Why This Book?
A personal introduction by Sara Jane Gorman
It is not always easy to understand learning difficulties, especially when you are living with a learning disability, mental health difficulties, or other challenges yourself.
Sometimes it can be difficult to make yourself heard and seen. People may make assumptions about you because of your disability, your communication, your behaviour, or the way you learn. They may see the difficulties before they see the person.
I know what this can feel like because I have lived it myself.
I am writing this book to share what it can be like to live with disability and learning difficulties in everyday life. I want to explain not only the challenges, but also the strengths, abilities, experiences, and resilience that people can have.
Most importantly, I want to talk about the help and support that people actually want and need.
This book has grown from my own experiences, my work in advocacy and awareness, my teaching and training, and my writing.
It also grew from my blog, Sara Revealed, where I began sharing my experiences, thoughts, and ideas about learning disabilities, mental health, disability awareness, and inclusion.
The blog became a place where I could have a voice.
Now I want to take those ideas further by bringing them together in this book.
🌟 Why This Book Matters
This book is for people who care.
It is for:
- people living with learning disabilities or difficulties
- people with mental health conditions
- neurodivergent people
- parents and families
- carers and support workers
- teachers and teaching assistants
- students and trainees
- healthcare professionals
- social care professionals
- employers and managers
- disability professionals
- anyone who wants to understand disability and mental health better
This book is not written to tell people what they should think.
It is written to encourage people to listen, understand, ask questions, and learn.
There is a difference between knowing the name of a condition and understanding what it can actually mean in someone's life.
A diagnosis can tell us something about a person's condition.
It does not tell us everything about the person.
🧠 Why Lived Experience Matters
I have experienced the challenges of learning and communication myself.
Over the years, I have also learned that people with disabilities are often spoken about, when they should also be given opportunities to speak for themselves.
That is why lived experience is so important.
People who live with disabilities can provide insights that cannot always be found in a textbook or clinical description.
They can explain:
- what everyday life is actually like
- what barriers they encounter
- what support works
- what support does not work
- how other people's attitudes affect them
- what they wish professionals understood
- what helps them become more independent
- what strengths they have developed
My aim is not to suggest that every person with a particular diagnosis will have the same experience.
Quite the opposite.
One of the most important messages throughout this book is:
Every person is an individual.
Two people can have the same diagnosis and have completely different experiences, abilities, communication styles, support needs, and strengths.
👀 Heard and Seen
One of the phrases that is particularly important to me is:
“I want to be heard as well as seen.”
Being seen means recognising that someone has a disability.
Being heard means recognising that they have:
- opinions
- choices
- feelings
- ideas
- knowledge
- experiences
- rights
- ambitions
- strengths
A person should not become invisible because they communicate differently.
A person should not be underestimated because they have difficulty reading, writing, speaking, moving, processing information, or understanding social situations.
And a person's disability should never automatically be confused with their intelligence.
That principle runs throughout this book.
💬 What I Want This Book to Do
I want this book to bring together three important things:
1. 📚 Knowledge
Research-based information about:
- learning disabilities
- specific learning difficulties
- neurodevelopmental conditions
- physical disabilities
- mental health
- emotional wellbeing
- support and intervention
2. ❤️ Lived experience
Real-world reflections about what disability can mean in everyday life.
3. 🛠️ Practical support
Ideas and information that can help:
- people with disabilities
- families
- carers
- teachers
- students
- healthcare workers
- social care workers
- employers
- professionals
My hope is that readers will not simply learn what a condition is.
I want them to think about:
“What does this mean for the person living with it?”
🌱 A Strengths-Based Approach
Disability is often described by listing what someone cannot do.
I want this book to look at the whole person.
That means recognising both:
Challenges
- barriers
- difficulties
- support needs
- discrimination
- communication difficulties
- mental health challenges
- accessibility problems
Strengths
- creativity
- resilience
- determination
- problem-solving
- empathy
- specialist interests
- advocacy
- adaptability
- lived experience
- personal knowledge
Having a disability does not mean having no abilities.
Support should focus on what a person needs help with without overlooking what they can do.
🧩 This Is Also a Learning Resource
Although this book is personal, it is also intended to be a learning resource.
I want it to be useful to people studying or working in areas such as:
- health
- social care
- education
- disability services
- mental health
- psychology
- advocacy
- employment
- community services
The material can also be useful to parents, carers, families, and people who simply want to understand disability better.
Where appropriate, the book will include:
📚 Study notes
🧠 Explanations
📖 Case examples
💡 Key points
📝 Questions and quizzes
📄 Easy Read information
📊 Tables and comparisons
🎯 Practical support ideas
🔗 Further resources
My vision is also to encourage education and training systems to make greater use of people with lived experience.
People with disabilities should not only be the subjects of training.
Where appropriate, they should have opportunities to become:
teachers → trainers → lecturers → advocates → researchers → leaders
Their experiences can help professionals understand what disability looks like beyond a diagnosis.
👩🏫 About the Author
Sara Jane Gorman
Sara Jane Gorman is an advocate, writer, speaker, trainer, and educator whose work is informed by her own lived experience of disability and her long-standing involvement in disability and mental health awareness.
Originally from Wolverhampton, UK, Sara has worked across advocacy, mentoring, community projects, education, and awareness-raising.
Her experience includes work with organisations and initiatives including Mencap, Access All Areas Now!, Employment Pathways (now Senator), and One Voice Wolverhampton.
She has also shared her experiences through writing, plays, blogs, training, and teaching.
As a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton, Sara has used lived experience to help students and professionals develop a greater understanding of learning disability and mental health.
Her qualifications and experience include areas such as IT, advocacy, mentoring, and English functional skills.
Writing has become another important way for Sara to communicate her experiences and advocate for change.
Her blog, Sara Revealed, was an important starting point for the ideas developed in this book.
✍️ From Blog to Book
The original idea began with my blog.
I wanted somewhere to write about my experiences and to discuss subjects that were important to me.
Over time, those individual ideas became something bigger.
I realised that many of the subjects I was writing about connected with one another:
learning disabilities → neurodiversity → physical disabilities → mental health → communication → support → advocacy → inclusion
The book brings these ideas together in one place.
The blog remains part of that journey.
Sara Revealed:
Sara Revealed blog
Sara's Learning Disability and Mental Health Awareness Blog:
Sara's Learning Disability and Mental Health Awareness Blog
Contact: sarajgorman@gmail.com
📚 How the Book Is Organised
PART 1 — Foundations
Chapter 1 — Introduction: Why Disability and Mental Health Awareness Matters
- Purpose of the book
- Why awareness matters
- Lived experience
- Strengths-based approaches
- Presuming competence
Chapter 2 — What Are Special Needs and Learning Disabilities?
- Definitions
- Different types of learning difficulties
- Learning disability versus specific learning difficulty
- Support needs
- Key points
🧠 PART 2 — Learning Disabilities and Developmental Conditions
Chapter 3 — What Is Spina Bifida?
Chapter 4 — What Is Williams Syndrome?
Chapter 5 — What Is SYNGAP1 Disorder?
Chapter 6 — What Is Global Developmental Delay?
Chapter 7 — What Is Challenging Behaviour?
Chapter 8 — What Is Cerebral Palsy?
Chapter 9 — What Is Angelman Syndrome?
Chapter 10 — What Is DiGeorge Syndrome?
📖 PART 3 — Specific Learning Difficulties
Chapter 11 — What Is Dyslexia?
Chapter 12 — What Is Dyspraxia / Developmental Coordination Disorder?
Chapter 13 — What Is Dysgraphia?
Chapter 14 — What Is Dyscalculia?
Chapter 15 — Autism and ADHD: Similarities and Differences
💚 PART 4 — Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing
Chapter 16 — What Is Mental Health and Mental Illness?
Chapter 17 — Understanding Emotions: Anger, Anxiety and More
Chapter 18 — Depression: Signs, Impact and Support
Chapter 19 — Borderline Personality Disorder
Chapter 20 — Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder
Chapter 21 — Suicide Awareness and Prevention
🛠️ PART 5 — Support Strategies
Chapter 22 — Mentoring and Coaching for Neurodivergent Individuals
Chapter 23 — Counselling and Therapy Approaches
Chapter 24 — Tools for Parents, Teachers and Employers
📎 Appendices and Resources
- Glossary of key terms
- Easy Read resources
- Useful contacts and helplines
- UK and USA resources
- Further reading
- References
- Study questions
- Worksheets and activities
⭐ The Message at the Heart of the Book
If I had to reduce the purpose of this entire book to one message, it would be:
See the person, not just the diagnosis.
Listen to people with disabilities.
Presume competence.
Recognise strengths as well as difficulties.
Provide appropriate support.
Make reasonable adjustments.
Give people opportunities to speak for themselves.People with disabilities are not just people who need help. They are people with knowledge, abilities, experiences, ideas, ambitions and something valuable to contribute.
And I think this gives your book a much stronger foundation than beginning with a purely academic definition of disability. The reader first understands why you wrote the book and then moves into the evidence and learning material.
One other thing I would strongly recommend: keep “Why This Book?” in your own first-person voice. Your author biography can be written in third person, but the opening should sound like Sara speaking to the reader. That personal voice is one of the things that makes this book different from a standard psychology or health textbook.
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