Share Your Experience
A Short Guide to Sharing Your Experience
Every learning difficulty has an emotional side, and we know how important that is for families, teachers, and children.
For the purpose of this page, however, we kindly ask you to focus on the practical, concrete aspects of learning: the steps that become unclear, the tasks that take longer than expected, and the situations where support is needed.
These details help us understand where tools and strategies can truly make a difference.
If you have also found strategies that already work — small methods, routines, or practical adjustments that have helped a child in a specific situation — we would be grateful if you chose to share them as well.
We will collect them and highlight the most useful ones in a dedicated section, so they can support other families and teachers.
In both cases, the most helpful contributions are specific, referring to a clearly defined difficulty rather than general impressions.
We are also considering creating a space where families and teachers can share the emotional experience of learning challenges — always with care and without any clinical ambition, since that is not our field of expertise.
For now, your help in describing the practical side of learning difficulties (and the strategies that have helped) is essential to guide Dysferent in the right direction.
Sharing in a Way That Makes a Difference
To understand where support is most needed, it helps us if you describe one specific situation rather than a general difficulty. A short, concrete example is often more useful than a long story.
You can start by describing the context:
the child’s age and school year, the subject or type of activity (reading, writing, maths, copying from the board, organisation, homework), and the moment in which the situation took place.
Then, if possible, explain what the child was expected to do.
This could be a written exercise, a mental-math calculation, a text to read, a set of instructions, or any other task they were working on. Knowing the exact task helps us understand the demands involved.
Next, describe what happened step by step:
when the difficulty began, what the child did to cope (slowing down, restarting, erasing, getting stuck), and how this affected their pace or understanding compared with others. These small observations are often the most revealing.
It is also helpful to mention any strategies that were tried — whether in class or at home — and what effect they had. Even small adjustments or routines that worked only partially can be valuable for others.
Finally, if the situation had a clear outcome, you may include it:
whether the child eventually completed the task, became frustrated, needed support, or found a way that worked better. These details help us understand where tools or strategies could make a real difference.
Focusing on one clearly defined situation makes your contribution much easier to interpret and allows us to see more accurately where support is truly needed.
Ready to Share Your Experience?
Whether you are a parent/carer or a teacher/tutor, your contribution helps us understand where support is truly needed, and where a new tool or strategy could make a real difference.
Knowing whether a child has a diagnosed learning difficulty, or if there is simply a suspected challenge, can also be helpful.
This information gives context to your example and helps us understand whether the difficulty you describe is occasional, emerging, or linked to an existing learning profile.
You should share only what you feel comfortable sharing: no names or identifying details are ever needed.
Example email — Parent/Carer
Subject: Sharing my experience
CONTEXT
My son Luca is 8 years old (Year 3). He was diagnosed with dyslexia last year and often struggles with working memory, especially during reading and writing tasks.
TASK EXPECTED
He was asked to read a short paragraph independently for homework and then answer three questions.
OBSERVATION
He read the first part slowly and seemed to understand, but when he moved to the second sentence, he couldn’t remember what the first one said. He went back several times, and eventually became frustrated.
He also skipped small words and lost his place often.
WHAT HELPED / WHAT DIDN’T
Reading aloud together helped. Breaking the paragraph into smaller parts also helped.
Reading silently without support didn’t work well — he forgot the meaning too quickly.
OUTCOME
In the end he answered one question correctly, but said: “I just forget everything when it’s long.”
He was discouraged but calmed down after we worked through the answers together.
Clicking the button will open a pre-filled email draft.
You can edit or delete it before sending.
Example email — Teacher/Tutor
Subject: Sharing a classroom situation
CONTEXT
Sofia is in Year 5. No formal diagnosis yet, but her parents and I suspect a working-memory difficulty.
This situation occurred during a whole-class reading activity.
TASK EXPECTED
Students were asked to read a two-paragraph text silently and then answer four comprehension questions.
OBSERVATION
Sofia read slowly and repeatedly lost the thread. She re-read the same part several times.
During the questions, she couldn’t recall the main events without checking the text again, and confused the actions of two characters.
She asked twice: “Where did it say that?”
STRATEGIES TRIED
I encouraged her to summarise one line at a time, and let her keep the text open while answering.
This reduced stress, but she still needed guidance to locate important details.
OUTCOME
She answered two questions independently but struggled with the others.
She said: “I understand it… but not all together.”
Clicking the button will open a pre-filled email draft.
You can edit or delete it before sending.
Your Privacy
We treat every story with care.
Anything you share will remain confidential and will never include names or identifying details.
Your contribution will be used only to better understand learning difficulties and to refine the support we offer.
We use what we learn in two ways:
- to share approaches and tools we have already tested and found helpful in similar situations
- to develop new solutions when existing ones are not enough
If you choose to get in touch, you remain in full control of what you share.
You can request access to, correction of, or deletion of your message at any time, as described in our Privacy Policy.
Dysferent does not provide clinical assessment.
Our work is to listen carefully, recognise recurring patterns across real experiences, and share practical insights and tools that may support learning. These are starting points — not clinical advice, and not promises of resolution.