The thing with neurodiversity at my school is that we don't actually know who falls under that category.
We were involved in neurodiversity week and we learned a lot, but it was shocking to see that we don't realise who is an SEN student or not. There are three SEN students in my year of 64 including myself. One of the boys goes for autism and I think the other boy goes for dyslexia. I go for anxiety and traits of autism. What has affected me, I'd say, is that I have been too scared to tell people that I go to SEN teaching. At my previous school, it seemed as though the students with SEN teaching were looked down on. I wasn't one of them at the time, I have only recently been assigned SEN teaching in January as I was recommended by the deputy's head pastoral. One of my friends has recently been diagnosed with dyspraxia - around the same time I was diagnosed with anxiety - and I'm the only one who knows about this. She's scared to tell anyone else.
I find SEN teaching extremely helpful, I learn coping techniques to battle my anxiety, I find the best ways to deal with stress and other things that really get me down, and overall I feel as though I'm improving as a person. I adore my SEN teacher, she's like an angel sent down from heaven, catching me at the right time to stop me from falling.
I think we have amazing SEN support at my school, they are extremely helpful and can be beneficial for people like me, but I think more awareness needs to be raised around students.
On the behavioral side, it seems that once you have SEN support, people really try to listen and understand you. I have felt like this almost always since January. However, when I didn't have the support, teachers seemed to get angry at me, didn't understand why I was anxious or stressed, etc. I think they tried to understand, but when I couldn't explain it to them they thought I wasn't helping myself, so they didn't really want to help anymore. I understand that, but this happens to any undiagnosed SEN student. It feels as though you aren't really listened to and understood, it feels as though you're going crazy. Then when you have an SEN diagnosis, they understand. It feels as though everyone needs a diagnosis to be listened to. This shouldn't be the case.