The Dyslexic Advantage

  Disclosing Your Dyslexia: Yes or No?

  A final issue that all individuals with dyslexia must deal with is whether or not to disclose their dyslexia to employers and co-workers, either at the time of the initial interview or on the job. This question often provokes strong opinions from advocates on both sides of the issue, and there’s probably not one answer that’s right for all individuals in all jobs. One thing, however, is absolutely clear: by law, disclosure is not required, so all individuals with dyslexia can decide for themselves whether or not to disclose. The following considerations may be helpful in making this decision.

  In an ideal world, individuals with dyslexia would never need to conceal their dyslexia, because their employers and co-workers would understand what we’ve explained in this book: that dyslexia is associated with strengths as well as challenges, and that individuals with dyslexia have abilities that can be useful in almost any kind of job. Unfortunately, our world hasn’t yet reached that ideal state, and ignorance keeps some employers leery of giving individuals with dyslexia a chance to prove their worth. That’s why individuals with dyslexia have traditionally been counseled not to disclose their dyslexia in job interviews—especially when seeking an entry-level position or a first job. Professor Julie Logan expressed this view when she told us, “Letting people know that you’re dyslexic doesn’t always work for everyone—especially people who are employed by others—because there’s still a lot of prejudice about dyslexia.”

  Ben Foss shared a different opinion. “We can get fixated on this question of disclosure, but the question is really context: should you provide people with context for understanding your dyslexia? And the answer is almost always yes. In general, it’s much better to know right up front that a potential employer is a bigot, so you can go somewhere else. Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with that prejudice later, after you’ve already accepted the job—and that usually ends badly.”

  Ben’s preference for disclosure was formed when he was in professional school. “My own sense of strength and comfort with my dyslexia came through meeting other people with disabilities—mostly people with physical disabilities.” At Stanford Business School I had a remarkable classmate named Mark Breimhorst. Mark was born with no hands, and he’s also paralyzed on the left side of his face, so he can’t smile and he can’t wink, and Mark understood that those things are unnerving to some people. So during the first week of business school, Mark sent out an e-mail to everyone in which he provided context for how to deal with him. He wrote: ‘My name is Mark. When you meet me, you’ll see that I have no hands. If I extend my arm, shake my wrist. When class is over, I don’t need your help carrying my bag out: I brought it in.’ And in all these ways Mark gave us context for how to interact with him, and that made everything so much easier.

  “Mark also helped me see how these kinds of steps could be helpful for someone with dyslexia. When Mark found out that I was dyslexic, he invited me to be on a panel for our classmates to discuss disabilities. At first I felt self-conscious because I didn’t have a physical disability, and I’d never talked about my dyslexia in public before. But Mark was adamant. His view was that we were all going to be future leaders, so we should help our colleagues learn what disabilities are all about, so they’d have the right context for dealing with other individuals who are different. And he was right. I learned a tremendous amount from Mark about how to deal appropriately with my challenges. By the time I left school and went to work for Intel, it was easy for me to say right up front, ‘I’m dyslexic. Here is some context on me and this is what I can do well.’”

  When enough individuals with dyslexia are willing, like Ben, to step out and show skeptics how capable dyslexics can be, it will become easier for all dyslexics to be open about their challenges in the workplace. But for now, the decision to inform others about one’s dyslexia must remain a personal one.

  While disclosure is often difficult for individuals with dyslexia who are employed by other people, for individuals who are self-employed the risk/ reward calculation often leans more toward disclosure. According to Julie Logan, “When people are their own bosses, letting other people know that they’re dyslexic isn’t usually a problem. Many of the dyslexic entrepreneurs with whom we work are very open about the fact that they can’t spell, for example, and I think those sorts of disclosures help, because by being quite open about their issues and weaknesses, they actually make people want to help them. For example, when they send their e-mails, if they tell people they’re dyslexic and that’s the source of whatever errors there may be in their writing, the recipients don’t worry that their business skills are similarly haphazard and start condemning their business persona. One of our very successful dyslexics recently sent out an e-mail that could have been taken as quite rude because of an error she made, but fortunately at the end of all her e-mails there’s a little caveat in her signature that says, ‘These e-mails won’t be spelled right because I’m dyslexic.’ That sort of disclosure is often quite helpful.”

  Summary for Individuals with Dyslexia in the Workplace

  • Today, opportunities for success in the workplace are greater than ever before for individuals with dyslexia, and they should feel free to pursue any job for which they are otherwise suited by their interests and talents.

  • Keys to succeeding in the workplace include finding a job that’s a good fit, taking steps to make that fit better, and getting the support and advice of other individuals with dyslexia.

  • Jobs and careers that are great fits for individuals with dyslexia capitalize on strengths, avoid weaknesses, engage interests, and focus on results rather than on methods.

  • Steps to make jobs a better fit include being proactive in pursuing opportunities, self-advocating, forming partnerships, pursuing opportunities for leadership, and using technologies to enhance productivity.

  • Forming relationships with peers and mentors with dyslexia can be invaluable for providing emotional support and practical advice.

  • The decision to inform employers or co-workers about dyslexic challenges is legally yours to make. Good arguments can be made for either disclosure or discretion, but each individual should decide in advance which choice is right for her or him.

  Epilogue

  Throughout this book, we’ve tried to answer the question, What does it really mean to “be dyslexic”?

  As we’ve explored this question, we’ve learned that “being dyslexic” involves much more than having “a disorder of reading and spelling.” Ultimately, being dyslexic means that you have a nervous system that’s built to work differently—and it’s been built to work differently because there are remarkable advantages to having a brain that works in this way.

  Early in this book we used several metaphors to illustrate the relationship between strengths and challenges in dyslexia. We’d now like to share a final metaphor that illustrates our view of dyslexia as a very different, but equally valuable, way of processing information.

  Imagine that you arrive for an appointment at a nicely furnished office and are asked to wait for a few moments. As you take a seat, you notice a variety of knickknacks on the table beside you. Curious, you begin to look them over, and your eye is caught by a long, thin, glasslike rod, triangular across its short axis. You pick it up, examine it, and notice that it’s translucent. You wonder if it’s a lens of some sort—perhaps a magnifying glass—so you hold it closer and try to look through it. But no matter how you manipulate it, it fails to improve your vision. Eventually you grow frustrated with this seemingly worthless piece of glass; but as you reach to set it down, it passes through a beam of light from the office window. Suddenly, a flash of brilliant rainbow colors appears on the surface of the table beneath the rod. In that instant, you realize that the rod in your hand isn’t a defective lens but a perfectly functioning prism.

  Like this prism, the dyslexic mind has provoked attention and interest, but its true nature and purpose have been missed. It’s be
en evaluated for its clarity and accuracy as a lens, and found wanting. Yet if we study the dyslexic mind carefully, we’ll find that its true excellence is its ability to reveal many things that are hard for “normal” minds to see.

  The true importance of the dyslexic mind lies in its MIND strengths. While not every individual with dyslexia enjoys all the MIND strengths, most show one or more of these important abilities, and these strengths often provide the keys to their success.

  In emphasizing these strengths, we have no wish to downplay the very real challenges that individuals with dyslexia face—and in many cases, the actual suffering they experience. But as we said at the beginning of this book, “suffering from dyslexia” is suffering of a very special kind. Rather than the suffering of a person with an incurable disease, it’s the suffering of a hero on a perilous but promising quest.

  Perhaps the hero who best represents this dyslexic quest is Aragorn, from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Early in the Ring saga, Aragorn seems little more than a wandering vagrant. Yet he is the rightful heir to the throne of Gondor and destined one day to be king. Aragorn’s fate is foretold in the lines of an ancient prophecy, which reminds us that all things are not as they first appear, that royal natures are sometimes hidden beneath rags:All that is gold does not glitter,

  Not all those who wander are lost;

  The old that is strong does not wither,

  Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

  From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

  A light from the shadows shall spring;

  Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

  The crownless again shall be king.

  If you are an individual with dyslexia, this prophecy is also for you. Although you may not “glitter” in the classroom, if the promise of your future can sustain you through the challenges you face, your intellect will be forged as keen as any blade.

  The truth of this “prophecy” doesn’t rest on the words of an ancient oracle but on scientific research, clinical observations, and the experiences of the countless talented and successful individuals with dyslexia who’ve come before you. The information we’ve presented in this book allows us to say with complete confidence that:• if you persist through hard times when further effort seems pointless;

  • if you work diligently on proven therapies;

  • if you use helpful technologies and accommodations;

  • if you pursue support and guidance from other individuals with dyslexia;

  • if you set goals for your future, become a skilled self-advocate, and proactively pursue opportunities;

  • if you try your hardest each day without worrying whether you see obvious progress;

  • if you never stop believing in the certainty of your positive future; and

  • if you make full use of the strengths that you possess;

  then in the end you’ll find that rather than being “cured of dyslexia,” you’ll become a perfect example of what an individual with dyslexia was always meant to be.

  And when you do, you’ll understand the truth, and the true nature, of the Dyslexic Advantage.

  APPENDIX A

  Accommodations and Resources

  I. SCHOOL ACCOMMODATIONS FOR READING AND WRITING

  • Students with significant delays in reading development and poor reading fluency and/or comprehension should be allowed and encouraged to use recorded books and text-to-speech software as soon and as often as possible for all assignments that involve learning from or interacting with text (e.g., filling out worksheets, answering test questions). For such students, reading should be thought of as an activity to be practiced for its own sake, rather than as a means to other kinds of learning.

  • Students with significant problems with reading fluency will require extra time for in-class tests and assignments.

  • Students with significant problems with reading speed and/or comprehension will typically also require either oral testing or a person to act as a reader to read the test questions aloud to them.

  • For some students with reading problems, especially in the early grades, access to large-print books can be helpful.

  • For students who struggle with accurate decoding and/or word retrieval, the use of a talking dictionary and electronic thesaurus that will pronounce and define words that have been entered into it can be useful for identifying words that can’t be easily guessed and for finding alternative words.

  • Dyslexic students should be allowed the widest possible latitude in choosing reading materials when the goal is reading practice. When the goal is building exposure to literate information, dyslexic students should be given flexibility to pursue such information through listening rather than through reading.

  • Extra time for handwritten assignments.

  • Reduced quantity of written assignments for students struggling to complete work (worksheets, spelling lists, essays, reports, math, etc.).

  • Correction without point deductions for mistakes in spelling and mechanics.

  • Permission to use a keyboard for all assignments longer than single words (or in some cases sentences).

  • Permission to orally dictate longer assignments if keyboarding fluency is not yet achieved.

  • A scribe for tests requiring extensive writing or filling in bubbles, or an option for oral testing.

  • Permission to use readers to help correct papers before turning them in.

  • Chances to rewrite or correct mistakes on assignments.

  • Provision of teacher’s notes, or notes copied from another student for lectures.

  • Permission to use a keyboard and/or recording system in class.

  II. RESOURCES FOR READING

  Resources for training in phonological skills and phonics • International Dyslexia Association (www.interdys.org)

  • Lindamood-Bell Learning Centers (www.lindamoodbell.com)

  • Institute for Excellence in Writing (www.excellenceinwriting.com)

  • Starfall.com (www.starfall.com)

  • Headsprout (http://headsprout.com)

  Computer-based auditory training • Earobics (www.earobics.com)

  • Fast ForWord (www.scientificlearning.com)

  Recorded books • RFB&D (Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic) (www.rfbd.org)

  Digital text repositories • Bookshare.org (also provides reader software)

  • For classic texts: Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org)

  • Research for articles, magazines: Questia.com

  • Commercial readers, like Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, or the Sony Reader (which also include text-to-speech)

  Text-to-speech technologies • Intel Reader (www.intel.com/healthcare/reader/about.htm)

  • Kurzweil 3000 text-to-speech technology (www.kurzweiledu.com/kurz3000.aspx)

  • Read&Write Gold (www.texthelp.com)

  • ReadingBar for Internet browsers (www.readplease.com)

  III. RESOURCES FOR WRITING

  Instructional materials • Handwriting Without Tears (www.hwtears.com)

  • From Talking to Writing: Strategies for Scaffolding Expository Expression by Terrill M. Jennings and Charles W. Haynes (available only at http://www.landmarkoutreach.org/pub181.htm)

  • Writing Skills 1 and Writing Skills 2 by Diana Hanbury King

  • Step Up to Writing (www.stepuptowriting.com)

  Word processing software with spell-checking, grammar-checking, and read-aloud functions • Read&Write Gold (www.texthelp.com)

  • Ginger Software’s contextual grammar and spell-checker (www.gingersoftware.com)

  • Write:OutLoud (early elementary) and Co:Writer (middle elementary and above) (both available from www.donjohnston.com)

  Visual planning, brainstorming, and mind-mapping software • Inspiration (adult) and Kidspiration (child) software (www.inspiration.com)

  • XMind open-source mind-mapping software (www.xmind.net)

  Speech-to-t
ext (oral dictation) software • Dragon Naturally Speaking is a popular speech-to-text, or oral dictation, software program that allows the writer to dictate text into a computer microphone and then translates the speech into printed text on the person’s computer (for word processing or e-mail) or the person’s cell or smartphone. We’ve found this program to be an excellent aid for adults and students beyond mid adolescence, while younger students typically have difficulty making it work and do better orally dictating to a parent, tutor, or other scribe. (www.nuance.com)

  Note-taking technology • Livescribe smartpens (www.livescribe.com)

  IV. RESOURCES FOR TIME MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION

  Organizational resources

  • Traditional materials like message boards, sticky notes, checklists, or Day-Timers

  • Vendors that send reminders about appointments or “to do” items to a cell phone or computer, like:—Remember the Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com)

  —Skoach (www.skoach.com)

  —Google Calendar (www.google.com)

  • Electronic timers to help improve time awareness and focus during tasks:—On the computer: TimeLeft (www.timeleft.info)

  —On the tabletop or wristwatch: Time Timer (www.timetimer.com)

  • Good source for other helpful organizational strategies: Lifehacker (www.lifehacker.com)

  V. RESOURCES RELATED TO COLLEGE

  Information on colleges specifically for dyslexic students • www.landmark.edu