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As a graduate of Brown University, Writer and Neurodiversity Advocate Jonathan Mooney is often asked how he overcame his dyslexia and ADHD in order to thrive in college. What he says needs to be overcome or fixed is, in fact, how differences are treated in environments designed around the idea that we are all the same.

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Jonathan Mooney

Writer and Neurodiversity Advocate

Jonathan Mooney

Jonathan Mooney is an award-winning writer and Neurodiversity Advocate with dyslexia and ADHD. He’s also the founder of Eye-to-Eye, an award-winning national mentoring, advocacy, and movement building organization for students with learning and attention differences.

Transcript

I often talk about how I went to Brown and excelled there. And then people will come to me and say, oh man, you overcame your dyslexia, which implies, forget implies, states very clearly that dyslexia is a problem that you have to overcome. The reality is I didn’t overcome dyslexia. If I overcame anything it was dys-teachia [laughs], you know? Like, that’s what I, that’s what I overcame. I overcame, you know, the way that my differences were treated in environments designed for the idea that we should all be the same.

For more information about learning disabilities, please visit LDOnLine.org. This video was made possible by a partnership between the National Education Association and WETA.

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