To declare, or not to declare. That is the question.
Declaring my neurodivergence to an employer has always been a tricky one for me. As an educator, I would openly and gladly encourage students to declare to ensure their specific needs were accommodated.
However, when it came to declaring my own neurodivergence, I was often plagued with feelings of self-doubt, and concerns that my competency as an educator would be called into question. In 2005 I documented my fears in an article for the TES, ‘Confessions of a dyslexic lecturer’, at the time I was at the start of my teaching career and decided not to be named as the author, for fear of ‘being found out’.
My own experience is echoed in the growing body of academic literature on neurodivergent teachers and trainee teachers, most notably, the early work by Barbara Riddick (2003; 2006), and the findings of the Westminster AchieveAbility Commission (WAC) in 2018. WAC found 73% of 600 respondents chose not to declare their neurodivergent status in the workplace for fear of discrimination.
My own research albeit not specifically on disclosure, found an interesting nuance, for the educational professionals interviewed the matter of disclosure did not stop at disclosing to workplace managers and colleagues, but extended to other workplace relationships. There was uncertainty around when should a neurodivergent teacher stop declaring, should they disclose to students? To parents? One teacher stated, disclosing in general to other adults felt ‘childish’ – a curious choice of words perhaps, but I knew instantly what they meant, the lack of recognition and accommodation of neurodivergent adults in the workplace, implies neurodivergence only affects those in their formative years, by adulthood surely ‘they’ would of ‘grown out of it’.
In the next blog, I will be sharing some techniques on how as an organisation you can encourage and support your teaching professionals to declare their neurodivergence.
Dr Annemarie O’Dwyer
Links and references to articles:
Riddick, B. (2003) Experiences of teachers and trainee teachers who are dyslexic. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 7, pp. 389–40.
Riddick, B., and English, E. (2006) Meeting the standards? Dyslexic students and the selection process for initial teacher training. European Journal of Teacher Education, 29, pp. 203–222.
“My own research albeit not specifically on disclosure, found an interesting nuance, for the educational professionals interviewed the matter of disclosure did not stop at disclosing to workplace managers and colleagues, but extended to other workplace relationships.”
