What are the first things that come to mind when you think about inclusion? I bet some of you believe it is very difficult to deal with certain aspects of neurodiversity and other disabilities. You might also find it challenging to think about ways to adapt your lessons, handouts and assessments because it is not easy to find readily-available straightforward references. What I hear the most is: I am not prepared for it.
Have you ever seen inclusion as a way to broaden your view of the world? I want to invite you to go on a different journey with me.
It will offer an insight into neurodiversity and other disabilities, not only through academic theory but also through the act of experiencing disabilities.
By experiencing, I do not mean putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes, but rather putting yourself in the position of a spectator and learner. This position requires openness to listening, learning, and self-deconstruction because there is no inclusion without challenging your bias. Therefore, I propose we take a journey to expand your understanding of neurodiversity and other disabilities before you begin adapting and creating more accessible lessons.
This idea of experiencing diversity first came to me not too long ago.
I was out with some ELT friends and one of them said she was looking for someone to deliver a formative session on how to adapt assessment tasks for neurodivergent students at the school she works for. She ended by saying that she needed practical tools because the teachers tend to get tired of theory, they want ready-made suggestions.
This colleague’s request is far from a quest for inclusion, it is a quest for steadiness because it is impossible to design ready-made solutions when several social aspects (e.g. social class, access to education and treatments/therapies) influence the way two people with the same diagnostic experience their disabilities.
To better illustrate my point, I will use myself and a colleague as examples. We both have bilateral moderate sensorineural hearing loss.
Despite my loss, I live in the hearing world. I love music and I speak different languages. This has probably helped me distinguish and have a more solid memory of sounds, so I hardly ever mix up speech sounds, and, consequently, I do not have the muffled voice of a hard of hearing person. Also, I wear hearing aids. Julia, on the other hand, is married to a deaf person, spends most of her time with the deaf community and, either because it is expensive or the environment she is in, she does not wear hearing aids. Consequently, she lost perception of several speech sounds, and she has the typical deep nasal voice of a hard of hearing person.
Moreover, she prefers to communicate using Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS).
If we were students in the same classroom, some techniques would serve us both, but a ready-made solution for hard of hearing students would not be effective because it would not take our individualities and particularities into account.
Moving on, never forget that dealing with diversity and inclusion means caring for people; therefore, we need to be curious about the human mind, brain, body, and society to see beyond what our eyes have learned to see.
Following this line of thought, it is fair to say that you will only be able to build an inclusive environment if you dive into the human development theories, while you, simultaneously, experience inclusion through the lenses of those who live with disabilities themselves. This approach might transform the way you perceive neurodiversity and other disabilities to better plan your lessons, and hopefully, sharpen your eyes in relation to accessibility and inclusive practices both inside and outside the classroom.
Let’s get our journey started. Our first stop is full of theory.
Have you read Piaget, Vygotsky, Wallon? Are you familiar with neuroscience in education? If you said ‘no’ at least twice, this is your starting point. As educators, learning about the stages of human development is crucial.
As an example, think about the last time you were teaching 5-year-olds. Suppose you were talking about wild animals, and a child raises their hand. As an adult, you believe the child has a question or a comment on the subject, but they go, “Cintia, I had ice cream with my grandma yesterday!”. This happens because the child really wants to tell us something and is biologically unable to control their impulse. Piaget made several tests to prove that children lack inhibitory control. Later on, Neuroscience came and studied a child’s brain more closely using MRIs. What neuroscientists discovered is that there is a specific part of our brain that is responsible for our inhibitory control – the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for executive functions like inhibitory control, is one of the last areas to fully mature.
Why is it important to know about this? Firstly, since you teach people, you should be interested in how people learn and develop. Secondly, when you start learning more about neurodiversity, for instance, you will discover that research indicates that individuals with ADHD often have differences in the structure and function of their prefrontal cortex leading, amongst other symptoms, to difficulties controlling their impulses, in a similar way to the child above. Thus, learning about our body and brain, will help us understand every single student in our classroom.
Besides taking biology into account, we need to have an idea of who the different professionals are that work closely with people with disabilities, such as speech therapists, occupational therapists, and others. Having this knowledge will enable you to notice abilities a student might need to develop.
A case in point is the 2 students with T21 (former Down Syndrome) I once met. They were classmates. One of them loves music and is constantly encouraged to sing. The other one has different interests and singing isn’t one of them. Hypotonia (low muscle tone) is one of the most common features of T21. It makes it hard for people with T21 to keep their tongues fully retracted within their mouths and, consequently, it makes speech articulation a challenge. Among the ways to help improve speech articulation is singing, as it helps individuals exercise and gain greater control of their tongue. Can you guess whose speech I could understand more clearly? For this reason, the investigation here involves a group of people: the student, their family, the school teachers, psychologists, doctors, and any other professional that follows the student’s development.
As an English teacher, you are supposed to have at least an idea of where sounds are produced (phonetics and phonology) to help your students master pronunciation. If you know a student with T21 needs to work on their tongue muscles, working with pronunciation might also help them out. By the way, don’t you ask your students to sing out loud to improve their pronunciation skills? See, inclusion is sometimes noticing in what area a student is struggling and applying strategies you already know.
Undoubtedly, there are specific traits that connect most people within the same classification, or it would be impossible to reach any sort of diagnosis.
I strongly recommend that you learn as much as you can about both the biological and the common symptoms of different learning disabilities and neurodiversity because it will help you rethink the way you deal with your students.
Although I am a book lover, when it comes to inclusive practices, I think it is best to gather educational resources about neurodiversity and other disabilities from associations and organizations such as International Dyslexia Association online because you can see that their research is ongoing and, therefore, the information will be more up to date than that you find in books (unless you are reading a very recent edition of a book).
Our second stop starts now. In actual fact, we have been visiting it the whole time. It is time to experience to break our bias.
Before anything, it is crucial to distinguish the body from brain abilities. For many years, people with physical disabilities were not seen as cognitively capable.
People with brain palsy have physical but not cognitive limitations, but they are still seen as less capable because they do not speak or move the way people are expected to. Another great example are non-verbal autistic people.
Until very recently, people thought they were not able to learn. However, there is now a documentary written by a non-verbal autistic girl. Watch it and discover how cognitively capable this teenage girl is (Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World).
This is what I mean by experiencing disabilities: we need to see them, hear them, learn from them.
We are now at a point in history where there are many neurodivergent adults, or where the deaf community has more access to education, where people with disabilities cannot be hidden or abandoned anymore, now they have the right to education and therapies (there is still a lot to be done, but we are getting better).
So, why not follow them on the internet, or go to events organised and promoted by them (did you know there is a Parada PCD happening all around Brasil?). Following neurodivergent influencers, as well as influencers with T21, cerebral palsy, physical disabilities, hearing or sight disabilities etc. will help you to make sense of the nuances of each one of these matters.
You will comprehend how people from different places and social classes talk about themselves and the issues they are fighting. This will broaden your view of the world and help you think about the possible questions you need to ask your students, their families, therapists and others so as to find the best differentiation practices for each individual.
Also, it will get you to think about your own practice. How often do you take subjects or choose activities simply because they are interesting for you? How often do you change your practices to make sure your students will have the opportunity to learn the same subject in different ways? Once you understand each of us has different learning styles and needs, you will become a much better professional, both for the ‘atypical’ and the ‘typical’ students.
You will comprehend how people from different places and social classes talk about themselves and the issues they are fighting. This will broaden your view of the world and help you think about the possible questions you need to ask your students, their families, therapists and others so as to find the best differentiation practices for each individual.
Also, it will get you to think about your own practice. How often do you take subjects or choose activities simply because they are interesting for you? How often do you change your practices to make sure your students will have the opportunity to learn the same subject in different ways? Once you understand each of us has different learning styles and needs, you will become a much better professional, both for the ‘atypical’ and the ‘typical’ students.
