Why Spikey Profiles Are Often Misread

We often hear adults, teachers, parents, and even well-meaning professionals say things like:

“If they can do X, surely they can do Y?”

“They’re capable, they’re just not trying.”

“They can explain complex ideas, so they should be able to follow simple instructions.”

It’s easy to see why these assumptions happen. After all, we’re used to expecting consistency. We’re used to thinking that learning and ability should move in a neat, straight line. But what if that’s the wrong way to look at it?

Spiky profiles, this is where a person shows extraordinary strengths in some areas yet struggles in others, are often misread as inconsistency. They aren’t. They are actually highly consistent… just not in ways that our systems are designed to recognise.

Think about it:

A student who can explain photosynthesis in exquisite detail might find it impossible to organise a worksheet.

Another who builds intricate Lego worlds might be completely distracted or upset if their PE socks feel wrong.

A third might write beautiful stories but freeze when it comes to starting a simple task without support.

These are not contradictions. They are predictable patterns of strengths and barriers - patterns that make perfect sense once we stop expecting every child to fit a straight line of learning.

When we shift our perspective from “They should be able to do this because they can do that” to “Let’s look at the pattern of what they can do, and where they need support,” we start to see the child as they really are: brilliant, capable, and complex.

Spiky profiles aren’t a problem to fix - they are a roadmap to understanding how a child learns best. And once we start seeing them this way, our expectations, our support, and our teaching can finally match the child, rather than forcing the child to match the system.