Amanda Gorman‘s journey to the White House shows us that learning challenges are not limits. She has shown that we can tap into our unique genius when faced with learning challenges, and find our own path to success with hard work and a great support team.

Who is Amanda Gorman? Youth Poet Laureate and 2021 Inauguration speaker. She captured the nation’s heart and attention with her profound poem, The Hill We Climb.

And, she has speech and auditory processing challenges. (I know, I was surprised to hear this too!)

Amanda’s Childhood

Gorman, born prematurely, had many ear infections as a baby. She developed an auditory processing disorder that caused a speech impediment — she couldn’t understand or pronounce certain sounds in speech, especially the sound of the letter ‘r.’

Her mom, Joan Wicks, pursued her doctorate in education as a single mom, to help Amanda overcome barriers. And, as luck would have it, her example also inspired Amanda to work hard.

In fact, Amanda graduated from Harvard University in 2020, with a cum-laude status, and became the youngest poet ever to read a U.S. inauguration poem. She’s a phenomenal orator!

Speech Impediment and Mindset

“In my journey as a spoken-word poet and activist, I experience anxiety before a performance because of my speech impediment. Earlier on in my career, I’d actually delete or replace words in my poems because I couldn’t pronounce them as well as I’d hoped. Now I’ve gotten to a point where I’m like screw it—I might not be able to say that word perfectly—after all, what is perfect pronunciation anyways?—but there’s too much at stake for me to censor or monitor myself. I still get nervous sometimes, or frustrated and disheartened listening to interviews of myself, but it’s all worth it when I meet other girls who say: “We have the same speech impediment! You’ve inspired me to keep speaking up.” I see it as an incredible opportunity to connect with so many valuable, beautiful people whose voices have been overlooked.”

How is Amanda’s success possible? Early diagnosis, inspiration, a strengths-aligned outlet, and a great support team.

Reaching Out for Help

Amanda freely admits that at first, she wasn’t so receptive to getting help. She stubbornly refused to use her accommodations. Her mom pushed her to use the extra time on her tests. And sent her to a school that championed critical thinking, creating meaning and taking action. As Amanda got older and found some success, she began to appreciate the extra help.

As part of her speech pathology remediation she would listen to the song, ‘Aaron Burr, Sir.’ This rap has many ‘r’ words recited at a rapid pace. Gorman felt if she could master this song, she would gain better control over her difficulty with the pronunciation of the letter ‘r.’

Finding Her Gift

“Every child has a gift, it just has to be discovered,” her mom says. “Where there’s a deficit, there’s a place where the child makes it up.”

For Amanda, that place was poetry. She loved writing stories, metaphor, and words from a young age. Poetry came naturally to her, and it led to breakthroughs and ultimately the White House.

Amanda believes she’s a part of the new type of genius. “Intelligence can come from anywhere and expresses itself in many forms.”

It is possible for your child to thrive with a learning challenge given inspiration and support that unlocks and nurtures their natural strengths. I hope that you and your child find your magic key and a stellar support team, so that learning challenges are not limits for you, either.