Monday, May 1, 2023.
I've been digging into my autism and ADHD traits thanks to insightful postings from neurodivergent psychologists on, of all places, TikTok. I've trained its algorithm somehow so it's now showing me thoughtful creators. I've gathered several that I want to share; a nice thing about TikTok is that their videos tend to be very short and to-the-point, which is great for an ADHD-patterned brain like mine.
Neurodivergent people map new input into a map!
First up is @hackersax, an instructional designer who addresses the challenges that neurodivergent people face in programming education. The tiktok that caught my attention was this description of how she re-structured a coding bootcamp for compatibility with neurodivergent minds; it was eye-opening in how it affirmed the way I learn.
The gist of my takeway is this:this:
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When encountering new information, neurodivergent people have to place it in the conceptual map of the world that they maintain to retain and understand it. If too much information is received at once, then the strain of mapping all those concepts at once causes overload.
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New information/tasks has to be immediately useful for the problem at hand, otherwise the information is immediately DISCARDED.
This describes my brain extremely well, and I now have a way to describe my learning style more concisely! I did know that I tended to think in terms of concepts. I also knew that typical textbooks and documentation took considerable effort to absorb and I had to rewrite them so I could understand it. It confused me that other people did not seem to understand systems thinking. Perhaps I have actually found my people?
May challenge: A new journal post every day!
I'll be sharing more links through the first two weeks of May as part of the DS|CAFE Coworking Discord productivity party that a member has organized! It'll be good to get back into this short post habit!