Something I wish no neurodivergent person ever hears is the phrase, what’s your problem? Why can’t you sit still? What’s your problem? Why did you lose your keys? What’s your problem? [laughs] Why don’t you make eye contact? What’s your problem? Why did you pay your taxes late? What’s your problem? Why do you have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning? What’s your problem? 

Multiple times a day neurodivergent people hear some version of, what’s your problem? Putting the problem in the person, reinforcing different as deficient. What I would like to hear is, what’s the school’s problem? What’s the problem in the working environment? What’s the problem in our larger culture where normal is good and right and different is deficient? That’s the question I would like to ask, that’s the question I ask of people who will listen. 

And that’s the question that we as a community should be asking. And when we ask that question, we reframe the problem from being a problem in the person to a problem in the environment around the person. And when we reframe the problem, we then seek different solutions. 

We move away from solutions that are about making the square peg fit the round hole, remediate the person, treat the person, to solutions that are about building a more inclusive and equitable environment around solutions that benefit the young person who struggles with reading, sitting still, of course, but ultimately benefit everybody by building a system that’s designed around the reality of human difference as opposed to the myth of human sameness.

For more information about learning disabilities, please visit LDOnLine.org. This video was made possible by a partnership between the National Education Association and WETA.