Gifted or Disabled? And an Epiphany

Article by Roxy Rocker

Image of woman writing. Her nails are painted black and she is writing in a notebook. She has a mug that says Be Happy.

Gifted or Disabled?

Here’s a question I want to ask: Are we gifted or are we learning disabled? Why can’t learning disabled and be gifted? I am diagnosed nonverbal learning disabled - and this really doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.

Aside from being very verbal, I know physiologically how to move your muscle groups in different ways and release them so they’re not tight anymore. I know how to connect them to different muscle groups and do all these fascinating things to people‘s human bodies. How does that make me nonverbal learning disabled? What? How does that even make sense? 

First of all, I’m definitely not nonverbal. I’m very verbal. Secondly, if I have a learning disability, why does that mean that I’m impaired in some way or unable to learn? Reasonable accommodations for learning disabilities need to be applied more universally so the playing field is more even. This way, individuals with disabilities could be seen as highly intelligent people. I believe we are.

Intelligence aside, what about measuring resilience? People with disabilities can sometimes be remarkable because of the incredible resilience and the mental flexibility it takes to make life work. Wouldn’t it be amazing to measure resilience? RQ, anyone?

Back to the original question: Why do they have to call it learning disabled? Why can’t we call it “highly gifted with a splash of new learning styles?”

A Separate Epiphany