By Yamila García
When a professor asks me something in class, I usually say, “I don’t know.” But the truth is, I don’t remember at the moment, maybe because I panic when I have to talk in front of many people, and so my brain is busy trying to speak properly and not sound too weird. I want to get out of the “situation” as soon as possible. Saying “I don’t know” is like an ostrich hiding its head in the ground. I do my best in my classes to participate in class and lab activities, but when I am asked to work on something that was explained just a few minutes before, I can’t do it. I don’t process things that fast in the classroom, and that is mostly because of the many stimuli I receive in the classroom. I hear all the noises at the same level, so I notice how my focus is interrupted by my classmates commenting on something, passing pages on their manuals, typing, people walking in the hallways, etc.
However, I remember a lot of things when I listen to someone speak, but in a more neurodivergent-friendly environment. I even used to record myself reading because I memorized more easily by listening than by reading. I like reading, but if it is not something I can visualize or draw in my mind while I read it, I get lost so quickly. I can keep going through the text, maybe, but I have no idea of what what I’m reading means. That is why many times when I have to work on exercises from school that have very long instructions, I find it really hard to even start them because I am unable to read the whole thing. I read the first sentence, move to the next one, and I ask myself: what was the previous sentence about? And then go back to the first one and could repeat this for hours. I say the words in my mind but do not connect their meanings somehow. I can “read,” and do it out loud, and still don’t get any idea of what I read. On the contrary, when I read a story, I paint all the descriptions in my mind with so much detail that feels like a movie, and that makes focusing so much easier.
I never heard of simplified instructions as an accommodation, but I could make good use of them. There is no way that knowing how hard it is for me to focus on long texts (no descriptive texts) they expect me to work on a simple exercise but give me 3 pages of instructions including the history of a certain number or symbol, and more irrelevant (to me) information that we do not really need to be able to demonstrate that we know what we have to know. Giving the possibility of choosing between simplified or detailed instructions could improve how many people work at school.