9 - Personal Perspectives of Dyslexia and Career Success

Summary

Chapter 9 explores the impact that dyslexia has had on people in a range of professional settings. As detailed at the start of this book, we asked a number of adults with dyslexia to tell us about their career journeys. Those who responded to our request work in a variety of professions, such as health care, the civil service, management, entertainment, engineering and some are self-employed (entrepreneurs). All have achieved some degree of success in their work. This chapter includes their stories, with as little editing from us as possible to fit the requirements of the book. We told our contributors that the aim of these stories was to gain their perspectives of the impact that dyslexia had on them as individuals as well as on their careers. We asked them to consider what skills supported them in their work-life, and what challenges had influenced their job performance, as well as how they may have overcome these challenges. We also asked them to talk about whether they felt that their current job was right for them. The variety of perspectives are consistent with many of the points made in previous chapters, including self-understanding, positive attitudes and goodness of fit.