A driving school in Norfolk has become what it believes is the first in the county to have its entire team trained to teach neurodivergent learners.
KSM Driving Tuition owner and mother-of-two Kylie Oliver-Eames said she was determined to make lessons more inclusive after seeing increasing numbers of pupils with autism, ADHD, dyslexia and other additional needs.
Rather than appointing one specialist instructor, she wanted every member of her team to understand how neurodivergence may affect the way someone processes information and learns to drive.
Kylie told the Eastern Daily Press the decision was intended to ensure pupils receive the same understanding and support regardless of which KSM instructor teaches them.
She said: “The reason I wanted my whole team to do neurodiversity training is because we’re teaching more and more pupils who learn and process information differently.
“We see pupils with autism, ADHD, dyslexia and other additional needs, and I realised that being a good driving instructor isn’t always enough. We need to understand how that individual person learns.”
Kylie explained that learning to drive requires pupils to absorb instructions while monitoring the road, operating the vehicle, making decisions and reacting to other motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
She added: “Driving lessons can be incredibly overwhelming. For somebody who is neurodivergent, some of those things can present completely different challenges.”
The training helps instructors recognise when a pupil may be overloaded and teaches them how to adapt lessons to suit different ways of learning. That can include changing the language they use, dividing instructions into smaller steps, giving a pupil more time to process information and using visual teaching methods where appropriate.
Kylie said the approach was designed to remove unnecessary barriers and give learners the best possible opportunity to develop the skills and confidence required to drive safely.
She said: “The training isn’t about lowering expectations or assuming what somebody can or can’t do. It’s actually the opposite. It’s about finding out what works for that person.
“I didn’t want it to be a case of having one instructor in the business who ‘specialises’ in neurodiversity and everyone gets sent to them. I wanted that understanding to become part of the culture of KSM, so whichever instructor a pupil learns with, they’re with somebody who has that awareness.
“For me, it’s about making driving tuition genuinely more inclusive, not just saying that we are.”