Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Learning to drive is tricky. It’s a whole new language, even before we consider the physical and mental stresses of driving with dyslexia: hill starts, gear changes, and probably even a couple of terrifying moments on roundabouts characterise the formative learning period that most of us would like to forget. Unfortunately, it’s a fairly necessary skill in this day and age unless you’re lucky enough to find a job within walking distance of your house or your employer lets you work from home. It’s also a bit of a rite of passage: once you can get behind the wheel, you often feel more independent and able to explore and socialise more, as well as discover new cities, explore the countryside, and holiday in your own country or abroad.
Learning to drive isn’t that easy for anybody, but for someone who has dyslexia, it can feel even more daunting a prospect. It requires a lot of quick response and learning on the go, and it might not feel like there’s a learning methodology that can be applied to the driving process that necessarily resonates with how you best take on information and how you feel you work the best. But that’s not true – there are ways that we can accommodate dyslexia during the testing and learning process.
Some people with dyslexia can struggle with things like quickly determining lefts and rights or taking in road and street signs, especially under the time pressure that comes with approaching things at anywhere between fifteen and fifty miles an hour. Having dyslexia can also have an impact on processes like remembering which order to do things in, using your hands and feet at the same time, or even on your short-term memory – meaning that even directions given by satellite navigation systems could feel difficult if too many new things start coming at you at once. And that’s before we even get started on using maps – lots of people with dyslexia report finding maps one of the trickiest ways of taking in information of all.
Having dyslexia might make the whole driving experience feel difficult or scary, but there are a number of things you can easily do to make the process of driving and the initial period of lessons and testing much more accessible.
🚗 Driving with Dyslexia: What Changes Can I Make to Learning?
The British Dyslexia Association suggests taking lessons in an automatic car.
Automatic lessons in the UK tend to be more expensive, but it might be a worthwhile investment: this can make everyday driving a lot easier as it overcomes the need to constantly change gears. The car can do it for you and eliminate some of the action process so that you’ve got less to concentrate on and remember, which means that stress responses and processing levels in your brain are under less pressure, which might make you feel more confident and able to rise to the challenge too.
The BDA also advise driving candidates talk to their instructor about your needs and practice on quiet roads until you’ve got the hang of things, so there’s no unnecessary distractions and no unnecessary pressure in the early stages.
🚗 Testing, Testing
When it comes to theory tests, it’s also important to remember that if you have dyslexia, it’s possible to make some fairly major quality of life adjustments to your testing experience.
You can request:
- To listen to the instructions through a headset
- A reader who will read exactly what is on the computer screen
- Double the standard 57 minutes to complete the test
- An Oral Language Modifier (OLM). An OLM can explain the questions in a different way to help with understanding.
When the big day finally comes — that’s the practical driving exam — it doesn’t have to be scary. There are several adjustments available to someone with dyslexia, so don’t forget to talk to your instructor beforehand about what you need from them. They can’t change the test route, or the pass requirements, but they can make some small quality of life changes that’ll make the experience easier.
🚗 Your examiner should be asking you for your preferred adjustments pre-test.
These can include:
- Asking your preference for either verbal directions, or for following signs during the independent driving section
- Showing a simple diagram before the independent driving section; this will be printed on cream paper to reduce visual distraction
- Giving no more than two directions at a time.
- Indicating with hand gestures to go with verbal directions for left and right.
Learning to drive isn’t always a picnic, and many people who don’t have dyslexia still get nervous. It’s a natural response to something that you’ve not done before.
The British Dyslexia Association has a full list of things you can do to make driving with dyslexia more accessible, and BulletMap™ Academy’s Dyslexia Explored podcast has a helpful episode where a learner talks about the dyslexia-friendly driving experience that helped her pass the test.
And if you do find yourself in the hot seat taking on the challenge of driving in 2023, good luck from everyone at SWD!
