Here's how it FEELS to have a learning disability....try it!

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Hello Rose and thanks for your contribution. Your comment about ADHD is interesting. I also have ADHD and while I certainly didn't find the exercise easy, I clearly managed to complete more of the Nursery Rhymes than anyone else in the Conference group.

It was a visual exercise for me with the two Nursery Rhymes places in separate columns 'in my head' and I did it with my eyes closed.

It put quite a strain on my short term memory.

Hello Bill (Willard); good to see you here.

You make a good point and I did in fact hesitate before starting the thread for this very reason. (as well as wondering if I had overdone it a bit with new threads this week! )

The feeling of confusion and disconnection that I get in social situations is very similar to that which I experienced with the Nursery Rhyme experiment.

However this Social Impairment due to AS (and there is nothing mild about my social impairment ) seems to be domain specific for me and has never been a source of intellectual or academic impairment for me, as far as I know.

I certainly do have a very unusual learning style which is quite idiosyncratic and ritualistic and I rarely learn effectively using auditory processing.

But this does not seem to have held me back either academically or intellectually, but this is just me and as the saying goes;

'If you have met one person with AS, you have met one person with AS.

Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed so far.

I couldnt agree more. Especially when some classmates in college say the R word. Or worse, when a certified clinical therapist calls it a damn "disease." come on now.

hi, i'm new here

Why?

Everyone has to put up with a lot of s**t in their lives, people with normal intelligence don't all have it super easy and having it hard doesn't make you a hero.

make your own thread in the new members section introducing yourself.

I have a learning disability and I went to a special school there was no way I could've coped in a High School.
I am good at reading but it was maths that I found hard and I had numeracy lessons at a community house it helped a little.

for example a nursery rhyme. Ba ba black sheep have you any wool.
or Twinkle Twinkle Little star how i wonder what you are.
Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the Kettle one, Polly put the Kettle on we'll all have tea.

I've never been professionally assessed for a learning disability. But I know for a fact I have a lot of trouble with most things verbal. For me, the words in sentences get all jumbled up. I read at 1/10th the speed of most folks. And large blocks of text are a major struggle. Especially the huge walls of text people on the internet have a habit of writing. (Please, people, try separating your posts into smaller paragraphs) I also have a hard time following lectures in school.

My LD really didn't rear it's head until I attempted college. I dropped out on 3 separate occasions within the first semester each time. I honestly don't know how people get through college. It was hell for me. Far too much reading and listening to the teachers lecture was a total waste of time for me. And forget about taking notes, I'm no good at that, I can't write & listen at the same time.

I just know that my verbal processing is not up to snuff. I may have a good vocabulary, but putting those words together into sentences is a challenge.

Oh yeah... and I couldn't even think of any nursery rhymes.

I think the same. The heroes are the people who treat people with disabilities like human beings.

I don't like disabled people being portrayed as heroes for struggling on when things are really hard. It makes it sound like the situation is about the person, bravely overcoming hardship, when really it's about society putting up barriers. Rather than just saying LD kids are heroes, we need to change the school system so it suits all learning styles. Just like the people who try to teach NTs how hard it is to have sensory processing issues never really question whether we should redesign public spaces to be less overloading (for example, turn off that stupid Christmas music!). Or at the very least modify the environments that the autistic kids spend most of every day in, such as removing flourescent lights in school.

I couldn't remember two rhymes. If I could remember two rhymes I couldn't possibly put them together. I read well, but it's different for my little daughter. She has a tough time reading any of the words in the first place. The whole reading thing is compounded by probable PTSD from a gung ho early literacy believer in kindergarten who confused her difficulties with reading with lack of trying, and just plain bad behavior.

For those of you with learning disabilities (at least in the US) who feel you have lost your dreams, take them back. Colleges must provide accommodations for disabilities under the ADA. I worked in the disabilities services department of my local university. I've seen people with all kinds of different abilities do very well with accommodations.

I cheated. I did this exercise with the Alphabet song and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

Then I tried it with Ring-a-Ring-o-Roses and Jack Sprat and saw what you meant.

I have a gifted/LD combination. I was mainstreamed in school and in the one area I was having trouble with, I was constantly told I wasn't trying hard enough because I was good at everything else. But I also have other disabilities and I understand about the deficits being focused on over strengths. That pisses me off.

Yup. Me too.

It's especially annoying when you are told you have "astounding abilities" in one area, but the culture you live in only measures "intelligence" in terms of the area you have difficulty in.

Oh well. Screw modern Western social conventions.

No, that's what they're supposed to do (treat everyone like human beings).

There are no heroes in this.

can you please translate your answer options into more literal speech. i did the test, but am having difficulty telling what your answers mean and tharefor dont know which one to click on...

I didn't even have to attempt it to know I can't do it. Far too complex a task for me. I'm serious too.

I used to use the comparison of making sense out of alphabet soup. All you have to do is imagine this scenario:

You're in a room with a huge pot of alphabet soup. You're told to pull letters out of the soup and use them to "write" something that makes sense (doesn't matter what it is). While you are placing letters carefully on the table in order, someone keeps sneaking in, messing up your letters and throwing bunches of them back into the pot.

Worse yet, some of the letters aren't even part of your native alphabet.

And if you want the disability to be Asperger's, you've also got someone else there tapping their watch reminding you that you're taking too long, and constantly harping on you to quit taking so long, apply yourself harder, and stop complaining about someone messing with your letters. Oh, did I mention no one can see the letter vandal but you? And you can't describe him because he's invisible? Does that sound like it doesn't make sense?

Imagine it anyway, because that's what it's like.