Author Archives: olivehickmott

About olivehickmott

I am a Forensic Learning coach, showing people how they can improve their own learning and change their health. Working with creative neurodivergent students is a joy, as they learn new skills to overcome many of their learning challenges.

Neurodiversity Celebration Week Continued: Exceptional Interpersonal Skills

Posted on April 5, 2021 by olivehickmott

EPIC students can create verbal communications with a rich and interesting advanced vocabulary; many have developed these skills to compensate for their lack of ability with written communication. They can have tremendous powers to connect with other people and when … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week Continued: Visual-Spatial Thinking and Learning

Posted on April 4, 2021 by olivehickmott

EPIC students think and learn in still pictures and/or moving videos, often possessing an extraordinary ability to recall visual memories from movies, video games or actual events.  This technique is invaluable for rapid recall and particularly useful when working in … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week Continued: Seeing the Bigger Picture

Posted on April 1, 2021 by olivehickmott

EPIC students ask “big questions,” “life’s larger questions,” which are often challenging questions. They are curious about how things work. To aid their memory, EPIC students seem to need to have an understanding of the bigger picture, which is often … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week Continued: Hyperfocus, Drive and Energy

Posted on March 29, 2021 by olivehickmott

Hyperfocus enables EPIC students to exhibit a single-minded concentration on what they consider to be an interesting task or subject. Given an exciting project to work on, they are entirely absorbed, there is no stopping them! Hyperfocus can be a … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week Continued: Taking Different Perspectives

Posted on March 29, 2021 by olivehickmott

They can not only imagine what physical objects look like from different perspectives, including cross-sections, they can slice and dice buildings in their mind’s eye to, for example, check internal layout, connections for utilities services, and load-bearing walls. I created … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week Continued: Instagram[i] for the brain

Posted on March 25, 2021 by olivehickmott

Some EPIC students have the ability to create stories from a mass of information and draw that story in cartoon form for everyone to appreciate. The translation between auditory and visual representations is invaluable for remembering any story.  But this is … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week: Problem Solving

Posted on March 20, 2021 by olivehickmott

Many EPIC students thrive on solving various problems and puzzles. As you might expect, they enjoy jigsaws, chess and strategy games.  They can find creative ways around most things, even their learning challenges. They create original ideas often devising really … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week: Creativity, imagination and generation of new ideas

Posted on March 19, 2021 by olivehickmott

EPIC students can have exceptional artistic talent. They may be envied by painters, artists, designers, musicians, photographers, writers and comedians. They understand pictures more than words – hence the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words.” They may develop … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week: Types of Mental Images

Posted on March 18, 2021 by olivehickmott

There are three types of mental images – things we have seen before and can recall, things we want to create and images that just come to us in a sort of knowing. Let me explain this in more detail. … Continue reading →

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week: “Visual thinking is a tremendous advantage” Temple Grandin

Posted on March 17, 2021 by olivehickmott

Dr Temple Grandin has designed one-third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She has autism with incredible skills to visualise the best environment for animals, so they remain calm, by putting herself into their world through her … Continue reading →

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