Dyslexics and Business (by sarah)
Barbara (Als Aunt) showed me an article that she thought might interest me from the Financial Times it was basically about people pushing their children to succeed and giving two year olds after nursery classes and stuff. It generally made me feel really sorry for the kids - then it went onto how one thing thats seen as a major handicap at school appears to give the suffers a head start in the 'adult world' ie dyslexics appear to make good business people (I would have written ontrapaner but I funnily enough cant spell it and I'm pretty sure it begins with e - oh well).
According to the article about 30 % of people with successful businesses would describ themselves as dyslexic (not sure what the result would be if they tested them all but it might be interesting). The thing is people seem so suprised by this when really what else is going to happen to someone who is generally above average intelligence but who is unlickely to get far or even get (due to application forms and tests etc...) a normal job?
The options are start your own business, become a criminal or both. I'm not being mean here about the criminal stuff studies showed in the early nineties (I think do your own research) that alot of those in prison for organised crime where showing dyslexic, ADHD or dyspastic tendencies - at the time I was really worried about this as I wondered if it ment I'd end up a criminal - organising crimes takes brains as does running a business.
The other thing with trouble shooting and finding new ways of doing things is that lots of dyslexics have to do this in their every day life - ALL THE TIME. We dictate rather than write things down oursleves, we colour code things in order to remeber what we are doing etc... this skills are exactly what you need to start a business (ok well perhapse not the colour coding but hey it still gets used alot). And hiding the fact you have difficulty with spelling etc... becomes a new and powerful tool when turned to marketing.
What I'd like to see is how large the data set was for these results and what exactly was asked - also does it tally cross culterally or is it limited to say the USA and the UK? The other intreging thing I noted was that the two men they had interviewed both had alot of children - 6 and 9 each - did the writter of the artical do that on perpose and if not do sucessful dyslexics have a tendency to have large familys in a society where successful people have fewer children normally?
Sun 13th Jan 2008 9:21 am 
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