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 Its a very personal blog this week. As the mother of a child with learning disabilities I have seen over the years a bright intelligent child struggle to be recognised as someone who is bright and intelligent, with as much to offer as the next child. I have seen the way his prospects and self esteem have at times been damaged by other parents keen to ensure their own offspring aren’t affected by having my son in the class (or neighbourhood...) and I have seen a few teachers who still adhere to the viewpoint that conditions such as ADHD, dyspraxia and dyslexia etc have just been created to give naughty and difficult children a convenient escape route.
When I last read up on this, over 1.5 million people in the UK were thought to have a learning disability. That's a lot of people. Between them they exhibit a whole variety of difficulties with learning ranging from the more well known issues around reading and writing, to short term memory issues, self organisation issues, concentration issues, teamwork issues and the list goes on and on.
But with advances in understanding, many of the children at school are now being supported to give them improved opportunities to succeed in exams and coursework. Its not a perfect scenario, but its a massive improvement on how they were supported in the school system just a decade ago. But what happens when they find themselves in employment?
In employment they are not statemented. There are no special needs coordinators. No one is informing you (the HR department or Manager) about whether they have dyslexia or ADHD and you can bet your bottom dollar they won't be jumping up and down to let you know either at recruitment or after they have started work. So what happens when you send them on their first training course and you find them giving you every excuse under the sun why that training course is not relevant to them, or the trainer reports back to you that they failed to participate in the group exercises, or they didn’t make notes as the trainer had asked them to do, or they were difficult and defensive when they were asked to write up notes for the group on the flip chart?
Perhaps you are just going to label them as difficult and disruptive?
In my far too many years of experience (!), I have come across very few trainers who have a good knowledge and experience of learning difficulties in adults. Many trainers take the view that the course will be delivered the way they have planned using pre prepared exercises and handouts and anyone who doesn’t fit in will be marked down as awkward and difficult. Problem is, if trainers take this view then perhaps one in ten or one in twenty of your delegates will just not get out of the course what you want them to get out of it. So not so great for your investment in time and money. And not great either for their self esteem or motivation! But how much did it cost you to recruit these staff and exactly how much are you paying them?? Surely its worth putting a little extra effort in to support and retain them?
This blog is really just food for thought and hopefully raising awareness of just one specific training issue during these very cost conscious times, when return on investment is a need not a nicety! Your comments and thoughts are of course as welcome as always!!
Not just food for thought, but want to do something about it? I have some ideas if you are a trainer and want to learn more, or if you are a business that wants to ensure your trainers are at the top of their game and ahead of the pack. Why not call me?
Other related articles and tweets
Literacy skills in the UK
350+ staff at shopping mall have had to be taught basic literacy & numeracy skills. An enormous problem in the UK. http://ow.ly/6iDsk
'Lacklustre literacy'
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