Accessibility: Limitations, & How To Help

[BloomInWinter]

Please post any limitations you have, how they affect you, and what would be helpful to you.

For example, I have problems discerning sentences in long paragraphs. This is a cognitive impairment that is helped by those who break up their posts into many paragraphs.

I want to be able to read everything, but just cannot process posts which don't use paragraphs every few sentences, so I stick to reading those I can.

Thank you to all who take the time to write using good formatting!

 

[sea]

I couldn't make out a word of the help videos, at least the last time I saw them. I think they added CC for some of our members (not sure if it was on here or SSA) so that would be useful :D

 

[Heather]

I have a really hard time reading posts that are really, really long. My brain just can't handle it.

Some posts are so long it's like reading a book, I just have to bail.

 

[goingonhope]

I have the challenges of trusting that another gives a hoot what I might comment. And, fearing that one unclear word will result in misunderstanding, a grudge or worse.

Unfortunately my fear and distrust results in much concern, care and perhaps info. that never ever gets seen or communicated. The fear additionally slows me down, and too often eventually stops me (as my free time has run out).

I often have the inability to focus my eyes on a line of text. My eyes jump about the paragraph identifying words out of order and/or with no apparent constructed lines to read from. Words, lines and space blur, overlap, float and disappear.

Sometimes, I see it all at the same time and it takes me extra lost time remembering what I am struggling to do, which is focus on a starting point, see it, find and follow it through, and not lose where I am and which words and direction I am reading in, all while remembering and gaining understanding.

This slows me down considerably, frustrates me and too often expends so much time that I must give up and regardless of importance. When I save something with intentions of getting back to it, I seldom remember.

There are other limitations and obstacles too, few of which I personally accept (afraid and ashamed of), so I just keep trying, doing my best and while discovering new techniques, tricks and any available assistive tech resources to learn with, help me comprehend and allow me to participate when I can.

Visual, memory, processing, editing thoughts (brain), simplicity, sustaining trust and courage are all areas of deficit or struggle with me.

Now that I've gone and opened up, been truthful and shared this here, I feel exposed, inferior, ashamed and afraid. :( These were basically my secrets and ones in which I've preferred to keep safe, tucked away and in denial about.

 

[BloomInWinter]

(((((GoingOnHope)))))

 

[goingonhope]

Simplicity, ........ Oh' and I'm too ambitious. I tend to choose more over less, do very little half-way, simple and/or more realistic and I'm too thorough generally complicating things.

And as for what I meant by editing thoughts (brain), ........Well, at least in written format I can and do go back and poof, poof, poof, make words, redundant sentences and too great of detail just disappear. With verbal communication well, I've been a bit too long winded (lol) with some in my day, but truly I am improving here immensely with this, through me being aware, mindful and compassionate. (lol)

 

[Srain]

I have difficulty with people giving me verbal directions or just speaking to me, my brain has much difficulty assimilating all the information that I am taking in at once. I get stuck on "seeing" their lips move and wondering what they are saying and how I should be listening but not being able to put together the words in my mind. They get jumbled. I have to stop and usually ask someone to repeat what they just said to me. Often times several times.

For years I got by in the workplace by writing down instructions as I was being given direction, I have always had difficulty with this. I am more aware of it when stressed. It feels like I'm like I'm trying to decipher a foreign language. It's much easier on the phone, however, than in person or say in public spot of some sort.

It can get extremely embarrassing.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I find I need short paragraphs to take things in.

I tend to need points put quite bluntly too. When people are trying to hint, suggest, or help me see it for myself, I can't do it, and I get quite upset trying to. If its an idea that can't be put bluntly, I find analogy and metaphors help me 'get' it.

I'm able to take things in that relate to something else, hence why I like analogies. But names, dates, lists, numbers, I can't keep in my mind at all. It is embarrasing, especially the names bit.

When I try to talk, I can't explain things, for the same reasons that I don't understand things. I either put things too bluntly. Or, I can only explain by using an analogy or an everyday metaphor or story, but I find often people don't get that way of speaking, and I've experienced alot of criticism about it. So I feel quite locked in myself sometimes, because I want to speak up, but I'm afraid of the response it might get.

When my anxiety becomes very high, all communication is lost. When I've tried to talk to friends in that state, I'm just verbalising the disjointed fragments of experiences all over the place. I recognise when I'm in that state now, and I don't speak. But in the past, its left me open to a great deal of misunderstanding, as friends have tried to put my words together to make a logical picture. What would have helped more, is if they had recognised I was in a state of confusion and panic, and helped ground me, without trying to take in what I was talking about.

 

[kimberley dawn]

Long sentences and paragraphs are hopeless for me to understand. Also counting whatever without going "one, two, three, ...". I used to be able to look and my mind "told me" it was eight or whatever. Not any more. I need short paragraphs with short sentences.

These days I can't read or listen to people talk about traumas on any matter without reliving them myself over and over in my head. I help myself by staying clear of all that for now and taking my meds (truxal)

I can't get things done! Plan this and that, but no... Need someone to kick my butt but noone here to do it. And when I finally start, I stop before I'm finnished. Never finnish anything.

Want to share and understand and get over stuff, but I've got serious trust issues. Have absolutly no clue how to solve that.

 

[sea]

Also counting whatever without going "one, two, three, ...". I used to be able to look and my mind "told me" it was eight or whatever. Not any more.

Subitizing :geek:

 

[maddog]

One of my greatest struggles and limitations right now in terms of processing information and general communication is actually one which isn't relevant to using this forum at all.

When it comes to the written word, either writing or reading it, I'm fine. I can, though sometimes only with time and difficulty, usually manage to articulate what I mean reasonably well in words, to explain the key points in a logical sequence, to interpret, analyse and respond to information I receive...

It probably seems strange to many of you that I, one of the primary offenders in terms of writing novel-length posts, continue to claim to have so many communication difficulties.

But this is exactly the point. In writing, I'm fine. Verbally, or in any direct interpersonal context, I am very poor, and becoming worse and worse every day.

Honestly, it's as though I just can't find the words I need, almost regardless of the issue and whether or not it is complex, emotive or in any other way understandably difficult.

All of the awkwardnesses and social tensions and confusions and doubts and fears somehow get in the way of the processing my brain needs to do, and the words I need to convert the thoughts and feelings into something I can share, just aren't there.

It's horrible. It's frightening. It's embarrassing... and it doesn't matter whether or not I trust or feel comfortable with the person. In some ways it's worse with those who I do value, like T, for example, who I sometimes struggle to speak in front of at all, regardless of my trust for him. The words are all there in my head before and after the conversation, but at the critical moment, when we're there facing each other, they just don't come to me.

Somehow it only deepens the sense of isolation and aloneness that are such an obsession for me anyway.

Maybe I'm only ever destined to communicate in writing, where I am invisible, anonymous, safe...

Maddog

 

[Queen Boudica]

But this is exactly the point. In writing, I'm fine. Verbally, or in any direct interpersonal context, I am very poor, and becoming worse and worse every day.

Honestly, it's as though I just can't find the words I need, almost regardless of the issue and whether or not it is complex, emotive or in any other way understandably difficult.

All of the awkwardnesses and social tensions and confusions and doubts and fears somehow get in the way of the processing my brain needs to do, and the words I need to convert the thoughts and feelings into something I can share, just aren't there.

It's horrible. It's frightening. It's embarrassing...

This is exactly how I feel Maddog. I can write, but verbal communication really hard

I have it in my head, I can picture it in my head, but the words won't come out right when I am talking. The wrong thing comes out and I just can't figure out why.

It is like there is my brain and there is my mouth and they are not connected or they are connected through Chinese whispers.

It really is embarrasing and frustrating. I'd just rather not talk and sit there rather than talk and sound like an idiot. But, either way, I look like an idiot.