As I see it there is a deluge of information out there about dyslexia which is, in the main, quite negative, untrue and misleading to say the least. I am a dyslexic person and I am also a disabled person but that does not mean I am unable to work or be good and positive asset to any employer.
I am just going to focus on dyslexia from now on in the response. But I would say the same can be applied to disability as well.
I know I bang on about the social model of dyslexia and that it is society that disable us. Society can also enable us. A good employer can create and inclusive working environment and reap tremendous benefits from doing so. But I would say they are very few and far between.
I am not going to say there are a lot of bad employers out there I am just going to say many just do not know how to create an inclusive working environment. Many just have a misinformed negative impression of dyslexia and have little to no idea of what a positive skills and abilities a prospective dyslexic employee can bring to their organisation.
I believe we have to look at the negativity surrounding the medical and charity models of dyslexia that effectively shackle us to a very negative stereotype. We cant spell, our short term memory is crap our brains do not work properly, somehow we are not normal sigh. This does not promote a positive image of dyslexia nor does in talk about celebrating diversity or difference.
Education has to take some responsibility for the fact that many very bright and capable dyslexics fail at school because the education system fails them. As a result many leave school with few or no qualifications and as a result struggle to find work. Why is it the 35% of entrepreneurs are dyslexic? Yet over 50% of people in our prisons are dyslexic?
But the dyslexia industry also has to shoulder some of the responsibility for this situation. I was looking to update my Dyslexia Pathways CIC website a couple of months ago and was looking at a couple of dyslexic screening tests I had put up. It got me thinking about these tests.
Many of there screening tests focus on negatives and what we struggle with. In the end I decided against putting up the screening test. Now this seems like a bit chicken or the egg situation here. I can hear you all asking, “you must take a screening test to find out if you need a dyslexia assessment?”
But go take a look at these screening tests, put yourself in the eyes of a prospective employer, what do these screening tests say to any employer about dyslexics? What do they say to many of us dyslexics taking them?
Moreover, what do these screening tests say to the dyslexic that takes them? Maybe we need to be looking at more positive ways of screening? I know of good screening tool out there called Quickscan which I have used for a number of years but that’s all.
Now back to the dyslexia industry which sells assistive technology which promotes itself as accessible technology. Have you looked at the prices they sell these things for? Over £300 for one particular text to speech software package.
It costs around £100 for a speech to text package. Not very accessible in terms of costs for the average dyslexic in the street? Also this technology is sold as a panacea for all dyslexics but quite clearly they do not work for all dyslexics. No doubt these software packages can be very liberating for some dyslexics but not for all.
On the positive front in around 30 to 50 years writing by hand will be being lamented as a lost art. Maybe even the keyboard will be lauded as an outmoded and old bit of technology that has had its day.
Its a slow and laborious was of communicating and in business time is money. Speech to text technology will become the main way we communicate in writing. It will become everyday life, it will be seriously much better than it is today but more importantly this technology will be cheaper as it becomes more mainstream
Books will slowly start to die out to be replaced by screens that are light and easy to carry and store and can change the background colour, or the size and font or use text to speech technology. Just look at MP3 players. Maybe 8 years ago I would have to carry around my music on CDs and I could carry maybe 10 CDs around with me in a bag. Now I can carry my whole collection of music in a very small MP3 player in my pocket.
The same will happen, is already happening, with books.
Give me 10 dyslexic is a room and oh the problems we could solve together with our unique dyslexic minds with our dyslexic think tank. Who is up for putting one together with me?
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