CLB Dyslexia Support: How to help Dyslexic people flourish

By Sophie Mei Lan 
Publicist @EvokeMG
EvokeMediaGroup.co.uk
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"Having dyslexic staff can be a huge asset to your business," explains a dyslexia assessor. 
Miss Bell, who runs CLB Dyslexia Support, says that it is essential to provide dyslexic people with the right support in order for them to flourish at work. In fact, it is a legal requirement to make adjustments for dyslexic staff. The main way employers can help a dyslexic individual in the workplace is by getting a clear diagnosis from an assessor such as myself. Then, if someone is dyslexic or has any other disability, it's important to support them through the Access to Work process."
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The government's Access to Work grant provides funding for practical support for people who have a disability or health or mental health condition to help them:
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• start working
• stay in work
• move into self-employment or start a business

Miss Bell, whose business assesses people who think they may be dyslexic as well as tutoring those who are, says: "Access to Work can provide assistive technology, a workplace tutor and other means to help dyslexic people."

Ways in which businesses can further support dyslexic people include: 

• Allow time to implement the coping strategies they have developed alongside their workplace tutor.
• Make sure verbal and textual information is chunked in to manageable sections or in bullet-point format.
• Allow extra time to process information.
• Most workplaces now adopt a 'hot desk' system where workers are expected to occupy any available work space. However, ensuring dyslexic individuals have their own desk reduces anxiety and promotes good organisation skills.
• Focus on the dyslexic individual's strengths rather than the things they find difficult due to their disability.

Some of the strengths typical of dyslexic individuals: 

• Lateral and creative thinking and looking at something from a different perspective i.e. thinking 'outside the box'.
• Good sense of empathy.
• Good memory for detail.
• Developed leadership skills due to excellent interpersonal and verbal communication skills.
• Practically minded, 'hands on' and excellent visio-spatial skills.
• Good at talking to people face-to-face and wording things in the right manner.

Dyslexic Blogger, Journalist and Film-Maker at mamamei.co.uk said:

"You wouldn't think being good with words and having dyslexia goes hand in hand. I didn't think so either until I discovered I was dyslexic and, it unlocked the right support. I've always loved writing and being creative. And whilst I did well at school, academia didn't come naturally to me. There were areas in which I excelled such as doing projects and dissertations. But my handwriting was always so illegible and I was slow at learning maths and reading took ages (it still does). Most people in my classes seemed to learn really quickly whereas my processing was so much slower. 

I powered through to university where I started blogging and getting experience as a broadcast journalist. I loved hearing people's stories and being able to give them a voice. I continued on to doing an MA in Journalism. And thanks to my difficulty with spelling and shorthand, I was tested for dyslexia. As a lot of dyslexic people do, I have a spiked profile which means I'm really good in some areas but not so good in others. 

I then went on to get my dream job working at the BBC on Salford and I was able to access a range of support such as read & writing software, green overlays for reading work and a dictaphone for recording information so I could listen back to it. 

I now run my own successful family, lifestyle and reviews blog mamamei.co.uk, I freelance as a journalist and publicist and, I write columns for newspapers and magazines - so words are a huge part of my life!"