Scraping by Academically

[Pickled]

Hi I'm new! I saw this forum come up on google and thought perhaps it was worth a read

I have been diagnosed with Dyspraxia for 7 years now, however have never really recieved much help for it, at school they simply didn't have a special needs system in place, they assessed me once for typing in exams but decided against it. I came out with fairly good GCSE's but feel with support should have been getting A's

I then went to college, there they did offer support, I had one on one support with essays etc although no changes in exams. I came out with fairly good A-Levels that got me into university.

I am no about to go into my third year at university and am finding myself slipping into just passing everything. I work hard, I write a lot of notes, do the reading (although holding this in my brain and understanding it is difficult) however I still merely pass everything.

It's really getting me down, they have said they may give me extra support this year but nothings guaranteed, last exam sessions I was allowed to type my exams which I think helped a bit. However I still feel I can't put into words the information I do in fact know!

Does anyone have any good tips on how I can keep information, I tend to re write all my notes 3/4 times, mindmap everything by hand (didn't get on with inspiration) also print off all the lecture slides and try to make extra notes. I just find the wording of exam questions so confusing and end up panicking and distracted in exams. I also have a real issue with punctuation, this post will probably not seem that bad but I have had to put some serious time into ensuring it makes sense.

[Captain_Ludd]

hi pickled,

I dont know how applicable this is to the course your studying but you my wanna try changing how you are taking notes.
There have been a number of studies showing that just writing tonnes of linear notes is not a very effective way to learn cos its completly counter to the way the human mind works, paricually for us NDs who are brilliant at thinking round corners but not in straight lines .
Their are a number of stratiges you could try like audio notes, "flash card notes" (dunno if thats what there actually called, but its what mys dys support tutor calls them) and my personal favorite mind maps, the thread on this is a couple of links down under memory and study skills.
It sounds like you may be doing the same as I used to do and spending so much time trying to get the notes down that you dont have time to digest the content.
I think the feeling of not being able to get out what you know is common to all dyspraxics so your not on your own there (frustraing is'nt it ), whenever I come out of exams or get results I have the feeling I could have done better if could have expressed what I know a little better.

hope thats of some help .

[DSA Tutor Aileen]

Hi there, I am a tutor for DSA students at university and I think you may need to ask for the "confusing" exam questions to be read out to you by a reader, or have a reader re-write the question in parts for you.

That is a REASONABLE ADJUSTMENT you can have if you are experiencing difficulty. You can also get a room alone and get them to put the paper/reply exam answer on the computer and get the read outloud software to speak the exam question while you read it.

Then you can cut and paste the exam question and break it down into elements for yourself. Sounds like you need some one-to-one lessons in identifying different types of exam questions.

I do skype DSA tutoring for students, plus applying for more hours if the training they got was not enough.

You may find that if you just pass all the time and you think you deserve a better grade because you know that you know it better then you can extend your degree longer to get the grade that you deserve. I handle all those types of letters writing to the university asking for reasonable adjustments.

Plus, by third year the courses are denser and that slows down productivity, especially for dyspraxic students.

Hope that helps,

Aileen

[Tim G]

I can't relay say much / have much advice, but puncuation wize try using Read and Wright softwere or somthing which reads the text aloud so you can listen to it and see if it makes sence and where the punaction might go.