Employers Guide - Dyspraxia Foundation

Dyspraxia Foundation Guide For Employers
Case Study:Ash
Ash was a recent graduate employed in a
Social Services department.
Ash managed quite well at university with his
flat mate, who was on the same course,
providing him with prompts for when
coursework was due and for lectures. Ash
chose a number of his course options so that
he was studying with his friend.
In the workplace, he found he was very much
expected to manage his own workload. Ash
had both long term cases to deal with and
immediate crises when people telephoned in.
Ash missed meetings and deadlines. His
manager became frustrated and felt that he
did not recognise the importance of the work.
On occasion he saw Ash doing routine tasks
when an urgent report was required. Ash did
not seem to have control of his workload. His
‘piling system’ was the joke of the office. His
workmates knew that if they were away for a
day or two, one of Ash’s piles would migrate
to their desk.
It all came to a head when Ash missed his
quarterly review meeting as he had forgotten
what the day was. One of the topics
scheduled for review was timekeeping. Ash
had little concept of time or planning. He
explained that he could not work out what
the time was on an analogue clock and he
couldn’t tell how much time was left or had
been taken on a digital one. He tried to keep
a diary with appointments but he forgot to
look at it. Ash also wrote appointments on
Post-it notes and then lost them.
He explained that because he found it hard to
work out how long a task should take
(blaming lack of experience) he didn’t know
if he should start it immediately and, as it
seemed to him that he had too much work
anyway, he felt he might as well leave it until
later.
Ash was introduced to an electronic diary
system on his PC. This allowed him to put
all his meetings into a structure and to set
alarms for them. He was also introduced
to the idea of a day book which would
contain all his notes. This one book would
travel with him everywhere. Ash was then
helped to construct a To Do list. This was
also on his computer and followed the
principles of coding items as ‘very important’,
‘important’, etc. Every day a member of
the administration team spent ten minutes
with Ash revising his list, making sure items
completed were deleted and others added.
They also checked his email and his day book
for appointments to be added to his diary.
After a while Ash took charge of his own diary
and To Do list. He expanded the coding
system to include urgency as well as
importance. The process has worked and
some days Ash is surprised at how much he
has done.
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