On reading this title you may be thinking of Game of Thrones with Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons conquering Westeros or the Viking Hiccup training his dragon Toothless for the greater purpose of changing perceptions of dragons. Well, my dragon is not a real one as such, it is a software called Dragon Professional Individuals by Nuance which is a dictation technology that essentially types what you are speaking. But, like Daenerys and Hiccup I am using my own dragon in conquering my own PhD journey with dyslexia and throughout that journey changing perceptions of dyslexia within academia.

So, let me tell you how I came to be where I am today. I am Alannah Curran, a second year PhD student within the School of Nursing and Midwifery here at Queen’s University Belfast and, I am dyslexic! A lot of people ask me when did you first realise you had dyslexia? The answer to this question is, from first entering the education system however, I was not officially diagnosed with dyslexia until I entered Queen’s University as an undergraduate nursing student. Growing up with dyslexia through  the education system was challenging but I always managed to see the funny side, like when I read out ‘orange-ootan’ instead of orangutan and this humour allowed me to develop a coping strategy, giving me  the determination to achieve the grades I needed to enter the undergraduate nursing program within Queen’s University, after two failed interviews may I add. 

When the revolution of social media began in my teenage years, I also had many experiences of miss spelling words on my social media posts. You can imagine how this felt as a teenage girl. A lot of people found it humorous, including myself, however I still struggle writing posts on social media which to this day impacts on my engagement with connected learning in using chat functions on Microsoft teams, group forums, posting on twitter and even writing emails. 

The turning point for me was in disclosing my disability to Queens and being told through my assessment I had dyslexia, so I finally understand why my brain works the way it does and why I find specific tasks such as reading, spelling, recalling information and talking without stumbling on words a challenge.  Student Guidance Centre then put an individual reasonable adjustment plan in place and collaborated with the School of Nursing and Midwifery, so I received the support I needed such as: extra time in examinations, a dyslexic support tutor, adequate consideration given to oral presentations, and access to dyslexic specific software mainly read and write gold, mind view maps and recording devices for lectures. This support allowed me to develop and adapt to academia to reach my potential, graduating as an adult nurse with a first-class honours degree and then completing my masters in advance professional practice with distinction. This brought me to my current status as PhD student where I have learned I read better on blue paper. Yes such a strange concept, but I discovered dyslexics experience a glare of white paper which negatively effects reading, and explained why when reading I would squint at the page regardless of having 20/20 vision. However, the downside of this was (Pre COVID-19), I would mistakenly leave my blue paper in the printer, meaning my PhD colleagues would come along to print important protocol documents on my bright blue paper!. Everyone knew exactly who the culprit was but I like to think I brought a bit of colour to their day. 

But where is my dragon, I can hear you asking! No, I did not emerge from the ashes of a flaming fire holding my dragon like Deanerys. I was introduced to my Dragon in a more conventional, but still exciting, way through the Student Guidance Centre.  

How do you train a Dragon? 

One of the most challenging but entertaining aspects of training was asking the Dragon to get to grips with the Northern Ireland accent. If you are an international faculty member or student or even from another province in the UK or Ireland am sure you will understand the challenges my Dragon faced. My dragon would interpret the word ‘now’ as ‘neagh’ and ‘how’ and ‘high’. Being in its infancy, like a toddler when picking up new words, my Dragon had a tendency to repeat, let’s say, comments of frustration which I had to ensure were not included in documents sent to my supervision team. However, after only a few days of training my Dragon the software adapted to my accent allowing me to talk freely without correction. 

How do I use my Dragon to remain connected in my learning? 

I am using it right now; I have written this entire blog using my Dragon Software. By embracing this technology, I have developed digital capabilities giving me the skills and therefore the confidence to overcome challenges I face day-to-day with my dyslexia in PhD journey. Specifically, I now have the skills to use Dragon software to facilitate me in adequately engaging with connected learning such as, chat functions on Microsoft teams and posting on twitter as I am confident that the dragon software will provide the correct spelling allowing me to overcome my previous experience. I have also embraced my Dragon software to write my systematic literature review and methodology chapter for my PhD.  I am now adapting my systematic literature review for publication. This is not without its challenges, but by collaborating with my supervision team, Student Guidance Centre and my dyslexic support tutor in continuously assessing and reassessing my abilities. 

What are the benefits and changing perceptions?

So what does all this mean? I would like you to take a moment to think about dyslexia as a faculty member, student nurse or indeed your dyslexia yourself… What do you think about dyslexia? Mixing up b’s and d’s?; difficulties reading and spelling?; if indeed you are a dyslexic yourself a lot of people report the feeling of being stupid. How, I want to ask you did you think of many positive attributes of dyslexia during this time? Maybe you did, but most likely you didn’t. Yes, mixing of b’s and d’s and challenges with reading spelling is a part of being a dyslexic but dyslexia is much for than the misconceptions society has of it. We need to move away from thinking of dyslexia negatively and think about the significant cognitive advantages that dyslexics have and identifying those. Dyslexia is a different way of thinking not a disadvantage and empowered dyslexics do amazing things.

People with dyslexia are: dynamic achievers, innovators, creator’s problem solvers, and possess so many skills and attributes to contribute in society, the workplace and indeed Universities. Don’t believe me… well let me tell you a few facts. 40% of self-made millionaires and billionaires are, yes you guessed it, dyslexic. Many of you may be reading this blog on an iphone or an apple Mac, Steve jobs was dyslexic. How many of you drive a car? Henry Ford was said to be dyslexic. There are so many others, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley we all know Richard Branson. But my favourite statistic is you know all them insanely intelligent people at NASA, one in two scientists at NASA are dyslexic. 

The cognitive advantages of dyslexia are being viewed as those needed to thrive within the current technological revolution, which COVID-19 has now escalated.  As I have shown, my academic journey with dyslexia has really been about unlocking my potentials as a student. One of the keys to unlocking my potential has been learning to embrace digital technologies like my Dragon and developing my own digital capabilities which has allowed me to gain confidence to overcome challenges. However, we need to think not only about developing digital capability for students with dyslexia but for all student nurses who are the future workforce of the ever-digitalising healthcare system. And indeed, providing opportunities for faculty to be equipped with the digital capabilities provide nursing students with these skills. How do we do this? How do you think this could be done as a student nurse or a member of staff? This thinking has led to my current PhD study: Exploring digital capability within nursing curricula in Northern Ireland; the perceptions of pre-registration nursing students and nurse educators.  I don’t have all the answers and would love to hear what you think! 

If you wish to know more about my PhD study or to register your interest in participating please see links below OR alternatively please email me at acurran21@qub.ac.uk 

Nurse educator link to register interest  

www.NEinterest.com 

Pre-registration Student Nurse link to register interest 

www.PreregNSinterest.com 

Fo more information on the Student Guidance Centre, please visit https://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/sgc/disability/studentinformation/