The Way I Learn - support for speech, language, literacy and neurodiversity

06/11/2025

15/10/2025

Why a diagnosis later in life can feel so freeing :-)

15/10/2025

Do you think your child has Additional Learning Needs? Here's the process of getting support explained, including deadlines and appeals 👇

08/10/2025

18/09/2025

13/09/2025

One of the things that autistic people are often associated with is 'rigid thinking'. And I personally have only heard this levelled in a way that has negative connotations, or with the underlying understanding that an autistic person choses to maintain this rigidity to be awkward, and having had it pointed out to them they should be able to simply become more flexible.

While we understand that there are those of us who are very much routine dependant, this is often only judged by our behaviour. What needs to also be acknowledged is that for some of us, routine encompasses how we think too. This may include how we approach a task, research information, interpret situations, or form beliefs about ourselves.

So if, having experienced trauma, as is highly likely as an autistic person, you may have developed a trauma response, this is now your routine. We know that trauma responses are a way of 'feeling safe'and we know that autistic routine is also a means of helping our nervous system feel safe. We may be able to acknowledge that the response or the pattern of thinking could be adapted or changed to be more helpful to us, but this means learning a new skill is doubly difficult. Moving away from our place of safety of our response which created our routine. It's not because we are 'being stubborn'. It's not because we only believe our way is correct or that there isn't a better alternative. It's just that learning a new coping skill, rewiring our brains, learning to ask for help, viewing ourselves differently, means breaking with a routine pattern of thinking which our nervous system has come to rely on just to cope.

For those late diagnosed this is particularly poignant when we have years or decades of internalised ableism. Our coping mechanisms are our routines. Our ways of thinking may have harmed us more than they helped us, but they are how we learned to think about the world and ourselves. Change isn't impossible but we need to understand why it is hard.

11/08/2025

19/07/2025

Lovely memory strategies here and kids can be taught how to do this at home by you showing them. Saying things like "that's new stuff I didn't know but it's a bit like ...... that's how I'll remember it" (linking things to previous information) or saying "I'm going to brain dump that by writing things down in a way that makes sense to me" (showing them different ways to make sense of information by using recall, mind mapping skills, linking things to what you already know and adding creativity by drawing pictures/ diagrams)

19/07/2025

Some great ideas to help children get a love of reading, like forming a book club, (even if its just with you and them!) and scheduling reading time in each week 📚