Beyond Barriers: Turning Learning Disabilities into Academic Strengths

Dr. Damaris-Grossman shares her journey of achieving a doctorate despite having learning disabilities and ADHD. She provides practical strategies for reframing learning disabilities as different abilities and offers insight into navigating educational challenges through personalized approaches.

• Learning disabilities are not indicators of intelligence but different ways of processing information
• Time management strategies include making lists, using digital calendars, and breaking tasks into smaller goals
• Building a supportive network of peers, family, and educational resources is crucial for success
• Advocating for accommodations like quiet testing rooms or additional time can transform the learning experience
• Each person's learning style is unique - some learn better through listening, others through visual aids or discussion
• Modern technology offers numerous tools like text-to-speech, dictation software, and highlighting features
• Recognizing personal strengths like hyper-focus, resilience, and unique perspectives can turn challenges into advantages
• Mindfulness and stress management techniques help manage the emotional aspects of learning differently

Check out the links in the show notes for additional resources on assistive technologies and learning support services.

Chapters

• 0:48 Introduction to Breaking Barriers
• 2:19 Managing Time with Learning Disabilities
• 5:00 Building a Supportive Network
• 7:26 ADHD Strategies for Academic Success
• 9:37 Reframing Disabilities as Unique Abilities
• 12:42 Technology and Resources for Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

How are you? This is Dr Damaris Murray-Grossman, and today's topic is going over breaking barriers of achieving whether a doctorate, education or getting through school or getting through some sort of challenge that you may have when you have a learning disability and learning disabilities. So we're going to kind of just go over a couple chapters of a book that I wrote called Breaking Barriers and Achieving your Doctorate with Learning Disability. So, as you may know, I am a doctor, prepared nurse practitioner. I've studied and trained in family and integrative health, but throughout the years I had a learning disability and had also, additionally, adhd. I had to navigate my school life and work to be the best that I could to process information and succeed. Now, initially that was difficult. That had its own challenges, but by just definition, a learning disability encompasses a range of neurological conditions that affect the way people, individual, process information. This can manifest in difficulties with reading, writing, mathematical skills, organization and memory. Each person's experience with learning disabilities is unique and is often has additional challenges, such as led by problem solving issues, creativity, but the positive to it is there's a lot of strengths that come with it. So I ended up having good hyper focus resiliency was a big thing for me and seeing things in a different perspective. So think of it like the disability isn't really a disability, it's more of an ability and just understanding a new way of learning and learning to kind of break that barrier or what the normal is and how to impose that to whether, if you're going to get a doctoral education that I got or something further how can you do that? So, being an adult learner usually that's kind of where I started to find out more challenges and changes and it gives you more rigorous demand. So there may be things that you may need just to get successful to finish reading an article or paper, um, but how can you do that? And first is you know, understanding that you learn differently and that you still are not unintelligent. You are very intelligent. You have a wealth of knowledge that is within you that you'll need to learn to harness and be effective. So I'm trying to help others and to understand that they can empower themselves by stepping past what the barriers may seem insurmountable, because they actually are.

Speaker 1: 3:28

So let's first talk about time management and how that can be a challenge for those with a disability, with learning Strategies that help. This is transform ways of being less overwhelmed. So make a list, sit down and have tasks, use things like a planner, digital calendars. I time block a lot of things. So if it's not in my calendar, you may I would not know, but if I put it in my calendar, I know that that's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 4:00

Break down things into smaller, smaller tasks, like I talk on my podcast tons about being mindful each and every day. It's about those little, small, achievable goals. Each and every day can foster a sense of accomplishment and motivation and helps you through whatever journey it is, whether it's all about doctoral education being successful in that way, and so when you're trying to become, you know, less stressful, that time management component is pretty important Ways to navigate. Some of this is get yourself a supportive network, whether it's your parents, your family members journey, you know, for a doctorate and a bachelor's and a master's, I define the right resources to get where I needed and the right tools. So that meant you know being okay with being a little different, being okay with needing support and being okay that I'm learning differently, so that helps you get through differently. So just because you may be, let's say, dyslexic or your words may be jumbled backwards, maybe you need a mirror to look at it. Maybe you need to be spoken, maybe you need a visual audio check. The greatest thing, now that today's age is, a lot of things can be read to you, you can visually look at them, they can be spoken to you, you can have them. You know there's a different way to get that information to you. So because of that, that makes it more powerful and helpful. And those strategies, each and every thing that you learn is important. And then having a group of people that are supportive peers, family members, a group in your school and then letting your university if you're in college or say you're even just in grade school letting the teachers know that you need your family knows that you need assistance and you may need an accessibility services. That could be as small as okay.

Speaker 1: 6:13

I need someone to talk the paper out with me. I need to to discuss what's on my questions. That doesn't mean that I don't understand it. It just means like my brain learns differently. Do I need to be in a quiet room? Do I need more paper writing? Do I need to have it addressed? There's just different ways things have to be written for someone, so each one is different. For me, I had to have more of a quiet room. Most of my things I had to have headphones on, I had to have the papers read to me. I spoke better than I did writing, so my writing language sounded like it was like mumbled or jumbled. Sometimes people thought I was not speaking properly, but really my brain just didn't put the words in correctly.

Speaker 1: 7:03

Having the best mental and wellness techniques for yourself, acknowledging that emotional and psychological parts are, you know, important when you're studying, you know it can cause a lot of stress and anxiety when you're trying to improve yourself, whether they improving yourself all the way up to doctorate, you know learning about mindfulness and breathing techniques have been such an important part of who I am, where I've come in my career, in my life and I embrace, you know I literally made it part of my everyday way to be advocating for my oneself within and then also for others. So your academics and having a supportive environment is conducive to your group. Remember, each of these steps can be a way of overcoming the disability and it's a step to getting academic success. Now how can somebody, let's say, if they have an ADHD or additional disability on top of their academic performance, ways that help for myself in pursuing all of the things, a lot of time management, trying to find, building executive function, improving that, so more of a structured environment, really trying to have focused moments. They call them timed moments of work. So I didn't always get 45 minutes. Always I have to do like a 10 minute block and I give myself maybe 20 minutes and then change it to another subject because I would get bored or unfocused and understanding that sometimes things just took a little bit longer. So giving myself that added amount of time and extended periods for those complex things and knowing that it's not a limitation, that it's just a different way of processing information and all of these things, like I've said, it's just reframing the way your brain works and understanding they're not disabilities, they're just abilities and ways to change.

Speaker 1: 9:11

So I became successful to finally get to a doctoral degree by learning these strategies and utilizing planners. I used digital calendars all the time, a lot of dictation software. I had to listen to articles. I had to highlight them. I found creative ways to sit and focus. Sometimes I would have binaural beats or music, certain areas. Sometimes I'd have to be outside If the environment felt like it was just not. I felt like I was out of control or tired. I needed to find a place to grow. That in itself was super helpful, and then also finding a peer group that was, yeah, willing to listen and be a resource, and talking to other individuals that also had to maybe navigate some complexities in their life, and so I could build some confidence, because your mental health and your wellness is so, so, paramount. It's so important to getting to that next level. I do have to say, though, I was able to leverage the creativity to do more and to have a different perspective on my work. My resilience just kind of excelled me more, and I was able to manage different parts of work by learning that when I had my hyper-focused moments to really hone in on them, and when the moments started to fade, to bring back, you know, breaks, so that became less of a barrier and more of an important thing.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Common misconceptions about those with learning disabilities is that they view them as a person that can't do that, they're not intelligent and they are misguided, and that is so, so false. More and more, I can tell you that these individuals actually have so much to offer, and sometimes our brains are like kind of rewired almost, with so many branches of learning and it's not linear. So in a way, it actually makes us more of a superpower to be able to do more and see things in like another life, and I find it to be awesome. Okay, I've learned to know when I need breaks. I've learned to know what I'm good at and to know where my strengths and weaknesses are, and you will too, and I think that's part of that having a good support to get to that next level and understanding to not ignore when things are off, to not ignore when things are off. The misconception with those is that they don't know how to learn, they have poor teaching or they're very lazy. Those are considered, you know they learn differently, that we're not recognized as individuals that can do more or process information, which is really kind of so far from the truth. Process information, which is really kind of so far from the truth. Acknowledge that everyone's brain is different and think of it's a way that we can eventually thrive and there's more that to our struggles that actually make us more profound, that we have an opportunity to do more than you can believe. And finding the right strategy for each person is where it comes up.

Speaker 1: 12:50

You know, assisted devices for myself was super important. So, for example, I would listen to books more so than reading, or I visually have to highlight things so that I could really comprehend what was going on. It didn't mean that I didn't understand what a book was being read to me, I just had to look at it differently. So me speaking out of paper, me highlighting something and me talking it out gave me a better perspective than me just reading words. So I'm not sure what that is for you. Some people read very well, some people do not. Some people listen and are able to hear things.

Speaker 1: 13:28

So there's different types of learners and part of that helps you figure out what kind of best learning environment is for you, gets you to be a better learner throughout. So there's different places you can go for these resources, especially now. There's many out there. I'll put the links in the show notes. Today we're just going over one area and trying to, you know, overcome that Now.

Speaker 1: 13:56

I highly recommend Grammarly to help you with your writing, especially if your writing is changed. There's a lot of now assisted technologies on all of like word and google, where you can have it spoken to you and you can have things typed out. You can have things highlighted in the accessibility sections of the different word documents and then even on websites, they'll even speak or highlight or make it even bigger if you're having visual issues. So there's many ways now that technology has really kind of overcome some of that, and then it's just a matter of you overcoming your stigma for yourself and being able to change the, the narrative, to do more because it's not something that is a negative, and understanding that that weakness is really a strength, and embracing your truth and who you are so that you can be more impactful in your life. I hope some of this helps for today and we'll go over more personal strengths and how to identify them.