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JANET'S STORY
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A NICE GIRL BUT JUST NOT SUITABLE!
NEW ! My Colleauge Yanna Hyman's Blogg
My name is Janet Taylor. I am the unpaid co-ordinator of Dyspraxia Adult Action (DAA), a self help group for adults with dyspraxia I set up in October 2000 after experiencing oppression caused by lack of understanding of living with a hidden disability. DAA aims to empower adults living with developmental dyspraxia and related impairments and raise awareness to prevent similar discrimination.
I also have my own Dyspraxia Inclusive Training business
Developmental Dyspraxia is an impairment or immaturity of the organisation of movement. Associated with this there may be problems of language, perception and thought, which can result in under achievement and low self esteem if individual needs are not met. Between 7-10% of the population are affected by dyspraxia and up to 3% severely.
Each person living with dyspraxia is affected to different degrees with motor skill impairment. Quite often there are overlaps with other neuro-divergent conditions such as dyslexia, Attentional Deficit Disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, and Tourette’s syndrome.
The label a person is given is often what they have been diagnosed with initially and often the total picture is overlooked. Instead of a holistic assessment a partial medical diagnosis is made. For example dyspraxia may be ‘diagnosed’ by a neurologist, ADHD and Aspergers syndrome by a psychiatrist and dyslexia by an educational psychologist. It also depends on the speciality of each expert as to whether it is recognised at all. Often the real experts are those who live with Neuro-Diversity (ND).
Everyone who lives with dyspraxia is affected differently. In my case I find it almost impossible to learn to dance or catch a ball and I was a very sensitive child. I knew that I found PE and spelling difficult and was different and considered inferior to the other children. The only work ever displayed was art in the last year of the first junior school I had attended. I did not get any support at primary school and found the maths and English very hard. I cried a lot out of frustration because I found lessons difficult and when I was bullied, I had not learned to toughen up or fight back. I did, however, get extra help from student teachers on placement for maths. When the headmaster covered for a few months for a teacher who was off sick, during art the only subject I was any good at and really enjoyed, he made me copy out all the spellings I had got wrong in a previous spelling test.
I remember once being afraid to go home as I had received a really poor report and ‘ran away’ to my friend’s house. My reports usually said “could do better”. Until I was ten I went to a primary school in a working class area which did subjects at an appropriate level for the last year of junior school. I was bottom of the class in maths and English in my first school. Some children bullied me; I did have friends but I was so insecure I used to give them half my sweets when I got pocket money.
My family then moved to a very middle class area where the junior school did second year grammar school work. I could not keep up with my peers who thought I was stupid and called me a ‘mong’: I was bullied mercilessly and had few friends. I believed I was indeed stupid and gave up. After leaving my second primary school I went back to support the school’s summer fair where the headmaster ostracised me and literally stuck his nose in the air when I spoke to him!
At both primary and secondary schools I found competitive sports and PE. a nightmare and I was always the last to be chosen for the rounders or netball teams. I did not learn to ride a bicycle until I was nine or tie my shoelaces until I was twelve. It did not help that I avoided exercise and comfort ate. In my early teens I began an obsession with dieting and bingeing, which lasted for 20 years. Losing weight was one of the few ways I got social approval from my peers and, as an adult, felt in control of my life.
In first year of secondary school I was still considered to be a cry baby. I got frustrated because I found it hard to find my way around school and remember which rooms lessons were in. In primary school most lessons had been in the same room. I was put in the remedial class in first year of a secondary modern school for girls. I found it very frustrating that marks were given for copying the teachers’ work neatly off the blackboard and not for original thought. It was difficult for me to write neatly, copy accurately and spell. I was constantly bullied by my peers and was not popular with the boys, because I was overweight from comfort eating, wore spectacles and often looked miserable. I thought I was a fat, stupid ugly duckling because of the way both the boys and girls commented about my appearance and made assumptions about my intelligence and this began to be self-fulfilling. I did have some friends although many of them had undiagnosed or diagnosed dyslexia or were considered to be rebels or trouble makers.
I found that I was not as thick as I thought I was and found the work too easy so was moved from 1Basic in first year (the bottom stream) to 2B (Average stream) in Second year. Although I did begin to toughen up and became the class clown this got me more accepted by my peers. I was also quite disruptive in a giggly attention seeking way sort of way. I would not have dreamed of seriously assaulting a teacher like in today’s classrooms. I was put on report and was still in trouble while I was on report. Secretly I enjoyed all the negative attention and this gave me status among my peers.
Mrs Scofield I have a confession to make. It was me who threw the zinc at you in chemistry, although who would have suspected someone who couldn’t throw a ball properly to aim so accurately? Some teachers thought I was not trying hard enough, and my English teacher gave up on me because she thought I was good at creative writing and was not reaching my full potential. She was exasperated by my poor spelling and written presentation. She had assumed my lack of progress in these areas were part of my defiant attitude towards her.
When I was really provoked by school bullies I learned to physically fight back and I could be quite violent if I was wound up enough. Some bullies left me alone once they realised this, but those who could fight better than me did not.
In chemistry I developed a phobia about using the pipette with acid. There were no suckers in those days and we had to use our mouths to suck up liquids, so I 'wagged' chemistry by hiding in the toilets. I now realise that my phobia was due to my poor co-ordination although at the time I got into trouble because my teacher thought I was deliberately being awkward so I fulfilled my deviant role by dropping chemistry.
I was very disorganised, although I deliberately used to forget my P.E. kit. I did unintentionally forgot to do my homework, to bring in the correct subject file and cookery ingredients. When I was about 14 my organisational skills suddenly improved; I think I had developed my own strategies to organise myself or perhaps it was a stage of maturity in my development. I began to get on with my work and my standard of work dramatically improved.
I left school with 6 CSEs and my career advisor recommended that because I was “non academic”, I should go into catering which proved to be totally unsuitable. I did some bakery courses, finding the theory easier than the practical and had problems with speed, manual-dexterity and multi-tasking. I tried several catering jobs although I was successful as a Kosher cook for Jewish student. When I worked in the hotel industry I was told several times that I was a lovely person but I was just not suitable.
My family life was not too bad. My brother Robin was diagnosed with “Clumsy Child Syndrome” at the age of 8. He was also diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome in his mid 20’s. My mother suspected due to my poor progress at school that I might have a milder form of the same difficulties so I was assessed by a child psychologist who concluded I did not have the same condition as my brother. I was told that I was an intelligent child but an under achiever while my parents and teachers continued to think that I was careless and lazy and I was left to my own devices as before.
When I was between 7-10 years old I used to have fights with Robin. My mum made him teach me my tables in the car to distract us from fighting. I learned them better this way than at primary school. Sometimes I would help him with his ‘therapy’ with cutting things out and handwriting practice. When my parents were on holiday I used to be responsible for looking after my brother. I did not wait on him hand and foot like my mother did because he found washing up and basic cookery difficult but gave him the opportunity to learn some independent living skills. He did not resent me for this and began to respect me because I was not over protective towards him. We get on well now and I facilitate his self- advocacy as a person living with Tourette’s Syndrome.
My family were in denial about my dyslexia and dyspraxia even though my dad was a doctor. It took him a long time to come to terms with my brother’s difficulties and I was expected to make up for him academically, but when this did not happen he did not punish me in fact I was a daddy’s girl. He used to help me with my homework in maths, chemistry and biology. Unfortunately he died of a stroke when I was 15.
None of my family have dyslexic tendencies, although they all have dyspraxic traits. I was ridiculed for my poor spelling and my mum used to read out my spelling mistakes at the table and make fun of me. She is still intolerant of my spelling errors. I was not very tolerant of her lack of cooking skills (caused by undiagnosed dyspraxia) and took over the cooking in the house when I was twelve. I can cook providing I am allowed to do it at my own pace.
As a woman living with dyspraxia, I have been unable to learn to drive. I have a poor sense of direction and can’t tell right from left. I bump into furniture, get bruises on my legs and due to short-term memory problems I don’t remember getting them. I am sometimes tactless and unintentionally offend people. I hate housework and tend to avoid it by finding something more interesting to do because it takes me longer than the average person to complete it. When I was married, a feminist friend criticised me for letting my husband fix my bicycle. I explained to her, it had nothing to do with gender roles but I lacked the manual dexterity to do it my self.
Although I live with developmental dyspraxia, I am an independent woman and don’t let it stop me from getting on with my life. I own my own house. I do not use my dyspraxia to be the “helpless female”. I am quite creative visually and have instant sense of colour and design and can design a poster on a computer within minutes. I do my own decorating and I am quite creative with paint effects and stencils. I have also taught myself to use a computer and the Internet and have designed my own website - on adult dyspraxia. I have also taken part in adventure activities such as white water rafting, abseiling and fire eating!
After my disastrous career in the catering industry, I was frequently dismissed after a weeks trail and told “Janet you are a nice girl but you’r just not suitable!” I re-assessed my career. I had previously supported Robin with life skills so I went on an employment scheme working in the special needs department of a college as a support worker where I hoped to progress to being a special needs tutor. I found I had a talent for working with adults with learning difficulties, so I completed a teaching course for this group of people and passed with flying colours. After my teaching qualification I wanted to work in further education with disabled students but I could not get work in this area so I settled for a job as a support worker for adults with learning difficulties in the community. I found this very stressful so I was then redeployed into a Day Centre, for people with severe Physical and Learning difficulties in spite of disclosing I had co-ordination problems.
Until I became a day centre officer, I had mainly managed to hide my disability and it was not an issue when working with less dependent adults. I felt ashamed of my differences and did not like advertising them. I was excused by the centre manager from lifting and hoisting which caused some resentment amongst my colleagues. I then had a new manager who insisted that I could either do the job or get redeployed again. I also suffered from reactive depression and had been on various types of anti depressants and I became suicidal, until I learned to toughen up.
Occupational Health arranged for me to see a Neurologist who diagnosed dyspraxia, and told me I was “put together on a Friday night”! I was now 33 and had no information about this condition. The specialist told my employers that I could do the job and there was no mention of dyspraxia. I managed my job with a struggle. Most of my colleagues were friendly but I received constant harassment from a few of them, as they did not understand my disability (and neither did I at that point!)
A new manager was appointed whom I asked for a move due to my being bullied. So he promptly moved me into a room with an even bigger bully, with highly physically dependent service users. I was so stressed with this intimidating treatment, that I could not even change a pad or hoist anyone whether the bully was present or not. Seeing the Harassment Officer made things worse as I was forced to continue working with this woman. The harassment and my working environment was even more hostile when witnesses were not present.
I was then redeployed into a very busy office. I was advised by my Redeployment Officer not to disclose my disability as I could do the job. I found. I had new problems with delivering faxes to the correct room, filing documents and putting people through to the correct extension number on the switchboard, and found it very distracting working in a busy open plan office. In spite of my obvious difficulties with copying numbers in the correct sequence, I was then temporally placed in the accounts department, which was again open plan, where I had to copy invoice numbers. I lasted two days there. My employers could not find me a suitable placement so this led to my retirement on medical grounds.
I was so outraged about the way I had been treated that I went to the Internet and found out about the Dyspraxia Foundation. For the first time I realised that having poor co-ordination was not the only aspect of being dyspraxic and that my other problems were not due to me being careless, lazy and stupid, but were part of my neurological condition.
Throughout my life, assumptions had been made about my abilities and hidden impairments. I was labelled as being careless, lazy and scatterbrained because my impairment was not as obvious as being a wheelchair user or a person with a white stick.
These assumptions have proved to be untrue. I have just finished the Diploma in Community and Youth Work Studies at Manchester University and have been told by my tutors that my work was of a consistently high standard. I am continuing my studies on the Degree in Community Studies at Bolton Institute (now the University of Bolton). I have just received a first for the first two essays I have had marked on my course and I intend to continue my studies with the MA in Inclusive Education, or the PGCE in Teaching Adult Education. Then just to show those who labelled me as stupid my PhD my thesis will be on dyspraxia and how the related conditions overlap. I am working on my autobiography' Anice Girl But Just Not Suitable'.
I also have my own dyspraxia awareness businessIt can be seen that my main barriers to employment and education are the lack of both diagnosis of dyspraxia and understanding of overlapping impairments by the so called medical experts. Although I was diagnosed with dyspraxia at the age of 33, it was only a few years later at the age due to lack of information, fear of discrimination, and self-denial, that I found out exactly what dyspraxia was. It is only recently that I have discovered that I have the other overlaps of ADD-H and dyslexia. Due to the nature of part time contacts in community development work I am in a benefits trap and I am finding this creates a barrier to me going back into paid employment. I have now got a couple of hours 'permitted work' as a Lecturer at the University of Bolton Lecturing in Assertiveness and research methods on the Design and Technology departments 'Designing Futures Project' for disabled graduates to enable them to gain employment in line with their qualifications rather than being discriminated against by unemployment or low paid jobs. I am also a student on the above course and I am glad that I do not have to mark their work as this would cause a role conflict.I have overcome difficulties with spelling, organising my written work and written presentation by getting disabled student’s allowance from my local authority and receiving a computer with specialist software and individual specialist tuition.
For the past six years I have developed the Dyspraxia group for adults in Manchester. I represented Neuro-diversity and dyspraxia on various committees such as Manchester and Salford Disability Forums, Bolton University Disabled Students Action Group, Greater Manchester Neurological Alliance, the national networking organisation Developmental Adult Neuro-Diversity Association (DANDA) and The Neuro-diversity Forum at the Disability Rights Commission. In my seven years as co-ordinator of the dyspraxia group, I have discovered that although there is no blue print for dyspraxia and related conditions the majority of people who are successful in employment and education have careers which do not require speed and manual dexterity. Some N.Ds are good with computers. We tend to do well in jobs which require people skills such as working with children, animals, teaching, enabling, empowerment, advocacy, social work, community and youth work, counselling and alternative therapies. We have particular empathy for groups of oppressed people because we are natural problem solvers having learned to overcome our own barriers to exclusion, marginalisation and oppression in a world where the environment is designed for the majority of people who are neuro-typical or in other words non-neurodivergent.
Update October 2006
Iam now studying on the PGCE in Further and Higher Education. Im developing a sheme of work in dyspraxia and ND awareness raising, which I hope will be a module for courses in Social work, Youth work, Community work and the Post 16 sector.
Update April 2007
I have almost finished the PGCE. It was not hard accademically but required my full attention and coping strategies, so that I could hand things in on time and turn up at lectures and work placements at the right time and place.( I find that other peers without a label text me to remind them when assignments are due in and what time we are meeting for tutorials).The workload was quite intense involving the multi tasking of doing 2 assignments while planning and evaluating my teaching. I have managed this quite smoothly. I still get suppport from my dyslexia tutor to structure my assigments and occasionally especially in March which is the busiest month have needed an extension to hand in assignments.
I now have a place on the MA Disability Studies at the University of Leeds.
However I have no idea how I will pay the fees, but I have had worse issues to overcome in life so I will find the financial resources from somwhere. I also hope to get some paid teaching work in disabilty studies and Community and Youth work to suppliment my Dyspraxia Inclusive Training Business.
UPDATE OCTOBER 2007
Still looking for work in teaching or community development work. got as far as interviews only to find that someone who already works for the organisation gets the job.
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2007
Deffered my studies until sept 2008 will either do the MA in Disablity studies at the University of Leeds or PhD at University of Bolton depending on financial situation.My present research would be on neurodiversity and gender.
Is it a myth that more males than females live with ND?
To what extent does gender roles in education and biological determination affect whether males and females are assessed or diagnosed with ND and would be from a social model of disability perspective, Anti Oppressive practice and feminist perspectives.
I may just focus on dyspraxia as ND is too wider subject.
A NICE GIRL WHOSE VERY SUITABLE
I will soon be starting a partime job as transport project co-ordinator For BAND (Bolton Association of Mental Health dropins). I will be job sharing with my best friend Caroline from the PGCE course so we will make a good team.This involves designing and delivering a poilet project to teach people with mental health issues independent traveling on public transport. When I was on my WBE placement and I did the note taking for my friend Caroline's creative writing classess I obseved that the ones who needed a note taker were some of the best poets.
I will be able to use my holistic multi- sensory approach to teaching and my ND skills in problemsolving as well as sharing my own coping stratergies.
UPDATE August 2009
I am still working as a travel trainer for Band. I have a few teaching hours at Stockport Council teaching grass roots volunteers Community Development Work. I still do some Dyspraxia awareness raising. I couldn’t afford the fees for the MA in Disability Studies at Leeds University and considering there is a recession I’m glad that I didn’t get a loan for this. I found a free course at MMU so I have almost completed My MA in Special Educational Needs & Inclusion because I had APELS from the Designing futures project and only needed to do the research module & my dissertation. Its rather ironic as the education department has a history of using the psychological or deficit model of disability.
Hopefully by Autumn 2010 I will be still working Part time as a Travel trainer to Fund my PhD. In spite of the negative academic snobbery associated with the University of Bolton I would prefer to study there, as its more friendly and efficiently administered than at MMU. I may follow up my MA in Inclusive Methods of Teaching Hebrew to students with SpLDs but I don’t think my standard of Hebrew would be adequate for full scale research at this level or I could research into Inclusive Teching methods for students on Community Development Courses. I have observed a there are many dyspraxic & dyslexic Community development workers. However I could change my mind again.
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2009
Unfortunately the funding ran out for the Travel Training Project I now teach community development work on a casual basis to volunteers in Stockport. I work part time for Phoenix Supported Employment Services, supporting young adults with learning difficulties in the workplace.
UPDATE JUNE 2010
The Funding ended for working for Phoenix. I was unemployed for 7 weeks. I then got a job as a Community Networker for Tameside LINkThis is invioving hard to reach groups in health consultation for Tameside & Health & social care services.
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