A need for feminist research into neurodiversity

I have been brewing on this blog for a while. To be honest I just want to cry about it all. It all started a few months ago when life just became very very difficult. Not for any massive reason other than a dawning realisation that there are some parts of parenting I am not and probably never will be any good at and then a realisation that my partner was not going to be able to compensate as he too was not particularly good at, what from our point of view are miss-named, 'basic life skills'. 

Things like knowing what day it is, what your meant to be doing, where the nappies are kept, remembering appointments, spare clothes other parents names. I think one of my lowest points was 10 minutes after leaving the house realising I'd forgotten to put trousers on my child. 

The difficulties I've been confronted with in becoming a parent (which I've blogged about here) made me look again at the realities of being dyslexic (and having a very poor short term memory) and lead me to discover the concept of neurodiversity. Viewing my dyslexia/dyspraxia/ADHD as a diversity issue rather than a pathology fits my politics very very well. I started to read up (or more accurately listen up) and became more and more interested in the idea and the potential consequences to policy and practice within education if we adopted a neurodiversity model. I found this film particularly helpful if you have a spare 4 hours!

I tell you all this just as background to another common theme I unearthed. On many many websites I read that dyslexia/dyspraxia/ADHD where more common in boys than girls. I was always going to read such things with caution - and it appears rightly so because while many authoritative individuals and organisations report these claims I also unearthed evidence to the contrary. 

Dyslexia
The dyslexia association website says:
Recent research indicates that boys and girls are equally affected but our data suggests that three times as many boys as girls receive additional teaching because of their dyslexia.

I know my mother had to fight to get my primary schools to take my learning differences seriously. I was incredibly blessed my my secondary school taking it seriously. I've been speaking to other parents of girls who are likewise facing an uphill struggle in their advocacy. Mostly because their daughters are 'well behaved'.

ADHD
Again all over the place it states that boys are more likely to have ADHD than girls. But if you listen to the frustrations of people with ADHD about the policing of their behaviour, the telling off for moving, the admonistrations for not listening (When it's not that your not listening its just your not making eye contact), it is very obvious very quickly that girls with ADHD will have their behaviour doubly policed. 

Then there is this website. Which says it all really - girls internalising and boys externalising. All very depressing.

Dyspraxia 
I found no similar hidden research about dyspraxia, though it may well be out there. However on the list of signs and indicators dislike of team games and sport in general seem most prominent. Doesn't take a lot to hypothesis that it would be quiet probable that this contributes to the great diagnosis in boys. Girls who don't like sport are hardly going to be seen as having specific difficulties.

Autistic Spectrum Disorders 
Now here I really am in the realm of my own theorising. It interests me that their are some quarters that refer to the autistic brain as the extream male brain. Given the above; are we here too either not noticing signs and indicators in girls and women or is the way we raise boys (their is lots of evidence to say we talk to baby boys less, assess their emotions worse, leave them to cry for longer) putting them at greater risk of developing certain difficulties. 

In the four hour video I mentioned earlier it claims that in the states the Neurodiverse are the most over-represented minority group in both the prison population and the unemployed population. If this is true then it needs to be a feminist issue, it is certainly an issue of intersectionality. And if we take a social model of learning disabilities, then we should expect the manifestations of learning differences to appear differently in young men and young women since they very clearly exist in such different environments.

I can't tell you how troubled I am about this, but the intersection of learning differences and gender need to be researched by feminists or we will continue to horribly fail a certain group of girls and young women in the education system. 

I was incredibly lucky. My school invested in me so that the 11 year old with a reading age of 8 and writing age of 7 got to Cambridge I dread to think what would have happened had I not had that. 

Please please somebody do some research and let me know about it.

The Dyslexic Parent

I always used to pause when filling in job applications at that bit that asks if you have any disabilitys that affect daily life.

Do I? I'd wander - some days, but others not. Is it really suvear enough, what if I'm just making it up. Will they look at my cv see I went to uni and think I'm therefore exaggerating or making it up. Will they think it just means I can't spell?

I'm never going to hesitate again. Not since becoming a parent.

I didn't read many parenting books but of the bits I did read none of them mentioned any particular difficulties you might experience as a dyslexic parent and there's not a lot of stuff out there on dyslexia websites either, though when I posted a question in a forum it seems I am far from alone in my particular struggles.

Through life I have managed to develop coping mechanisms, these are utterly inadequate for organising 2 lives. I forget stuff and people say 'don't worry its just baby brain' I think 'you have no idea'. Before my daughter was born getting out the house having remembered my phone, keys, wallet, diary and bus pass without leaving windows open and the door unlocked was a major achievement as was getting through a week without forgetting something in the oven. 

Organising 2 lives is nigh impossible. I'm not sure I've once left the house without forgetting something. I'm finding it incredibly stressful. But we get through somehow and are very good at learning to improvise when we forget clean nappies, spare clothes, a drink etc. She hardly notices now (though I try to hide it from other parents cause I feel so incompetent) but I'm getting nervous about getting to school in a few years time without something significant.

Then people say have you thought about schools? And I think in my head - yes I have little panic attacks about it every time anyone mentions it. Then I have to remind myself that she's not me, she might love primary school, she might be able to spell. Then I feel a bit sad cause secretly I kind of hope she is because on good day's I'm chuffed to bits I'm dyslexic. Then I think actually I really don't want her to go through what I did. Then I worry cause she's 21 months and still can't walk and only just to crawl. 

So at the moment I am deffinately dyslexic and it deffinately affects my day to day life - and my daughters. Which lead me to do a bit of reading up and I have become absolutely appalled at reading that girls are just as likely to be dyslexic but 3 times less likely to receive support. 

I experientially know why this is. My mum was constantly told not to worry cause I was behaving well. The way we gender our children is clearly going to mean girls who are struggling at school won't have the same assertiveness and are likely to be overlooked because they are being 'well behaved' while boys who've had 'naughty' and 'trouble' written across them since they where born and who have been trained to have no weaknesses are going to kick up and 'behave badly' and are more likely to get help. 

I imagine also that girls will have extra incentive to keep quiet and head down because they will get extra told off about messy writing and not being tidy. 

 I cannot explain how angry I am about this.