Dyslexia and business

[Delboy]

Lots of intresting points, as someone who is seriously dyslexic i often find mistakes in my writings, i can see they are wrong, but cant always work out whats wrong. My type of dyslexia can also lead me to putting letters in the wrong order, and can also can lead to me getting confused with punctuation. When is it write... wright... i mean right to use a comma?

However what really gets my goat are when people jump down my throat for a mispelling in a forum post. Sometimes its cos my brains faster than my fingers, sometimes its cos im on a diffrent keyboard and sometimes its due to me being exesivly tired. But its not for lack of trying. Sometimes a post that would take a "normal" person 20 seconds to write will take me 10 minutes ish, so if you want to have a go, think first, some people have special reasons.

 

[serendipitybusiness]

Another annoying thing about dyslexia is the name, which genius came up with a name that is so difficult to spell for people with problems spelling!!

A good tool for dyslexics is this firefox addon, I use it all the time

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3366

It underlines the words you have spelt wrong in red and all you have to do is right click to find available alternatives. Although you may have trouble figuring out which is the right word sometimes.

 

[Dawg]

Another annoying thing about dyslexia is the name, which genius came up with a name that is so difficult to spell for people with problems spelling!!

And 'Serendipitybusiness' is an easy one....

 

[serendipitybusiness]

lol it is for me and I am dyslexic! Although I am sure others would disagree. The domain was available though and it fits in with the other stuff and what I want to achieve so what can you do

 

[tempus fugit]

A friend of mine is a dyslexic businessman, he has worked really hard to succeed in business despite the fact that he cannot read or write.

With the help of a ghost writer he has published a book about his life called "Go play in the sand, John".

He has also appeared on Channel 4's "Can't Read, Can't Write" series, where he was helped with his reading by one of the top experts in the country, but still struggled to make much progress.

With the help of his wife he writes a blog about his struggle to overcome dyslexia. Their blog wasn't reaching a very wide audience, as it was pretty much out-of-the-box WordPress. I have 'pimped their blog' today, if you have an interest in dyslexia, please take a look, and maybe leave a comment - they've only received one in over three months .....

The Dyslexic Entrepreneur

(that's two hard-to-spell words!)

 

[An Oasis]

My daughter was struggling at school (aged 5) she was an intelligent kid but was thought not to get it! We had to pay for a specialist to diagnose if she was dyslexic (under 6 the state refuses, t*ssers!) the result was yes she is (as am I).

She went to a dyslexic specialist for about 12 months, the result she now does not struggle at school and is a very confident person.

 

[noidea]

I chose "not sure".

I am dyslexic and am in business.

I don't see why that should be a barrier, however, it also isn't a qualification to be in business.

So if someone wants to be in business who is dyslexic then why not?

If someone is dyslexic and is an employee of someone else there is no reason s/he should give up the job and go into business.

 

[Marty4]

I agree with the above, it shouldn't be a barrier. I think you just need to alter the way you run the business slightly.

I'm in the process of starting a business with my step father who isn't very academic and also very dyslexic but has all the practical skills needed to manage that side of the business .

Slightly different scenario as there is two of us, but it goes back to my original point of altering the way you do things.

Just my £0.02p

 

I am dyslexic, it takes a few years to work out what is the problem.

The biggest problem for me, is I am nervious about showing people anything I have in writing.

When I first started on my business plan, I knew it was messy. Two things I would recommend, the first one is obvious - a spell checker.

The second one, is there any many text to speech FREE softwares including one from Microsoft. Just get the PC to read back what you have wrote. Just be carefull with the obvious ones like where, wear.

The main problem I find is when I read it back, I always read what I ment to write and not what is actually written. When you hear it read back you find loads more mistakes.

G

 

[jonjon10]

There is support available for people with disabilities wanting to work form a government organization called Access to Work. If you apply to them they may fund specialist computer programs to help you with your spelling and grammar. If your Dyslexia is very severe they might even fund a support worker to read things to you. I'm also dyslexic and use a free program called readplease dot com, it helps me a lot, as i have problems with purals which the spell checkers won't show up. This may sound strange for a person with dyslexia, but I write a blog as a hobby about disabled entrepreneurs who are blind, deaf, wheelchair users etc.. called Disability Means Business dot com There is an article on Access to Work, hope it helps.

 

[Janette Beetham]

So many people associate dyslexia with negatives - yet there are lots of good things too including;

Big picture thinking
Problem solving skills
Creativity

.................just what you need in business!



CASS, City Business School did a study a couple of years ago which showed that 18 per cent of entrepreneurs in the UK are dyslexic. (The study extended to Australia and the USA and overall it showed that 23 per cent of entrepreneurs were dyslexic).

Did you know that Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Thomas Edison, William Hewlett are/were all dyslexic ?
........ and th is list goes on and on.

However, many dyslexic individuals suffer from low self esteem mostly due to lack of understanding - their own lack of self awareness and the lack of awareness of others around them.

Just think what talents, new inventions and potential business 'barons' are out there amongst the dyslexics of today who are not confident to give their ideas a 'go'.

If you or someone you know wants to find out more about dyslexia in business I'd be very happy to chat. This subject is my passion - and yes I am dyslexic.