Making a Difference: Leading with LD as a Special Education Teacher

Erin Crosby in front of the U.S. Capital Building

Note: October is Learning Disabilities / Dyslexia / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness Month. 

By: Erin Crosby

The Young Adult Leadership Council, a community of young adults aged 1830 with learning disabilities and attention issues, unite their experiences and voices to advocate for the learning rights community.

Read More

Lead with LD: Honoring Yourself and Becoming an Effective Leader

Note: October is Learning Disabilities / Dyslexia / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness Month. 

Kayla Queen

By Kayla Helm-Queen

The Young Adult Leadership Council, a community of young adults aged 18-30 with learning disabilities and attention issues, unite their experiences and voices to advocate for the learning rights community.


My biggest leadership journey has been learning to let go of the idea that there is an archetype of a leader. I’ve had leadership opportunities in my life, from working in my university’s student government, to being an ambassador on National Center for Learning Disabilities’ Young Adult Leadership Council. I’ve learned that honoring yourself and discovering your own leadership style comes before influencing others; you don’t have to be a certain type of leader to be effective.

Read More

Confronting Negative Stereotypes About Dyslexia/ADHD and Not Settling for Low Expectations 

Note: October is Learning Disabilities / Dyslexia / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness Month. 

Lucia

By Lucia, Colorado Youth Advisory Community Member 

I am a 17-year-old senior in high school, and I have dyslexia and ADHD.  

I received my diagnosis at the age of nine. I cannot recall the details of that day, except that I was ecstatic to be missing school, to be free of the seclusion and loneliness.  

The diagnosis solved nothing; it just created a thousand more questions. Every day, I confronted many assumptions about my failure to meet educational standards in reading and writing. Every day, I struggled to comprehend and focus in school. With all my heart, I desired to be “normal.” Yet daily, I encountered the reality I was not. 

Read More

Dyslexia Awareness Month: An Interview with a Parent

Note: October is Learning Disabilities / Dyslexia / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness Month.

Kristin Kane

Kristin Kane

Resha Conroy

Resha Conroy

By Kristin Kane

October is a great month for awareness, some impressive groups come together this month to share information about a specific issue. At the heart of it is a goal that helps others understand why the issue is important and why we should pay attention. Raising awareness can take different forms, but it is the connection of people that brings meaning to why a community raises awareness.

This month is Dyslexia/LD/ADHD Awareness Month, and I had the honor of sitting down with Resha Conroy, a parent of a child with Dyslexia. She is also a member of the National Center on Improving Literacy Family Engagement Advisory Board and has started her own non-profit, Dyslexia Alliance for Black Children

Read More

Anxiety and Learning Disabilities: The Worst Kept Secret

October is Learning Disabilities / Dyslexia / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness Month.
Athena Hallberg

By Athena Hallberg

My learning disabilities and anxiety have always gone hand in hand; however, while I was diagnosed at a very young age with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and an auditory processing delay, my anxiety disorder went undiagnosed for years. My anxiety disorder was my biggest secret — the worst kept secret, but a secret all the same.

Read More

Forming a Disability Identity as a Dyslexic

NOTE: October is Learning Disabilities / Dyslexia / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness Month.

By Rachelle Johnson, a member of the Young Adult Leadership Council of the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

As a child I was diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Adults told me I was “differently abled” and to not categorize myself negatively, as in “disabled.” This introduced me to a societal view of “the disabled” and how to navigate an ableist society by distancing from the term disabled. The adults wanted this so I would not be treated in the negative ways people with disabilities often were.

Read More

Self-Worth, Encouragement, Times of Value: These Kept Me Going

NOTE: October is Learning Disabilities / Dyslexia / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness Month.Kayla Queen

By Kayla Queen, a member of the Young Adult Leadership Council of the National Center for Learning Disabilities


When attempting to draw conclusions as to why I have been spared from many of the unfavorable statistics encountered by large percentages of people with learning disabilities, I have been able to explain it in part by the self-worth I was taught to have for myself and the times I have felt valued in school.

Read More

Charting the Path to Every Child Reading

NOTE: October is Learning Disabilities (LD)/Dyslexia/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness (ADHD) Month.

Amy and Olivia Traynor

Amy Traynor, OTR, M.A., ATP, National Center for Learning Disabilities Texas Parent Advisory Council Lead

“Livvy speak” is the endearing term coined for the innocent one-off names or descriptions spoken by my daughter, Olivia, when she was in preschool. We adored it and rarely corrected her.

As a pediatric occupational therapist (OT), I recognized that all children, even siblings, develop differently. It didn’t surprise me that she has done things differently than her brother and they have approached “life” differently from the other.

Read More

Reservation, Risk, and Relief: Finding My Way to Advocacy

NOTE: October is Learning Disabilities (LD)/Dyslexia/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness (ADHD) Month.

Lia Beatty

By Lia Beatty, Whitman College student

My self-advocacy is a choice. Not a choice I wanted to make, but one I had to make and continue to make every day.

The journey was provoked by a defining moment in my first year of college. A psychologist told me, referring to my recently diagnosed attention deficit disorder (ADD)—and not-yet identified dyslexia—that I would “just have to settle with being less than,” a feeling I had already felt for so long.

Read More

The Unexpected Lesson COVID-19 Taught Me About LD & ADHD

NOTE: October is Learning Disabilities (LD)/Dyslexia/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Awareness (ADHD) Month.
Susan Reynolds

by Susan Reynolds, National Center for Learning Disabilities field organizer

Like many parents, I woke up on March 13 with a notification from my son’s school district: school was canceled for the day. As I read through the news that morning, I had a strange feeling wash over me. My instincts were telling me that schools were getting ready to close for in-person learning for an undetermined amount of time.

I remember saying to my husband, “I’m ADHD and so is our son, and we both have learning disabilities. I work from home, and now our son will be learning from home, too. We need to sit down and figure out a better schedule.”

We started to plan as best we could.

Read More