It is a common misconception that students and teachers think we are ‘dumb’ or ‘retarded’ just because we may not always be able to fully understand as much as someone without APD and sometimes as a result of this we are put into special, unchallenging classes or given different work which is what happened to me. Another reason why this happened is not that I could not eventually understand the work, but I just needed it to be explained to me a lot, possibly in depth and/or written down on a piece of paper so I could process it as much as I needed to.
Because I asked the teacher about the work ‘too many times’ and I was just on the brink of understanding the work when my teacher just gave up on me and then gave me easier work next time which comprised of things like 3D puzzles, adding up shopping lists, activities with counters; I felt like a complete baby. I was not intellectually disabled, I suffered from APD, there is a difference, a BIG difference. I just needed to be taught differently and I would have done as well as the other students. If she had given me a sheet of what needed to be done, I would not have needed ask her a lot of times.
Assuming a child is a needs to do work at a lower lower level just because he or she does not understand is just ignorant, so before teachers determine whether they should lower the intellect of the work, they should find out if there are any learning difficulties and what they mean for that child.
Being ‘retarded’ may not always be the issue here, it could be that the child is ‘lazy’, ‘immature’, or just ‘not listening’. I was once in a maths class back when I was in grade six or seven and I was having a lot of trouble; I was listening but after the teacher finished explaining it I only got a small percentage of the information processed. After I had asked him to repeat around four or five times he decided to embarrass me in front of the whole class while asking another student to verbally explain what you had to do to this sum and asking him “can you see the vein popping out of my head?’ as if to say he was frustrated with me because I was ‘not listening’.
After that class, I went and cried in the school toilets. A lot of the teachers at my school back then did not understand my disorder so without trying to understand it, they treated me as a special needs student. We’re not dumb and we are not trying to make life harder for the teacher, it’s just that we learn differently. Just giving up on us after the fourth time of explaining it to us and putting us in a special class or giving us different work, especially if we want to learn is just ignorant and personally I find it insulting. If you would take the time with us, we could do it eighty percent of the time.
lesbianapdfighter 