"Mad, bad, sad….or just Dyslexic?"

Pennie Aston

MSc (Life Course Development) MA level Certs (Counselling Young People) PGCert (Leadership & Management)

DipCouns, DipHyp, Dip Therapeutic Coaching, Cert Psychology, Dip Supervision - Individual and Group

MNCS (Accredited) MBACP (Registered)

Specialist Dyslexia Aware Counsellor

GroOops Dyslexia Aware Counselling

www.grooops.org

Talk: 7.30pm - 8.15pm

Q & A: 8.15pm - 8.45pm

Networking: 8.45pm - 9.15pm

Light refreshments available

About Pennie Aston:

Pennie Aston is the Director and Founder of GroOops Dyslexia Aware Counselling (GDAC) - a registered charity founded in 2007 and now a foundation CIO. GroOops focuses on developing resilience building, therapeutic, dyslexia aware approaches and promoting awareness generally of the emotional repercussions of dyslexia. Pennie was assessed as dyslexic as an adult and has raised a neurodiverse family. She speaks from the heart and a lifetime of experience.

The Talk:

This talk is about the constitutional nature of dyslexia and neurodiversity in general and how it can impact on the emotions and thus, on every aspect of a person’s life.

Pennie will address the way the often overlooked secondary presentations of dyslexia can impact on the emotions.

This is particularly relevant for parents of dyslexic children as the origin of many of the emotional repercussions are rooted in the first decade of the life course. The talk will explain how and what can be done to ameliorate distress, nurture a sense of self-confidence and self-esteem and work towards an integrated sense of dyslexic identity.

Background:

10% of the population is thought to be dyslexic with about 4% being severely so. It is probably a lot more. A great number of this group will be ignorant of how dyslexia can impact on the emotions thinking it’s just about reading and writing. It's not!

Starting with the vulnerable school years, many have spent a lifetime feeling confused and frustrated by their seeming inability to achieve their potential, classifying themselves as mad, bad and sad amongst a raft of punitive labels. Whatever the age, they may have experienced feelings of shame and embarrassment and suffer from a generalised sense of anxiety that they can't quite put their finger on, and which never seems to go away. This can affect all areas of life from personal and peer group, to education/work relationships, family/parenting, and impacts on self-confidence, self-esteem and the ability to build resilience.

Please join us for this often humorous, sometimes heart-breaking, but very informative talk about the emotional repercussion of dyslexia* - with ample time for questions at the end.

*We use the term ‘Dyslexia’ because it is the most common of all Sp.L.D.s. What we do is largely applicable to all the other conditions known to be related such as Dyscalculia, A.D.H.D., A.D.D., Autism Level 1 (Asperger’s Syndrome), Dyspraxia and Dysgraphia. Many of these conditions can overlap and often coexist.