Dyslexia on the Job
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by Peter Vogt
For someone with dyslexia, the sentence "The budget must be capped at £34,000," could easily be read: "The dugbet muts cabbed be at £430,00."
Dyslexia is a common learning disability that makes it difficult for one to accurately recognise, read and write words. Often, people with dyslexia also have a hard time with spelling, decoding and reading comprehension.
It can be challenging to deal with dyslexia in today's communication-driven workplace. As Girard Sagmiller, author of 'Dyslexia: My Life', explains in his book: "[B]eing dyslexic is like running a 100-metre track race. In my lane, I have hurdles, but no one else does…. I try running like the other classmates, because we have all had the same education on how to run. But then I hit the first hurdle and fall flat on my face….
Then, someone takes the time to show me how to run hurdles and, like an Olympic hurdler, I outrun the other classmates. The key, though, is that I have to do it differently, the way that works best for me."
Sagmiller and thousands of others have been very successful in their work despite their struggles with dyslexia. If you have dyslexia, here are some strategies you can use to manage your disability at work.
