Category: Neurodiversity
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The Learning Manifesto
Five Core Principles for Effective Learning I started teaching in 1979, when, as a third year undergraduate student, I was given a 1st year class to teach. Since then I’ve taught thousands of students, designed courses from short courses to Masters degrees and bailed out courses that were in trouble. Over 43 years I have…
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Tips for Parenting a Dyslexic or Neurodiverse Child
Having your child diagnosed with dyslexia or one of the other neurodiverse traits can be a traumatic situation that often leads to the panic of what to do to help. Since every neurodiverse person is different, what to do can differ greatly. But beyond the issue of specific treatments and assists, there are some principles…
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The Benefits of Having Diverse Friends and How to Learn from Them
I am blessed with having friends of all sorts, from so many countries, religions, ethnicities, experience and professions. There are values in such diversity that you may not expect. Photo by Duy Pham on Unsplash Context I am very lucky that I live in a society that is diverse and multi-cultural. Where I live, in Melbourne Australia, is…
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The Privileging of Text Literacy in Education Must Stop and a Media-Agnostic Approach Embraced
Since the development of writing we have gradually privileged text literacy above other forms of communication. Even oratory, one of the pillars of Greek civilisation, has been subsumed in the march of text literacy above all else. In education we put so much emphasis on text literacy that children who have difficulty with text are…
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Removing the Disability Label from Dyslexia, Asperger’s, Autism, ADHD and Other Cognitive Diversities
Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash A child being unable to learn to read at the ‘normal’ rate is only an issue in a literate society. For the vast majority of human existence an inability to learn to read was not an issue at all. In fact if you go back, say 10,000 years, an ability to…