Dyslexia in archaeology questionnaire – individuals

CIfA and Mentoring for Women in Archaeology and Heritage (MWAH) are exploring the potential impacts that dyslexia and other neurodiverse conditions have upon archaeologists, from those who are diagnosed, or feel they are a candidate for the conditions, and from those who work with these individuals.

Your answers will help us to identify issues across the sector and inform actions that we can all take to support our neurodiverse colleagues. CIfA and MWAH will work together to consider how to solve these issues and enable pro-active ways to help members of our profession.

This survey focuses on dyslexia, however we recognise that there are many other elements to neurodiversity and we hope in future to have further conversations about this.

The data from this survey will be shared between CIfA and MWAH (represented by Amy Talbot, co-admin of MWAH and founder of Seeing Red Period Movement). Any personal data will be kept confidential to CIfA/MWAH.

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* 1. What age category to you fall into?

16-19

20-29

30-39

40-49

50-59

60-69

70+

prefer not to say

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* 2. What is your CIfA membership grade?

Student

Affiliate

Practitioner (PCIfA)

Associate (ACIfA)

Member (MCIfA)

Honorary Member (HonMCIfA)

Not a member

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* 3. Are you or do you think you are dyslexic?

Yes, I have been diagnosed dyslexic

Yes, but I haven’t had a formal diagnosis

Don’t know

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* 4. Have you ever informed an employer that you have dyslexia?

Yes

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* 5. If Yes, how did your employer react to this?

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* 6. If no, why not?

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* 7. Have you encountered discrimination with dyslexia during your work?

Yes

Please give more details

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* 8. What are your biggest challenges with dyslexia and your work as an archaeologist? Please select all that apply

Report writing

Context Sheets

Site planning/drawing

Survey equipment

Communicating with colleagues

Emails

Budget management

Other (please specify)

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* 9. What positive steps has your employer taken to help you overcome these challenges?

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* 10. What additional changes could an employer implement to help you with your work?

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* 11. Is there any technology or software that has helped you with your dyslexia and your work?

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* 12. What positive benefits has your dyslexia brought to your work? Please tick all that apply

Seeing (and understanding) the big picture

Good pattern recognition

Explaining difficult concepts in clear, visual ways

Naturally empathetic

Good at problem solving

Good long-term memory

Other (please specify)

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* 13. Have you encountered barriers to applying for CIfA membership or upgrading because of your dyslexia? Please provide details on these barriers

Yes

Comments

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* 14. What could CIfA do to help support applicants with dyslexia? Please tick all that apply

Focused accreditation workshop or one-to-one help

Specialist matrix or further information about what to provide in support of an application

Peer support / mentoring group

Restructuring of membership forms

Case studies to show the variety of adjustments that can be made to support dyslexic employees

Other (please specify)

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* 15. How could CIfA help or support you in the future?

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* 16. Any further comments

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* 17. Would you be willing to share your experience as a case study on the CIfA website to help support other archaeologists? Please see the example from Amy Talbot and Rosie Loftus on the CIfA Equality and Diversity in archaeology page

Yes

If yes, please provide your name and email address

Thank you for helping us with this by filling out the questionnaire. If you would like to help further with this, by either offering a case study or perhaps peer to peer support, please get in touch with alex.llewellyn@archaeologists.net