14 December 2020

According to the United Nations Development Programme, the global literacy rate for adults with disabilities is as low as 3 per cent, and only 1 per cent for women with disabilities. The 1 billion people with disabilities are the world’s largest minority, accounting for about 15 percent of the global population. Therefore, it is imperative that they are fully included in society, starting with having equal access to quality education.   

However, students, scholars and researchers with disabilities in higher education remain under-represented and they are among the most marginalized, vulnerable, and excluded groups on campus. They struggle with accessibility to learning facilities and face various forms of stigma and discrimination, as well as barriers to exercising their rights. Inclusive education is important not only for students, scholars and academics with disabilities but the societies they live in, as it helps to combat discrimination and to promote diversity and participation.   

 In the disability and higher education interview series, United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) highlights the contributions of intellectuals with disabilities to the world of academia and explores ways to build a truly inclusive learning environment. This article discusses the importance of recognizing, legitimizing and accommodating disabilities that are not outwardly seen, intellectual disabilities, and the impact this can have on students’ educational and life outcomes. 

“But you don’t look disabled”, “your hands and eyes are functioning, you are physically able, why are you looking for an excuse not to get your work done?” These are just a few examples of the comments directed at Oladoyin Idowu as a young person with dyslexia, a learning disability that makes reading, writing and comprehension difficult for her, but is often not recognized because it is not easily visible.  

Oladoyin is a 21-year-old psychology major in her final year at Redeemer’s University in Osun State, Nigeria. She is also an advocate for neurodiverse learners and founder of , a civil society organization that focuses on creating awareness of neurodiverse learning disabilities. According to Oladoyin, her disability has propelled her toward some of her most cherished achievements to date. 

“Every child gets to school for the first time with curiosity and hope in their heart,” Oladoyin said, recalling her experience starting school as a student with an undiagnosed learning disability. “The moment you get into that space, you realize that you struggle, that you are not up to par with your peers. It starts to crush your confidence.” She always knew something was different about her, thinking to herself, “Doyin, you’re not like every other person.” However, her questions posed to adults around her, including her doctors, about this “difference” were always shrugged off, oftentimes for a lack of understanding. 

Having an undiagnosed learning disability throughout her primary and secondary education meant that Oladoyin did not have the support necessary to perform at the level expected of her. Her typical school year consisted of countless home tutors for each subject, even during holidays, and in several cases punishment from her teachers when she did not produce expected results. However, these symptomatic remedies did little to foster her learning. To “survive school”, Oladoyin had to discover learning techniques to bypass true understanding and instead memorize course content to pass school exams. By doing this, she was able to complete her secondary education.  

However, when it was time for Oladoyin to move on to university, she found it difficult getting past coursework for international university admissions, as they were based on understanding and application, and memorization “would no longer cut it.” After struggling to make her way through standardized university entrance exams, Oladoyin was accepted into a university but dropped out shortly after, as the learning styles she had relied on previously proved no match for the demands of higher education.  

With no awareness of her disability or any support tailored to her needs, Oladoyin momentarily gave up her dreams of pursuing higher education and began a career in interior design. Her decision was met with much resistance from her parents who are themselves academics and see successfully completing higher education as the only viable path to a productive and fulfilled life. Although design was something she could see herself enjoying, she felt the inadequacy that came from knowing that her peers were successfully pursuing higher education while she was taking an alternative route. 

“Am I dumb?” Oladoyin typed the question into her web browser one day. In milliseconds, the internet readily delivered to her a panoply of memes, quotes and articles and among them, one article struck her. It enabled her to finally identify a suspect that had for too long evaded her - dyslexia. “For the first time in my life, I finally felt understood, like I told the author what I had been feeling all those years and they put it into writing,” she described. Over the next months, Oladoyin devoted herself to researching dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Discovering that there had been over 100 years of research on learning disabilities, yet very little was known or done about it in Africa, she decided to become an advocate for neurodiverse learning disabilities. “I came to the realization that my learning difficulty, undiagnosed and without the appropriate support, almost cost me my future and my life. To think that other people lost their futures because of this - that is my driving force, that is my frustration and that is what keeps me going.”   

To end the silence on neurodiversity, Oladoyin launched One Word Africa, an organization aimed at creating awareness of and providing support for neurodiverse learning disabilities. In its four years of operation, the organization has organized events to educate and create awareness about dyslexia and other learning disabilities. For instance, each month, it hosts Dyslexia Tribe, a monthly support group and mental therapy for dyslexic individuals. It has also published a Teacher Preparation guide as part of its efforts to train teachers to better cater to the needs of their students with learning disabilities. Despite the initial challenges in garnering financial support, as most donors preferred to fund organizations focusing on physical disabilities, Oladoyin is proud of the success the organization has had in increasing the conversation around learning disabilities in Nigeria. “It is exciting that people now talk about dyslexia and people who are dyslexic are not ashamed to say they are dyslexic. That is the biggest achievement for me.” One of the key facts that Oladoyin wants people to know is that they can achieve anything even if they have learning disabilities. In order to practice what she preached and convince others of their capabilities, she returned to university after a two-year hiatus to pursue a bachelor’s degree in psychology. 

Some educational aspects of dyslexia, such as learning struggles, are relatively well understood, but “we often forget the psychological impacts of dyslexia on the person who is dyslexic, their parents, caregivers and teachers,'' Oladoyin noted. Drawing from her personal experience, she said that having such a disability can easily lead to self-doubt, low self-esteem and depression, and these psychological impacts “don’t go away.” By studying psychology, she learned to “see the person as an individual first, before whatever it [disability] is that they have,” and it has greatly helped her to design and implement solutions through One Word Africa. 

Oladoyin pointed out that the bigger challenge facing people with learning disabilities in Nigeria is the system, “the educational policies, curriculums, the way they are designed.” She described the process of trying to achieve education reform as a “merry go round - sometimes you think you have to work from the top, but you realize that you need to start from the grassroots” and vice versa. She also explained that when government officials are not open to restructuring curricula, you decide to work with teachers. With training they become more knowledgeable about dyslexia and know how to teach their students in appropriate ways. However, teachers may be reluctant to apply those methods because they are trying to ensure that their students are prepared to pass exams administered by the government, which do not accommodate learning disabilities. She cited her own experience, saying that “I have learned in a way that I understand, but I have to keep that learning aside and replace it with a way that I can pass exams. The way the educational system has been designed is affecting how much of an impact we [educational organizations] can make.”   

Oladoyin suggested that curriculums and policies be updated to meet the changing times and needs of students. “These changes should not be made by the same people who have been doing it for years,” but by people with in-depth and up-to-date knowledge who “understand disabilities and what is attainable.” She also called on governments to facilitate partnerships with civil society organizations, in order to provide teachers with adequate and holistic training that will help them become good educators for students with special learning needs.  

Oladoyin wishes for a future where the opportunities for students with learning disabilities are not limited, a future where “the [educational] system allows for dyslexics to exist, allows them to be taught the way they can understand, on a level playing ground.” 

 

Resources: