For many, a period of their life is spent in school. As they go through school, they discover themselves, what they like, how they learn, and things that shape them into who they become.
However, some people learn differently than others, which can be caused by neurodivergent disorders like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or a specific learning disability. Those who are neurodivergent may not know that something made them learn differently from others.
I didn’t get diagnosed with an official learning disability and ADHD until I was 16 in Grade 11. I attended Catholic school until Grade 7, until I was removed due to behaviour issues.
I started to attend a new school in a new district, where I tried to get a fresh start, but my background, including poverty, addiction and being underprivileged, and what I knew about life got me removed from my previous school.
It was around the end of Grade 7 that I started getting the support I needed. I got an amazing education assistant who worked with me part-time.
Unfortunately, it didn't last long because she left the school. So, until I graduated Grade 8, I would sit in our resource room by myself. I was an inconvenience to everyone. I refused to leave until I had to get on the bus to go home. I was not allowed to go on the annual graduation trip because I was considered a liability, which hurt my self-esteem.
I ended up graduating high school on time, despite everyone’s certainty that I wouldn’t.
Telling children that they are a lost cause is damaging for obvious reasons. Something changed for me in high school, and I became a different person. I made friends with people who I thought would never enjoy my company. My grades weren’t the best, but I tried my best. I wasn’t angry anymore. I graduated on time, with everyone who thought I wouldn’t and left.
I started college in the same year in the fall.
I sent my diagnosis to Humber and received a set of accommodations that properly addressed my needs to make sure I have the same chance as everyone else.
Louie,16, whose last name he didn't want to share because of their age, says his journey started early.
“I received an IEP in Grade 1, and that carried up until I was in Grade 3,” they said. An IEP is an Individual Education Plan for students with different learning needs.
When children learn differently from others, it sometimes shows through in the child's classroom reactions.
“Before I got diagnosed with ADHD, in school, I would get sent away from the groups, to go sit in the corner as a time out, and that really hurt my self-esteem as a child,” they said.
Louie said they struggled with making friends and being around peers at school.
“They excluded me a lot,” they said.
Louie said teachers need to be better at understanding students’ needs.
“I think they need to know how to deal with different types of disabilities because so many of them really don’t,” they said.
Teachers also need to understand the importance of accommodations to a person’s learning journey, and they need to show empathy and consideration.
“If teachers knew how to treat younger kids, my fear of being excluded and cast out wouldn’t be a fear of mine today,” Louie said.
Elayna Medeiros, 21, is a student in media communications. Medeiros has acquired brain injury.
“My journey was a bit of an unconventional process. I first got accommodations because I broke my hands, and I had accommodations, but in my second year, when I was 19, I got an acquired brain injury.”
When she found out she had a brain injury, she had to explain to Humber that her condition is permanent. Medeiros said she had a great accommodations advisor, but Humber replaced the advisors, and now it’s difficult to get any help.
“It's hard to contact them, there's a longer wait list, and they also don’t know anything about me. I lost someone who knew me and my situation, and it's frustrating now that she's gone.
Humber let go of all eight of their accessibility consultants in April 2025, completely vanishing the role and labelling it as “needing to change the way things operate.” But Humber quickly posted jobs for accessibility specialists, reclassifying them as “support staff,” which offered different contracts from the ones they had already. Before April, they were full-time faculty staff. These consultants are and were key in accessibility services like providing advocacy for students with accommodations.
“Professors don’t really understand the accommodation system. They can get annoyed at the system, they take it out on me because they maybe don’t know how to do it,” Medeiros said.
Teachers calling out on students is one of the bigger problems with accommodations.
“I’ve had teachers call me out in class, not by naming me, but they’ll give a speech to the class and stand in front of me, and say, ‘You don’t get accommodations in the real world,’ and if you need accommodations, maybe journalism isn’t for you,” Medeiros said.
Post-secondary is different than high school or elementary. You are paying for an education, paying professors to treat you with respect.
“I'm just trying to pass my classes the same way everybody else does. It's not my fault I have a disability,” she said.
Medeiros used a really great example.
“Professors wouldn’t ask anyone with a visible disability why they have accommodations, so why should I have to justify mine?”
Teachers and school boards need to better understand and train their employees to understand that disabilities affect learning, or the ambition that these students have will go unmarked in the system.
