NEURODIVERSITY
A re you neurodiverse? Do you know someone who is? Chances are high that you answered yes. One in seven people in the UK is neurodiverse to some extent, according to the NHS. Neurodiversity refers to the different ways
that people’s brains process information. More common neurodiverse conditions include autism, dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD), while less common are slow processing speed, stammering or Tourette’s syndrome. Alli Gay, Director of FMB member CHI Homes and FMB South West Regional President, was diagnosed with ADHD just two years ago. Before that, she felt something wasn’t quite right. “I struggled with concentration and attention, and I was easily distracted. I’d avoid reading lengthy documents because of my distraction issues. I also battled to recall people’s names and remember words,” Gay says. “It caused me such a problem that I withdrew from certain work engagements. I was embarrassed and even thought I had
an early onset of dementia. But now I'm very upfront about it. “I just say to people, ‘I really struggle recalling names, so can you tell me yours again? And if I start repeating myself or try to explain something in another way, it’s because I can't recall certain words’,” explains Gay, who reveals that people are usually accommodating of her requests. But forgetting names and words aren’t Gay’s only challenges. “Some tasks always take me long and others I do super quickly, like at warp speed. I can hyper focus on tasks and get them done really quickly if I'm interested in them – otherwise I procrastinate.” A case in point is Gay having left school with “very few GCSEs”, hardly attending class during two years of college but, 10 years later, earning a distinction for her Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management because she was really engaged with the content. Many people with ADHD are told in their school years that they are gifted, Gay explains, but they seldom achieve their full academic potential because they’re unable to manage their neurodiversity. “So they can often feel like failures, which adversely affects their mental health.” Gay battles with short-term memory but long-term she’s fine. She can “spin different plates across the business” and is a skilled problem-solver. But time management is tough. “I do everything at the last minute. But I get it done to a really high quality. I wrote 20,000 words for my masters in 72 hours. I didn't go to bed and I got a distinction,” she says. A street poet with dyslexia Gareth Williams loves words. He’s a street poet and regularly performs poetry and publishes poems in various publications. He’s also the Managing Director at FMB member Construction Linx in the North West of England. It’s a useful moment to point out that Williams is dyslexic and was recently diagnosed with ADHD.
“My son was going through an ADHD diagnosis,” Williams says. “Listening to the doctors, I thought,
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