Upon seeing occupational therapy performed at Litchfield Woods that July or August day in 2013, I immediately went home and looked up occupational therapy programs on-line. As it so happened, my daughter, Molly was home visiting for a week and was questioning her vocational path in life. A few days earlier we had a conversation with my neighbor, who just happens to be an occupational therapist and she was telling Molly how it might be something for her to look into for her future. My neighbor, Sharon, had gone to Springfield College for her degree in OT and had great comments about the program. Thus, this was where I looked first.
My bachelor's degree was in psychology, and I had all of the pre-requisites except anatomy & physiology that Springfield College required. Not bad! Next on the agenda was to find a course. Berkshire Community College in Great Barrington, MA. was offering a class that started in a few weeks. I signed up that day. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I make fast decisions.
I had just turned 53 when I entered school again. I am now 57 and still at it. I am committed to completing my dream no matter what gets in the way. Screw roadblocks. I just spit them out (smile).
I will admit it right here. I love school, but it has not always been this way. As a child, I did NOT like school after second grade. From third through twelfth grade it was a downward spiral of just getting by academically. It is not as though I failed or even received poor grades, but I was not happy and certainly did not excel. In truth, I cheated quite a bit back then. I had to have tutors for simple math, and my writing has always been atrocious. I believe what saved me is my curiosity and my absolute love for reading.
It was only last year that I discovered why the third grade was the turning point for me in school. Although I have never been officially diagnosed as learning disabled, I am. When I was in grammar and high school, learning disabilities had not been 'invented/discovered' yet. People were just thought to be slow/uneducable/the 'r' word or like me, NOT LIVING UP TO YOUR POTENTIAL!! How many times did I hear that? It was just recently, in the fall of 2015, during a class in school that when I was shown the documentary How Difficult Can This Be? The F.A.T. City Workshop that I realized what one of the LD's (learning disabilities) of mine was. Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). I am also ( never diagnosed) ADHD with some dyslexic tendencies. To get a diagnosis today would cost approximately $3000, and I have developed coping skills that would negate some of the testings. The damage has been done. You just have to know me for a brief time to see the ADHD and read my writing without spell check or grammarly to see the dyslexia.
During the documentary, a light bulb went off that brought tears down my cheeks. I had never even heard of APD before, and yet the explanation I was hearing fit me to a tee. Remembering back to third grade where I cried every day and begged not to go, I realized that my teacher was Italian. She had a strong Italian accent, and with auditory processing problems, it was likely I could not understanding what she was saying. To this day I still have extreme difficulty understanding people with foreign accents of even strong American accents. This also explains why I find it difficult to hear in a noisy room and often rely on reading lips as well as listening to the voice.
Every item below is me:
•have trouble paying attention to and remembering information presented orally, and may cope better with visually acquired information
•have problems carrying out multi-step directions given orally; need to hear only one direction at a time
•have poor listening skills
•need more time to process information
•have low academic performance
•have behavior problems
•have language difficulties (e.g., they confuse syllable sequences and have problems developing vocabulary and understanding language)
•have difficulty with reading, comprehension, spelling, and vocabulary
In adults, also me:
•talk louder than necessary
•have trouble remembering a list or sequence
•often need words or sentences repeated
•have poor ability to memorize information learned by listening
•interpret words too literally
•need assistance hearing clearly in noisy environments
•rely on accommodation and modification strategies
•find or request a quiet work space away from others
•request written material when attending oral presentations
•ask for directions to be given one step at a time
I did not intend for this post to be on learning disabilities, but as you will find out, that is how this brain of mine works. Very tangential (part of the LD mind). I'm happy I was able to show it in practice.
Back to A & P (smile). I had a terrific teacher, Dr. Joe Kravitz. Just looking at his picture again makes me smile. As a retired medical doctor, he was able to bring the coursework to life in a way that made me want to excel and learn every possible aspect. I needed an A in the two-semester class, and I achieved an A. So much fun. At Springfield, I furthered my anatomy knowledge with a Clinical Anatomy course where we worked on human cadavers. Would you like to hear what that was like?
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