, but hopefully you get the idea, it will help give her an idea of what will and won't work for you.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I see what you mean, it's weird tho balancing knowing exactly what you cannot do and stretching yourself.

    tt just bookmarked website :)
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