Dyspraxic Rogue

This week I have been doing the Microsoft Accessibility learning pathway, and something bugged me in it, they call dyslexia a disability. Now, whenever I in the past have talked about disability it always felt like I wasn’t talking about it as an outsider, but I would have never said I was disabled. Maybe in terms of the long-term mental health issues I’ve had I would have accepted the term disabled, even around my dyspraxia I would have said disabled feels like the appropriate umbrella term at a push. But Dyslexia?

Dyslexia was always portrayed to me as a gift. A way of thinking and being that has some large draw backs but, ultimately makes me look at the world the way I do. This isn’t to say other people shouldn’t identify with the term disabled around dyslexia, it’s just to say that I don’t. 1 in 5 people have dyslexia to varying degrees and for some the challenges it presents are much harder than mine or the rewards much less rewarding. But I don’t feel disabled because I wouldn’t approach problems the way I do and the challenges for me aren’t impossible to face.

Yes, reading is hard, and I lose out on many books because my reading age stagnated, and audio books aren’t accessible to me either due to concentration and/or audio processing issues. But I know there are podcasts with breaks that help me to concentrate or if I really want to read a book, I combine it with the audio where possible and use the open dyslexic font on my kindle which makes it a little easier. Spelling also isn’t a strong suit of mine and I can’t read words which are spelt wrong but that’s what spellcheckers are for or even using dragon to say what I want to type, which I did for this blog post. And yes, I know I’ve just talked about using programs that are accessibility based tools in nature. But using accessibility tools isn’t ubiquitous with disability.

Dyslexia is so much more than reading and spelling, it’s the way I approach an ordered list from top to bottom or one to whatever number it ends on. Not doing it this way is difficult, sometimes impossible and hinders me quite often. In school my mum was forever having to explain features of my dyslexia and it was just who I was. If they didn’t want me to do in that way, they should change the way the information is presented. And I guess that’s part of what accessibility is; asking people to change the way they do things so I can be involved. As I’ve grown up, I caught myself in this and other little quirks but that doesn’t stop me. I don’t always have to do every question 1 through 10, though I do try to. It is always where I start. I guess in a way if I saw all this is a hindrance or as an issue, I would see it as a disability more than a difference.

So no, dyslexia is not a disability to me. I think I will always see it in the positive way my parents taught me to see it. It has its downsides like anything in life. But difference doesn’t equal disability. In the UK dyslexia falls under a specific learning difference (SpLD) a term that feels more accurate though in my teens still felt othering. The only objection I ever had to the term SpLD is its inclusion of dyspraxia but that’s a post for another time. So, what can you do? Well I’m still going to recommend the Microsoft learn pathway for accessibility. But I also ask that you think carefully about language and also please recognise that accessibility isn’t just for people with disabilities but for everyone.