Michael Shanahan [00:00:00]:
I always struggled with reading and spelling and writing. Always. It was a real struggle and quite traumatic for me as a kid. You know, I remember that sense of humiliation. I'm getting emotional even now and it's like 50 years later. So this is stuff that really sits with you, you know what I mean? As a kid. And when I think about kids now, part of why I tutor is to kind of helped them not go through the really tough time that I went through. I kind of think back of my childhood and school and it was horrible.
Michael Shanahan [00:00:36]:
The whole experience for me wasn't a good experience, particularly living with adhd. On top of that, you know, the trouble you get into and so on, that negative self image you can create. So it was very, very, very difficult growing up. And I, I think that helps me as a tutor, as an, and an interventionist because I think if you don't live with those difficulties, it's a little bit difficult to understand just how hard it is.
Sharon Collon [00:01:01]:
Welcome to the ADHD Families Podcast. I'm your host Sharon Collin, an award winning credentialed ADHD coach and consultant and mama and wife to a very ADHD family. I am seriously obsessed with making life easier for people with ADHD and those that support them. My business, the Functional Family, provides life changing support and strategies for adhd. I particularly love anything that saves time, decreases conflict and creates space for fun. Do you want a life with your beautiful family that is more functional, fun and full of joy? Let's explore together the wonderful and sometimes wacky world of family life with ADHD in the mix. Did you know that our beautiful humans with ADHD are much more likely to also have dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia and it can be one of those tricky things to navigate. To support us in this space, I brought in the incredible Michael Shanahan.
Sharon Collon [00:02:04]:
He is a specialist in literacy and mass intervention, working with students with the 3Ds who also may have ADHD or autism or any other different neurodivergent conditions conditions. He is also the host of Discastia, a podcast for parents and educators about the best way to support our kids navigating learning difficulties. In this podcast, Michael really breaks down what the 3Ds are and key practical strategies for navigating this as a family. When you have people in your family that have this co occurring condition. Michael also discloses his personal journey of navigating this and really lets us in on what it's like, especially as a child. As he was going through School navigating his own adhd, dysgraphia, and dyslexia. It is full of beautiful insight in this podcast, and I can't wait to share it with you. Welcome, Michael.
Sharon Collon [00:03:00]:
I am so excited to have you on the podcast today.
Michael Shanahan [00:03:04]:
It's brilliant to meet you finally in person after emailing and listening to your podcast myself.
Sharon Collon [00:03:10]:
Oh, thank you. Okay, so I know today's chat is going to be so valuable for our gorgeous listeners, but before I get too excited and ask all my questions, I would love for you to tell our gorgeous community a little bit about you and what it is that you do.
Michael Shanahan [00:03:25]:
Yeah, sure. I work as a specialist intervention tutor for students mostly that live with learning difficulties like dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia. So work at home. I'm in my office now. And really I don't do kind of tutoring like you would do. School homework help, really. I do like an intervention program, usually working with kids that really, really struggle. So, you know, students for whom school is too hard and they can't keep up.
Michael Shanahan [00:03:59]:
So I generally would be teaching reading, writing, or maths or sometimes all of those to students. My background is as a teacher, so I initially trained as a teacher, secondary teacher, but quite unrelated. So physical education, drama, and science were my secondary were my teaching degree. So really nothing to do with literacy, which is probably because I live with dyslexia myself and ADHD and dysgraphia. So I've always found it really difficult and have strangely ended up working, doing the thing that I find hardest.
Sharon Collon [00:04:36]:
I would love if we could start off by talking about the 3Ds. Now, I've heard you do this on your podcast, but I'd really like to, for our beautiful community, to understand what the 3Ds are.
Michael Shanahan [00:04:50]:
Yeah, so the 3Ds are dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia. And so in order, if we think of dyslexia first, which is probably the one that's most commonly known by people, and really that's difficulty with reading. And, you know, there are some kind of core deficits. I won't get too much into the detail, but, you know, kind of the core difficulty with dyslexia is this thing called phonological awareness or phonological core deficit. And phonological just means sound. And so people living with dyslexia find it really difficult to. To hear the sounds in speech and break them up in their head. And when they can, it's then very difficult to manipulate them, to keep a hold of them.
Michael Shanahan [00:05:36]:
So if you think of that and think of a word like say, cat, which is a simple word, and when we say it, we don't make three different sounds, do we? It's just one blob of sound that comes out cat. And then when we're reading, what we need to do is artificially break that up into three separate sounds. We have to got to be able to break that up into K a T. And if you live with dyslexia, that's actually really difficult. And you often hear kids not hearing cat, but they might hear bat or vat or kit, so they don't quite necessarily process those sounds correctly. And then once those sounds are in. In your head, it's difficult then to manipulate them and think, okay, well, what letter goes with that K sound? Making that link is difficult in your head and often slow. And so you can imagine that if you're having this kind of processing difficulty, and you know you can eventually get there, but by the time your brain has kind of processed those sounds, matched them up with the letters, it's kind of taken too long to be reading fluently.
Michael Shanahan [00:06:44]:
And so you end up having students that really kind of struggle to read fluently or fast struggle to keep up with the rest of the class. And then often they form a kind of a guessing habit, and you see them end up reading words that aren't there, or they kind of see the first three letters and make up the rest of the word. So the whole. And then that makes it all harder again. So it's really quite a complex problem caused in most cases by, you know, a fairly kind of simple thing, you know, that ability to process those speech sounds and manipulate them and play with them. So that's kind of the core basis of dyslexia. And it makes reading really difficult. And you can imagine if all that processing is going on.
Michael Shanahan [00:07:28]:
It's also very tiring. You know, for a lot of kids, it's a bit humiliating and embarrassing when you're reading and you're struggling so much and you're slow and you're getting it wrong, particularly if you're doing it in front of the class. So that's dyslexia, and we're all fairly familiar with that. And then dysgraphia is kind of related to dyslexia. You can live with dysgraphia and not dyslexia and vice versa, although you do often see them together. And dysgraphia is difficulty with handwriting, not just the physical act. Of handwriting, but also the ability to kind of formulate ideas on paper. So I live with dysgraphia, and it's kind of difficult to explain, but, you know, if I'm speaking to you now, you know, I can put a story together.
Michael Shanahan [00:08:12]:
I can kind of see the structure in my head, and I can make sense. Hopefully most of the time, sometimes I don't. But when I put it on paper, I don't know what it is. I just can't do it. You know what I mean? It's just really, really hard to put those ideas onto paper. Some of it's because the actual act of writing is difficult. So the physical act of forming the letters kind of takes up so much of your brain power that there's not much left over to keep the ideas in your head and keep the flow going and keep the structure going. Because when I'm talking, I can go at a pace, you know, that my brain can keep up with.
Michael Shanahan [00:08:46]:
Particularly if you live with ADHD and your brain's going super fast. Imagine if your handwriting is really slow and laborious. You know, by the time you've written the first word, your brain's moved on, hasn't it? And, you know, it's onto the next three, four things you're thinking about, and to try and drag it back and get that idea onto the page, that's really tricky. People living with dysgraphia also really struggle with spelling. And you can see why. You know, a lot of it is because that act of handwriting is so difficult and takes up so much brain power that there's not much left over for the processing and working out which letter goes where. There are different kind of reasons behind dysgraphia. Sometimes it's just simply like a physical motor issue, kind of that fine motor control.
Michael Shanahan [00:09:34]:
I mean, I personally live with really small fingers. This thing called brachydactyly, it's like a genetic condition that makes my fingers really small and unfortunately cut my half. Half my thumb off as well in a motorbike accident. And so handwriting has always been physically difficult for me. You know, forming the letters, having that pencil control. And so that takes up a big chunk of brain power while I'm writing, and it just leaves not much left for the spelling and the comprehension and keeping a thread of the story and so on. So, yeah, dysgraphia really is not a huge amount of awareness around it. I often hear people say handwriting is not important anymore.
Michael Shanahan [00:10:13]:
I really disagree with that. As someone who lives with dysgraphia myself, you have to Actually write all the time. You know, you can't 100% live in a computer. And it has a big impact on your confidence. You know, spelling and handwriting, because it's very public, you can kind of hide a learning difficulty. You know, you can mouth the words with the other kids in the class or, you know, not read. But as soon as you put something on paper, everyone can see it, including you. So it's actually quite, you know, embarrassing and humiliating, that whole handwriting thing.
Michael Shanahan [00:10:46]:
And unfortunately, people do kind of judge you on your ability to spell and your handwriting. So, yeah, that's a tricky one. So that's dysgraphia. So we've got dyslexia, dysgraphia, and then the other D is dyscalculia, a little bit like dyslexia, but for numbers. So it's a lack of or a difficulty with number sense. This calculia is probably 20 years behind dyslexia. As far as research goes. There isn't even kind of a standard test that you could do or a standard assessment to say this is dyscalculia or even a standard set of criteria for it.
Michael Shanahan [00:11:24]:
So it's way behind in the literature, you know, and the research, which is a bit odd considering how important maths is. You know, we're always talking about maths and literacy as being important, and it's a really, you know, if we're talking about dyslexia, the core difficulty there is that kind of sound awareness, working with sounds. With dyscalculia, the core difficulty is size and quantity. You know, being able to instantly know that that's bigger than that or this amount is more than that. So one of the kind of assessments that you do when you're evaluating someone is show them random dots on a piece of paper, you know, a card with random dots on it, or I like, scatter beans on the table, and they have to estimate how many is there. They find that really difficult to go. This has got more than that now. Obviously they can do it just like with dyslexia, you can read, but it's really slow and hard work and not automatic.
Michael Shanahan [00:12:23]:
So that kind of core difference there then makes everything to do with numbers hard. So if you don't have that kind of clear picture or you can't quickly discern bigger and smaller, then things that are fundamental to maths, like a number line. People living with dyscalculia don't really have a good mental picture of a number line. You know, when you say think of a number line, you know, with 0 to 100, and you say, where would 70 sit? They have a lot of trouble going, oh, that's kind of nearly three quarters now. They can do it, but it takes that extra processing time. And so if that kind of stuff is not automatic, then when you get to the really kind of much more conceptual parts of maths, now that numbers are represented by these squiggles on a page and all these symbols and so on, the whole thing gets very confusing. I discriminate the difference between dyscalculia and just kind of difficulty with maths. Based on the kind of level of difficulty, I think you could say.
Michael Shanahan [00:13:25]:
So my daughter lives with dyscalculia, and I remember this is the same for students that I tutor. Their concept of numbers will be kind of outrageously wrong, you know, so you'll say, okay, what's 10 plus 2? And they'll go, 48. And you go, okay, not quite. Let's start. Let's go 10, 11, 12. 10 plus 2 is 12. What's 10 plus 2? 46. So I don't get it.
Michael Shanahan [00:13:56]:
Like, it's complete non awareness of numbers and what they mean. And so working with students living with this calculia, you kind of have to go right back to the beginning of what are numbers? And do a lot of concrete work with counters and, you know, really trying to fill in that gap of that basic understanding of number and size and quantity. This is bigger than this. This is bigger than that. They're the three Ds. Reading difficulty, handwriting difficulty with numbers and maths.
Sharon Collon [00:14:28]:
I would love to learn a little bit about your experience growing up, because you've got two of the three Ds, right. So tell me a little bit about.
Michael Shanahan [00:14:36]:
I've never been assessed for dyscalculia, but I suspect that I do live with that as well. I find math. I don't find maths easy. I find math really hard.
Sharon Collon [00:14:44]:
I'd love to know a little bit about your journey, so going through school and what it was like for you, because I don't think we've ever had someone on the podcast talk about this from a firsthand perspective.
Michael Shanahan [00:14:56]:
Yeah, it's interesting because I never thought of myself as living with dyslexia, so I knew I lived with ADHD because. Right. As a kid, I was diagnosed hyperactive, which back then was what they called it. But nothing happened, you know, there was nothing, you know, and there was no consequence of that. And something like dyslexia or dysgraphia. I don't think I'd even ever heard of it or thought of it. I always struggled with reading and spelling and writing. Always.
Michael Shanahan [00:15:27]:
It was a real struggle and quite traumatic for me as a kid. You know, I remember that sense of humiliation. I'm getting emotional even now, and it's like 50 years later. So this is stuff that really sits with you, you know what I mean, as a kid. And when I think about kids now, part of why I tutor is to kind of help them not go through the really tough time that I went through. I kind of think back on my childhood and school, and it was horrible. The whole experience for me wasn't a good experience. And particularly living with ADHD on top of that, you know, the trouble you get into and so on, that negative self image you can create.
Michael Shanahan [00:16:07]:
So it was very, very, very difficult growing up. And I. I think that helps me as a tutor, as an. And an interventionist, because I think if you don't live with those difficulties, it's. It's a little bit difficult to understand just how hard it is. And kids are not good at showing their emotions. They cover it up, you know, as a defense, or they. Or they don't know how to express it.
Michael Shanahan [00:16:29]:
So it's easy to kind of think they're sailing along. And I was probably a kid like that because I wouldn't want to admit that I was having difficulty, you know, because that would be weakness or I'd get into trouble or whatever. I was just trying to go under the radar and had a whole lot of strategies for, you know, pretending that I knew things. So it was quite tricky. And then in my adult life, you know, when I look back on it, I just did a whole bunch of stuff to avoid ever having to do much reading or writing, you know, a whole lot of things I did to avoid ever having to write in public or spell in public. There's a whole lot of stuff, you know, and I was doing all of that with no awareness of anything like dyslexia or dysgraphia. And then it wasn't until I had children and my son was diagnosed with dyslexia. So he had huge amount of trouble reading, learning to read.
Michael Shanahan [00:17:21]:
We went and got an assessment, and I remember during the assessment, the psychologist was explaining dyslexia, and my wife started laughing. And the psychologist said, why are you laughing? And she said, because you're describing my husband, not my son. And I'm like, what?
Sharon Collon [00:17:35]:
What do you mean?
Michael Shanahan [00:17:36]:
I don't live with dyslexia. And that was kind of the moment for me of like, ah, actually the more I learn about it, the more I realize, actually, you know, maybe I do. So I ended up getting assessed and then was also assessed with dysgraphia, which I had never heard of. My journey was really one of kind of personal discovery through my kids. The more I learned about learning difficulties, the more I realized a lot of the answers for why I'd been struggling. I wish someone had recognized it when I was a kid because life could have been a whole lot easier, which I suppose is, you know, why I'm here now, why I do this. Even though I find it really hard, there's just, there's not enough tutors out there. You know, I get phone calls and contacts every week for people looking for tutors, and I'm full up to the brim and there just aren't people out there.
Michael Shanahan [00:18:27]:
Part of why I do it is because it's needed, because kids don't really get what they need in school in a lot of cases.
Sharon Collon [00:18:35]:
So thinking about the link with adhd, because, you know, if people are listening to this podcast, right, they've got ADHD in their family. Can you tell me what the link is with the 3Ds and ADHD?
Michael Shanahan [00:18:47]:
It's difficult to get a exact statistic because it depends on the study. But, you know, around, if we average it out, 30, 40% of kids that live with ADHD also live with dyslexia, dysgraphia, or dyscalculia. And so it's a pretty good chance, you know, almost a 1, almost a 50, 50 chance, that if you live with ADHD, you live with one of those 3Ds. And so there's a big crossover there, but it's, it's also a little bit gray because I think some of the, you know, lack of attention in adhd, just ADHD on its own could lead to reading difficulties, writing difficulties, mathematics difficulties. Just because paying attention is such a huge part of learning. You know, if you, if you can't pay attention, then you're not going to get the information that you need. You're probably not going to get the practice you need to make it automatic. And so, you know, I suspect that even though, you know, research kind of shows they affect different areas of the brain, I expect that that crossover is there because, you know, you can kind of see the link between attention and learning difficulties.
Michael Shanahan [00:20:01]:
And I think sometimes, you know, because testing is not precise, it may be that a student's really struggling with reading and writing. But how do you tell whether the core Reason is because they're not able to pay attention for long enough to learn it or whether it really is a phonological or, you know, like a sound deficit. So I think there's a little bit of a gray area there. And look, I'm no expert in this, but there's definitely a crossover. And look, as far as I'm concerned, day to day, I really do want to know if a child has been assessed. And it's very helpful for me to see their assessment results and, you know, get a picture in my head of where they might be struggling. But ultimately it doesn't matter, you know, and I tutor kids that have no diagnosis or identification because ultimately it's just about that kid sitting in front of you and what do they need in that moment. It's very helpful to have the classifications and, you know, know what diagnosis is.
Michael Shanahan [00:21:00]:
But really, even two people living with ADHD are not going to be the same, are they? So for me, it comes down to that personal one on one relationship which I can have as a tutor, you know, in a school that's really tricky. I really feel for teachers that might have 25, 30 kids in front of them and trying to teach to all those kids at once with all, you know, all the different needs that those kids might have, it's really tricky. And I think it's often why the kids that live with the 3ds struggle at school because, you know, usually it just goes too fast for them. They can't keep up. And so, yeah, I don't know if that makes sense.
Sharon Collon [00:21:41]:
Sure does.
Michael Shanahan [00:21:41]:
Yeah.
Sharon Collon [00:21:42]:
Many parents, they know that something's going on for their child and they're experiencing some additional challenges, like they've got their ADHD diagnosis and now we've been flagged for one of the 3Ds, and they can start to feel really overwhelmed because, I mean, ADHD in itself, like from a pediatrician point of view, has a very clear diagnostic, like a treatment protocol.
Michael Shanahan [00:22:05]:
Right.
Sharon Collon [00:22:06]:
They go through these like, standard steps. Now, of course, as an ADHD Coach, I will 100% tell you that that is not enough to support executive function skills and develop. And in a way that works for that child, which I think you would be very much on the same page as that. But for the parents point of view, adding another thing in there, they can start to feel really overwhelmed when they get that diagnosis of one of the 3Ds, because it's not as clear cut into what we're going to do about it. So what would you recommend for them right now.
Michael Shanahan [00:22:37]:
Yeah, I know that because I've been that parent. And, you know, like I said, I never even thought of dyslexia or dyscalculia before my kids were diagnosed. And even though I was a teacher, I knew nothing about it. And you do kind of have that moment of panic of like, I kind of see it as my child's life has flashed before my eyes, you know, and you can't help but think, oh, my God, are they going to get a job? Are they going to be able to work? You know, it is very overwhelming and it's a lot of work for a parent, you know, and I can feel that extra thing, you know, that one extra thing. It's like, how do I fit this in? I think my primary advice would be to get expert help, particularly if you're new to it all. You know, when I started with this, like, I've been, you know, heavily involved with learning difficulties and so for. For 20 something years now, you know, since my kids were diagnosed. And I'm still learning things, and I still don't feel like I really am a total expert.
Michael Shanahan [00:23:42]:
You know what I mean? And so if you've just received a diagnosis, I think be easy on yourself and don't put a. An expectation on yourself that you can understand this straight away and solve it straight away. I think it's better to seek expert help and advice, and there's plenty of it out there. You know, there are spelled organizations in each state that are not for profit and they're for parents. For exactly this purpose, they run introductory courses. There are people like you who run, you know, information sessions for parents and courses for parents so that you can get up to speed. So I think. I kind of think, take a deep breath and go.
Michael Shanahan [00:24:27]:
I think this is going to be okay. It's really hard and it's going to be hard, but it's going to be okay. And even though you go through really hard times, I think it's, you know, now that my kids are adults and I have jobs and, you know, it's all over. It feels like it was a blink of an eye, but there were certainly plenty of moments in there. And when I say moment, you know, it might actually be 12 months or six months where you're thinking, oh, my goodness, is this ever going to get any easier? Are we ever going to get through this? But once you are through it and you do get through it, you kind of go, oh, boy, they're adults now and it's done. Slow down you don't have to solve it all right now. You don't have to know everything right now. The first step, I think, would be to reach out to experts and get advice.
Michael Shanahan [00:25:16]:
It's quite tricky, I think, reaching out to social media, because you see a lot of conflicting advice there and it can make you even more confused. You know, I often see parents who might, you know, have a new identification for a kid and they ask a question and they get 10 pieces of conflicting advice and the conversation turns into an argument of, no, it's this, no, it's that. No, it's this. No, it's that. I think that's really hard. And so I think going to someone with a level of expertise, whether that's even a GP to start with or spelled, or a specialist tutor, you know, I'm happy for people to contact me and just have a chat, you know what I mean? And just get your bearings and go, okay, let's make a plan. Do this, do this, do this. I think it's important that a student gets into intervention quickly, even if you don't have an identification.
Michael Shanahan [00:26:10]:
You know, parents know their kids best. And if you suspect something, I think you don't have to wait to get a diagnosis or get an assessment. You can do something. You know, there are tutors like me or Spelled, you know, have tutoring services where they'll match you up with a tutorial and you can get started or even look at online resources yourself and get started. That's a little bit tricky because how do you know what's good and what's not? But, yeah, I think getting started quickly, and I think the way you can get started quickly is to seek that expert help, at least at the start, at least till you find your feet, so you don't feel like you've got to do it all alone and, you know, do all the research and find out everything. You know, there's thousands of people that have already done that for you.
Sharon Collon [00:26:58]:
And who's in charge of diagnosing the 3DS?
Michael Shanahan [00:27:01]:
It varies depending on where you are. And I'm not an expert on, you know, other places, but in South Australia, you would need to be an educational psychologist or a paediatrician. So it can't just be like a standard psychologist or a gp, you have to have an assessment with. Actually, I think in South Australia, speech pathologists can also do it.
Sharon Collon [00:27:21]:
Okay. And thinking about the biggest myths or misconceptions about the 3DS, what are the biggest myths?
Michael Shanahan [00:27:31]:
Actually, this is quite Surprising, and it still happens. But I think a really difficult one that often comes up is that they don't exist. You certainly hear that with ADHD as well. I tutor quite a few students who get identified and they tell the classroom teacher and the teacher says, oh, that's nonsense. You know, they just need to try harder. You know, I don't believe in dyslexia or I don't believe, I've never heard of dyscalculia. You're just making that up. So I think it's not really a myth.
Michael Shanahan [00:27:58]:
There is still a lot of that out there. People that think it doesn't exist, or the student's lazy or they're not trying hard enough. And often the result of that can be very damaging because often the result of that is blaming the kid. You know, so then saying, you have to work harder, you have to focus more, you have to do. You know, you could just list. You can imagine it piling. That extra pressure, you know, often leads kids to think they're dumb. A lot of kids, by the time they get to me, unfortunately, they've lost a lot of self confidence and belief in themselves.
Michael Shanahan [00:28:34]:
And, you know, many of them think they're dumb because they have tried their hardest. You know, they have listened to the teacher and tried their hardest, but still hasn't worked. And so I think that's quite a tricky one. You know, there's that blanket denial is very difficult to deal with. You know, there are a lot of myths out there. One of the most prevalent ones with dyslexia is that it might be a visual problem. You know, you see kind of vision therapy, and I'm not having a go at vision therapy for someone that has a vision problem. But dyslexia is not a vision problem.
Michael Shanahan [00:29:05]:
You know, dyslexia is this sound processing phonological deficit. So I'd be wary of those kind of myths. You could kind of go on forever on the myths. I think you can bypass that by talking to an expert and getting expert help from the beginning. And I think by expert help I mean mainstream. So I know this is a touchy subject with people. And, you know, I know people are a little bit distrustful of the mainstream system or education. But I think as a starting point, that's your safe ground, you know, to go somewhere like spelled or understood, which is an excellent online resource.
Michael Shanahan [00:29:51]:
Somewhere where you're going to get unbiased, helpful advice as your starting point rather than straight away, you know, kind of disregarding the mainstream and going for something that's like an instant cure or a miracle or whatever. Or, you know, I think I'd be very wary if you hear people say, you know, this is the secret. Doctors keep this, this treatment secret because they don't. Because they want to. Don't want to lose business. You know, those kind of scammy things are really tricky to navigate. And so I think talking to someone who has some expertise is a good place to start.
Sharon Collon [00:30:26]:
Everyone's looking for the silver bullet, right? Like, you know, if this one Facebook thing can, like calming stickers for adhd, I've got a local lady that's saying that she can heal ADHD in 30 days. Like, it's. Wow.
Michael Shanahan [00:30:40]:
Exactly.
Sharon Collon [00:30:41]:
But it's designed to, like, catch people when they're vulnerable.
Michael Shanahan [00:30:45]:
Right, Exactly.
Sharon Collon [00:30:47]:
Yeah.
Michael Shanahan [00:30:48]:
It's really sad.
Sharon Collon [00:30:49]:
It is sad. And so I love that advice. Now, a lot of us on our child, like, when they've gone and got a diagnosis for adhd, on that report that the pediatrician will write, it'll say sld. Right? So it will say specific learning disability. What is that? And how does that coincide with the three Ds?
Michael Shanahan [00:31:08]:
That is the 3Ds. Okay, yeah. Specific learning difficulty is the 3Ds. I'm old fashioned and not up with it by calling it dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia. Those terms are not officially used anymore. I still use them because I just think it's too confusing. I mean, we spent so many years trying to get awareness and then we throw away the terms that people have got some awareness of. So, yeah, so specific sld, specific learning difficulty.
Michael Shanahan [00:31:36]:
Now they say specific learning difficulty in mathematics or. Or SLD in handwriting and spelling or SLD in reading. So if it's an SLD in reading, then it's old. You know, it used to be called dyslexia, sld. Handwriting and spelling used to be called dysgraphia, slt. Maths used to be called dyscalculia.
Sharon Collon [00:31:59]:
Can you tell me a little bit about what tech tools you support or use?
Michael Shanahan [00:32:06]:
I would be wary of software that's claiming to teach kids. So I think there are two categories. There's assistive technology, which I think is incredibly important and helpful. You know, things like voice to text can be life changing for a student living with dysgraphia that just can't, you know, get their ideas onto paper, but they can speak. And look, that's just built into Microsoft Word or Google Docs. You can just dictate and it's really, really good. It used to be so expensive to get programs that let you do that, but now it's just there on, you know, even a cheap laptop, you can use that dictation function. I've seen that have huge impact for students, just the ability to speak and have it right for you.
Michael Shanahan [00:32:57]:
Even programs like Grammarly or spellcheck, I think are fantastic. Because my view is that when you're actually working on learning to write or read or spell, then I wouldn't be saying, okay, use Grammarly or voice to text, because that's what we're focusing on. But if my aim is to finish an assignment, then let's just not worry about dyslexia or dysgraphia for now. Let's just get the assignment done. And if that means you're not writing it, or it means I as a parent ascribing for you while you talk, then I think, job done. Let's remove that barrier using technology. So there's those kind of technologies which I think are incredibly useful. Other ones that are really common, built both into Google Docs and Microsoft Word.
Michael Shanahan [00:33:45]:
Reading the text to you, I think it's review read aloud is the tool, and then it will just read what's on the page to you. And that is so useful because, honestly, it's so. It's such hard work. Reading when you live with dyslexia is really exhausting. So if I can just close my eyes and take a little break and listen to something instead, it's such a relief. And, you know, it's so I can get so much more done because I don't get so exhausted by having to read something. It's also incredibly good for editing because living with dyslexia, if I read something I'm really bad at spotting a spelling mistake or seeing that I've made an error or typed a word twice or whatever, I just don't see it. But if you listen to it straight away, you can hear, oh, that's not.
Michael Shanahan [00:34:32]:
What's that word? That's not. And then you can stop and respell it. So it's really handy for both getting text in and getting text out, you know, by using speaking or listening. So there's those kind of technologies, which I think are fantastic for students. I do see programs that claim to teach students, you know, like, here, give the student an iPad and send them on their way, and they'll learn to read magically through this app or this program. I'm skeptical of that because I think it actually needs expertise. So when I'm Sitting with a student, I'm listening to everything they're saying. This is really common.
Michael Shanahan [00:35:14]:
Let's say we're trying to spell the word bench and they're using a V. And I discover actually, all their life they've been saying vench, not bench V instead of a B. That's why they can't spell this word. But a piece of software is not going to pick that up and be able to correct it with that kind of diagnostic degree. You know what I mean? Or be able to spot that and go, okay, let's spend a couple of lessons on this, because, you know, I can see this pattern. A piece of software might be better than nothing, but I don't think it can replace being face to face with a person, because I can spot when kids are anxious or have stopped paying attention. But a piece of software can't do that. You know, it can't hear when they're not quite saying something.
Michael Shanahan [00:36:00]:
Right. So I'd be a little bit skeptical of those, especially for maths as well. I know I'm focusing a bit on dyslexia here, but, you know, I see a lot of those maths programs where you learn maths, But I know from personal experience that just doing those kind of maths games is only helpful kind of as practice and repetition. What's really important is the step that comes before that, which is getting them to understand the concept and being able to break it down into tiny, tiny little chunks and really make sure they understand each bit. You could play games as fun, practice, repetition, you know, as a fun way to get repetition. I'd be wary of technology that claims to be able to kind of teach a student, but technology that supports students in doing their work, you know, editing, writing, reading, I'm all for. That's fantastic.
Sharon Collon [00:36:52]:
And what about accommodations in the classroom? So parents get a SLD diagnosis for the child. What can they go in and ask for?
Michael Shanahan [00:37:02]:
It really depends on the student and what the student needs. So usually when you get an assessment, the psychologist will put a whole bunch of recommendations in there, and I think that's a great place to start. And if you get an assessment and you don't get those recommendations, I would ask for them because they are very smart people, you know, with a lot of experience, and they can look at a student's profile and go, you know, I think these are the kind of supports that would, you know, help the student to thrive. And so I think that's a really good starting point. If you don't have that as a starting Point I would be it's very difficult to say without meeting, you know, seeing the student, because everybody is different. But kind of some common ones that I think are important is that if you think about, you know, I've been talking about how hard this is for students, especially if you're living with ADHD as well, you know, which is mentally exhausting to maintain that focus and then add to that, you know, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia. By the time a kid gets home, they are exhausted and we, we've all seen that meltdown that happens. You know, they hold it together, hold it together all day and they get home to their safe space and just completely fall apart.
Michael Shanahan [00:38:18]:
I think a really good accommodation is around homework because that causes a huge amount of tension because they've got home and they finally let go and relaxed and now you're saying to them, okay, now you've got to work again. That is torture to make that shift twice and go back into that mode. And so I think de escalation in that environment, you know, so if your student is, you know, if your kid is really exhausted, is doing a half an hour of homework actually even going to go in anyway, especially if they don't even want to do it and you're forcing them to do it, it's just going to build a very negative association there with homework and doing that work. And so I think a really good accommodation that would work across the board would be time homework. I mean, first I think no homework. You know, there isn't even any research to support homework as something effective anyway. From an educational perspective, I think there would be some benefit in developing good habits because certainly when you get into secondary school you need to be doing homework because the workload is so huge. So if you can develop a habit, I think that would be good.
Michael Shanahan [00:39:29]:
And if you think of it in terms of that, then making it something positive so that it doesn't become this huge bugbear I think would be good. So with all my students, we had an agreement with the teachers that they would just do 10 minutes and we would sign off to say, Yep, they've done 10 minutes of homework. It wasn't about whether they finished the work or not. It wasn't about get this done by Friday or else and those kind of raising the stakes. It was just about, yep, they've done their 10 minutes tick, they feel good, they've done it. The teacher doesn't hassle them or complain that it hasn't been done. So I think that kind of understanding of the work, the extra work that these students do is probably a primary accommodation and I think reducing workload overall. So I often see students being given extra time to finish an assignment or finish a piece of work.
Michael Shanahan [00:40:22]:
Now the problem with that is that they end up having to do way more work than anybody else. Because if it takes Freddie half an hour to do the assignment, but it takes my student three hours to do the same thing and they get given an extra week to finish it, well, they're still doing six times the amount of work, aren't they? And then the assignments pile onto each other and you know, you end up again in that kind of meltdown, high stakes environment again. So I think rather than having extra time to do things, an upfront reduction in workload is really useful. So we often had that agreement with teachers to say, look, here's, These are the 10 questions for homework. Just do the first two. That's it, that's your homework. If you want to do more, go ahead and do it, but you only have to do the first two rather than saying, you have to do all 10 and I'll give you an extra day to do it. You know, in my experience, that ends up with the parent and the kids staying up till 1am in a meltdown full of tears saying, I have to get this finished, I have to get this finished.
Michael Shanahan [00:41:27]:
The teacher said, no excuses. You know, we've been there so many times and that's really, really unhelpful, you know, super bonding.
Sharon Collon [00:41:34]:
Like I always just, oh my gosh, love each other. Like it feels so great. Absolutely not terrible, terrible. But I like your strategy of taking the pressure off first de escalate.
Michael Shanahan [00:41:48]:
Because our kids live in such a high state of, you know, often anxiety. But you know, especially living with adhd, if, especially if it's kind of hyperactivity, I'm already wired, you know, I'm already wanting to run around the block or destroy things or jump up and down on the spot, you know, and adding piling on more and more of that pressure and adrenaline is just going to mean my executive function is completely gone. You know, I'm just in like a fight or flight state straight away. And so, you know, I often find de escalation. The students I tutor, you know, I often just say, hey, relax, there's no pressure here. I don't mind if this takes us the whole lesson to finish this sheet. Just take your time. If you need a break, let me know.
Michael Shanahan [00:42:43]:
So I find that de escalation is sometimes quite surprising. For kids, because I don't think they get it, you know, it's usually the opposite, I think, because you're. When you see a student not being productive, intuitively, you kind of think, I've got to egg them on, you know, I've got to apply more pressure so they'd be more productive. But it's really, you know, counterproductive there because it's actually that high state that they're in that's causing the lack of production. If you can just tone it down, relax, let's actually make this something we look forward to, something that's fun, enjoyable. You know, sometimes our 10 minutes of homework wasn't even the schoolwork. It was just something nice. And we call it homework because I want that to be a positive thing, you know, not a horrible, torturous meltdown.
Michael Shanahan [00:43:30]:
You can see a picture of my kids growing up, can't you? And I'm sure it's very familiar to everyone, those high stakes meltdowns. It's really tough, isn't it?
Sharon Collon [00:43:40]:
So you mentioned before that your kids are grown up and in jobs now. What would they tell you about their experience with 3DS?
Michael Shanahan [00:43:49]:
They found it very difficult, definitely. You know, everyone's different. My son did stuff, you know what I mean? He was someone that kind of refused accommodations, you know, he was someone that said, I don't want extra time on my test because that's not fair or I don't need it, or whatever. So he, you know, was of that kind of mindset of, no, I don't want extra time because that's not fair. I see a lot of kids in that mindset of thinking, no, I don't want extra time because that's not fair. My daughter was very strong advocate for herself and you know, she would kind of hold the teachers to, to the plan and say, hold on, you haven't given me my extra time or whatever. So every, every person's different, isn't it? And they deal with it in a different way. You can't sugarcoat it.
Michael Shanahan [00:44:38]:
School is a really difficult place if you find it difficult to read, because it's all reading, isn't it? And so it's hard, really. And I think as parents, just providing support, you know, knowing that it's hard and kind of recognizing how hard it is. And like I was saying before, that kind of de escalation. When I say de escalation, I'm not saying, hey, forget about your homework, don't do it, but let's find a way to do it. That's manageable and, you know, it doesn't tip you over the edge of. Of it. Of it becoming horrible. No, I'm definitely not saying don't do it because in fact they have to do more work than other students.
Michael Shanahan [00:45:20]:
Before you were saying silver bullet. The silver bullet bullet is lots of really hard work. If only it was to, you know, eat lollies and watch Netflix.
Sharon Collon [00:45:34]:
So tell me how people can find you. Like, tell us about your podcast and what they can do to reach to you.
Michael Shanahan [00:45:42]:
Yeah, so I have a podcast, Discastia, which you are going to be my next guest, which I'm very excited about as well. Discastia.com so that's a podcast which really is full of advice for parents and educators about, you know, how to support students living with learning difficulties with as wide a variety of topics as we can. I try and make it a good mix of content for teachers and parents, you know, because I think teachers are a really important part of this and schools are really important part of it. Schools can make a such a gigantic difference and teachers can make such a huge difference for students as well as parents. So that's the podcast. My tutoring business is called Dyslexic Strengths and like I said, look, I'm happy to provide support and so on for people, but honestly, I'm not looking for new students to tutor. It breaks my heart to say that, but I've already got so many people on my waiting list. However, on my website I do have a list of tutors, of specialist tutors, which could be really helpful, both maths and literacy tutors.
Michael Shanahan [00:46:49]:
So to be on that list, they have to have done specialist training in either literacy or maths. There's a level of trust there that if you're contacting someone on that list, they're not just anybody, they're someone who specialises in intervention, literacy or mass intervention. So that's at dyslexic strengths, dyslexicstrengths.com and then I have, I'm a director of another company called Word Cracking, a whole bunch of resources for teaching literacy, particularly focusing on students that struggle the most. So there's some pretty alarming statistics. You know, students with learning difficulties. If we talk about dyslexia or any learning difficulty, many of them are, you know, don't get specialist intervention, but even those that do. So, you know, the students that go into specialist intervention one on one, like I do, 20% of them don't show any improvement. Think about that from the perspective of a student you know, imagine thinking, I can't.
Michael Shanahan [00:47:48]:
I'm even failing at intervention really hard for them. And I think, and Sally, the person I work with, you know, from our experience, and Sally's brilliant. She's been doing this for 25 years. You know, our experience is that sometimes intervention is too hard, particularly if a student lives with intellectual disability or, you know, other difficulties on top of dyslexia or dysgraphia. And so that program is kind of a next level of broken down into simplification. And so it's really designed as a supplement for a standard intervention, you know, specifically designed for teachers or tutors that might have a student that is struggling in intervention. And so it's a whole bunch of resources then to break it down into even finer steps and simplified versions of everything so that students that struggle the most can still get that sense of success which is so important. And it also has software there for teaching morphology.
Michael Shanahan [00:48:50]:
You know, don't let me get started on that, because we'll be here forever. But, you know, that's a very important part of literacy that traditionally in literacy intervention has been underdone. And, you know, morphology is a huge part of English and the English language and has, for all intents and purposes, kind of been sidelined or ignored in intervention because mostly it focuses on phonics, which is like the sound letter, sound correspondence. But that's not enough. They need to have morphology because it's a huge part of English. And so that's a software and resources around teaching morphology to try and catch people up on incorporating morphology into their teaching. If you're a parent, and let's say you don't have a tutor yet, and I know there's a lot of people out there, it still may be useful. Even though our resources are designed for teachers and tutors, there's still a lot there that could be useful for parents because it is, because the program is so simplified, even if you don't really understand it yourself.
Michael Shanahan [00:49:51]:
Many parents live with learning difficulties themselves. At least getting started and doing something is better than doing nothing. And it's quite inexpensive. You know, it's $144 a year, which for everything you, you know, that's not very much. That's kind of one session, isn't it? And then you have a year's access to that. There's a training course on there that's included in that to learn about morphology and kind of step by step guides, whole bunch of worksheets, games, that sort of stuff that you can do with your kids at least to get started with them until you find a tutor or someone who you know is a specialist.
Sharon Collon [00:50:28]:
It's been so wonderful having you on the podcast today and also hearing a little bit about your story and the amazing work that you do. So thank you so much.
Michael Shanahan [00:50:39]:
My pleasure. Thank you.
Sharon Collon [00:50:41]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the ADHD Families Podcast. If you loved it, please share it on your socials. I want this to start a conversation about adhd. If you want to make this mum do a little happy dance, please leave a review on itunes. If you would like to know more about what we do, check out thefunctionalfamily.com I truly hope that you enjoyed this podcast and you use it to create a wonderful, effective, joyful life with your beautiful children.
