By treating dyslexia as a drawback, employers often miss out on a talent pool with unique skills that would be beneficial to any work environment. Dyslexic individuals have distinctive thinking skills that set them apart and they’re extremely hard working and adaptive, due to the difficulties they’ve encountered and had to overcome. At Exceptional Individuals we’re aiming to change employers’ perceptions of dyslexics and get some highly intelligent and qualified individuals into jobs they enjoy!
What is dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a spectrum disorder most commonly associated with reading and writing difficulties. As it’s a spectrum disorder, some people are born with more severe dyslexia than others, and hence have more difficulties reading and writing. The left side of the brain, which these difficulties stem from, causes dyslexics to become more heavily reliant on the right side of their brains, responsible for creativity and reasoning making them superior in those respects.
Benefits of Employing a Dyslexic Candidate
“Things spin in their heads so that they can look at things from all angles, and their mind’s eye moves to look at things from different directions, all without any control!”(Dyslexia .com)
Besides the fact that dyslexics have had to adapt to overcome some difficulties early on in life, making them exceptionally hard workers, they possess a host of different thinking skills that will set them apart from anyone else who currently works for you. These include:
These individuals are particularly gifted at shifting perspective so they can see situations from all the different angles, and often see connections others can’t, as well as seeing the bigger picture. This proves to be useful in disciplines that require the combination of skills and knowledge from multiple disciplines.
Reasoning in Dynamic Settings
Reasoning well and working within dynamic settings comes easy to some of these individuals, where the facts are not always complete and constantly changing. They excel in fields where they can reconstruct past events such as geology, and in fields that require a certain amount of prediction, such as business and financial markets.
These individuals learn facts as stories as opposed to abstractions, and therefore excel in fields where telling and understanding stories is important, such as sales, trial law, and counselling.
Visualising and constructing spaces and models is easy for some of these individuals, helping them excel in fields such as architecture and organic chemistry.
In addition to all these strengths, most dyslexics are also often highly imaginative and creative individuals who are particularly good at visualising. They are also able to simultaneously process multiple thoughts and have superior reasoning, which they can utilise to solve complex problems.
You may be surprised at some of these recognisable faces who have dyslexia