What jobs should your dyslexic teen be considering?

My son, Harry, is fifteen and getting him out of bed in the morning to go to school is like prizing a limpet from a rock. There are many reasons for this reluctance, including how his hair looks. This morning, I sensed he was struggling because he couldn’t imagine his future job. So, what are the best jobs for a dyslexic?

What careers are a good fit for someone with dyslexia?

The severity of a person’s dyslexia will play a part in employment choice, as will any other learning challenges they may have. Harry has ADD and dyslexia, and I can’t see him coping with being in a regular nine-to-five indoor job. His limited focus will be a significant obstacle to his employment. Here’s a great article from additudemag.com on good careers for people with ADD.

Some careers that are good for people with ADD are also perfect for those with dyslexia. Both conditions often come with increased creativity.

In their book, The Dyslexic Advantage, Brock and Fernette Eide outline the talents of dyslexics that may be due to a difference in brain structure. The Eides say there are currently about twenty-five papers exploring the connection between dyslexia and specific talents and abilities. While most studies are made with small samples and are published in obscure journals, the Eides say:

“What mattered … was the recurrent evidence found around the world of people who struggled with dyslexia excelling in areas like engineering, the arts, design, and entrepreneurship.”[i]

Musician

The Arts are a vehicle for self-expression, and music is a field in which many people with dyslexia have excelled. Harry showed musical ability from a young age. I have videos of him as a pre-schooler dancing to music, playing air guitar and using any and everything as a microphone. He also loves listening to music and uses it to relax if he’s stressed or overwhelmed by his school day.

Over the years, he’s attempted to learn the recorder, ukulele and guitar, all without success. I suspect this is because his ADD makes it difficult to persevere with things that require practice. For the last two years, he’s played the saxophone as part of a jazz band, and he loves it. The sax has worked for him because he can now read the music. I don’t think he’s heading for a career as a musician, but he certainly finds music a balm to his soul.

Singer Carly Simon and her two children have dyslexia. She was reported on understood.org saying, ‘My family has been given the gift of music. We all take to music because music is something that we can do so much more easily than we can in the reading department.’

Other famous dyslexic musicians include Lou Reed, John Lennon, and Cher.

Artist, designer, photographer or architect

A person with dyslexia is usually right-brain dominant. The right side of the brain is responsible for creativity and art, which accounts for the high number of successful artists with dyslexia. An artist friend of mine studied fine art at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. She was impressed that the tutors recognised most of their students had dyslexia.

Many people with dyslexia find success in a career in architecture. The famous architect Lord Richard Rogers said,

‘Dyslexics have a way of looking at problems and turning them on their heads, that’s a very exciting way of doing things… you don’t accept the standard, because you don’t know what the standard is.’

Did you know Pablo Picasso, one of the world’s most famous artists, had dyslexia? So did artist Andy Warhol and sculptor, Auguste Rodin.

Actor

Figuring out how life works is challenging for a person with dyslexia. They continuously watch how other people do things and copy them, so it isn’t surprising that acting comes naturally to many people with dyslexia.

Actor Billy Bob Thornton once said, ‘I don’t think I fit in. I can fit in, but it’s like an acting job. Most of my acting is done in public’ [ii]

Billy Bob Thornton was severely dyslexic as a child and found school very difficult. In an article on the website mensjournal.com, he is quoted saying:

 ‘I was just kind of known around school as a moron. Nobody really encouraged me. Dyslexia drives you because you’re trying to overcome something. They’ve found that a lot of people with dyslexia and OCD, which I also have, are high achievers in things like the arts, writing, or whatever because you compensate in other ways.’

Other famous actors with dyslexia include Tom Cruise, Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Aniston.

Scientist

The fact that people with dyslexia must try so hard and not give up makes them good at dealing with the frustrations of science experiments, which often need to be run hundreds of times. The dyslexic ability to think visually is also an advantage in science.

Famous dyslexic scientists include Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and Pierre Curie, who discovered radium and polonium.

Sports Person

Scott Robertson is a former international rugby player who played 23 times for the All Blacks (New Zealand’s rugby team) from 1998 to 2002. He is also a top coach, having been appointed as the head coach of the Christchurch-based Crusaders team in 2017 and leading them to four consecutive Super Rugby Championships (so far).

Scott has been open about how difficult it has been for him to combat his dyslexia.  He scores highly in EQ – emotional intelligence, but often struggles to get his thoughts down on paper.

‘I struggle to write an essay – I never was school smart, but I’ve got good EQ with people and I’ve got a good rugby brain. 

Scott is a picture thinker ‘I am a bullet-point and pictures man. I use pictures so people can get connected – emotionally connected.’

Other famous dyslexic sportspeople include Magic Johnson, the basketball player and Jackie Stewart, the motor racing driver.

Engineer

John Britten was a talented design engineer who lived in Christchurch, New Zealand [iii]. Born in 1950, his mother, a teacher, read to him daily throughout his childhood. She couldn’t understand when he, unlike his sisters, failed to learn to read and spell. She supported him with his homework, but art was the only subject he excelled in.

After leaving school, he qualified as a design engineer and, in his spare time, he restored an old house, casting the tapware and door handles to his own designs. All the practical skills he learned along the way inspired him to follow his dream of designing and racing motorbikes. Competing against the world’s largest motorcycle companies, he chose not to modify the design of a conventional motorbike but start afresh, and he came up with a design innovation to reduce the machine’s weight; the fuel tank was the bike’s seat.

In 1991, his new bike went to race at Daytona in the United States. It made the headlines and was described on the cover of the American magazine Cycle World as ‘The World’s Most Advanced Motorcycle’.

Other famous engineers include Henry Ford, the developer of the first assembly line and the Wright brothers, the creators of the first plane.

Entrepreneur

A word impossible for a dyslexic person to spell is entrepreneur (it comes from the French word entreprendre meaning ‘to undertake’), and yet many dyslexic people are natural entrepreneurs. According to the Oxford dictionary, an entrepreneur is ‘A person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit’.

‘Entrepreneurship is the ability to recognize the bigger picture, find where there’s an opportunity to make someone’s life better, design hypotheses around these opportunities and continually test your assumptions. It’s experimentation: Some experiments will work; many others will fail. It is not big exits, huge net worth or living a life of glamour. It’s hard work and persistence to leave the world a better place once your time here is done.’ – Konrad Billetz, co-founder and co-CEO of Offset Solar

People with dyslexia often prefer to work for themselves. I want Harry to develop his entrepreneurial skills. I’m going to introduce him to some people who have businesses in the hope that he will pick up some tips.

Richard Branson is probably the world’s most famous dyslexic entrepreneur. According to the website astrumpeople.com, as a young child, Richard had speech problems and some coordination difficulties. He was sent to a boarding school when he was eight years old and hated it. He couldn’t read or spell and was frequently beaten.

Richard found a way to achieve was by being good at sports, and he became the captain of the football, rugby and cricket teams. However, a football injury snatched this success away from him. When Richard was eleven, he set up a business in the school holidays breeding budgerigars. From this humble beginning, Richard has gone on to own more than 400 businesses and, in 2020, was estimated to be worth around $4.4 billion.

Other dyslexic entrepreneurs include Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop and Ingvar Kamprad founder of IKEA.

Chef

Jamie Oliver is a world-famous dyslexic chef. Although he enjoyed school, he said it was like ‘being in a glorified youth group’, and he failed to achieve because teachers didn’t recognise his dyslexia. 

“I believe there are different types of intelligence,” he said. “School should be about facilitating kids to find their inner genius and confidence.”

Born in 1975 in Clavering, England, Jamie learned his cooking skills by helping in the kitchen of his parent’s pub. His big break came when he worked as a sous chef at The River Cafe.

In 1999, he released his first cookbook, The Naked Chef, and has produced 35 cookbooks using a dictaphone to write the text.

British Channel 4 viewers voted him the ‘Most Inspiring Political Figure’ in 2005 for the ‘Feed Me Better campaign.’ This campaign developed from his TV four-episode documentary series, Jamie’s School Dinners.

As of October 2023, according to wealthygorilla.com, Jamie’s net worth is estimated at $200 million.

Other dyslexic chefs include Marco Pierre White, Andrew Dornenburg and James Martin.

Horticulturalist

Sitting in an office all day will not suit many dyslexics. A job offering the chance to be outdoors could be a good option. The horticulture industry has several career pathways, including the wine industry, logging, floristry, and growing plants and crops. Check out this link to look into all the options.

Famous rose grower David Austin created more than 200 hybrid roses. He spent six decades developing them, and they are enjoyed around the world. He credited his dyslexia for helping him in his work.

“I was never that influenced by what other people said or thought,” he told Gardens Illustrated magazine. “I’m slightly dyslexic, and I think I make connections that others don’t.”

In my book Dyslexia. Wrestling with an Octopus. 10 Tips to Help Your Child I discuss ways to encourage your child in these areas. As I said, I’m concentrating on entrepreneurship for Harry. Having read about Richard Branson’s humble beginnings, I feel inspired. Perhaps it’s time to turn our shed into an aviary and start breeding birds.

Here is a post about transitioning from school to work.

What career options are you thinking about for your child? Post a comment. I’d love to hear your ideas.

If you want to read about the worst jobs for someone with dyslexia, you may like to read this. 

I didn’t want Harry to leave school unable to read and spell. If you want to know how I taught him in 30 minutes a day, here are my affiliate links to the resources I used. I hope you find All About Spelling and All About Reading helpful.

Maths is required in many workplaces. If your child also struggles to learn the multiplication tables, check out this blog post on how using stories will help them remember the facts.

Speechify is an app that reads online printed text out loud. It is helpful for dyslexics at school and in the workplace. If you want to check it out, here is my affiliate link.

References

[i] Eide BL & Eide FF (2011). The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain. Hudson Street Press. ISBN13: 9781594630798.

[ii] D’Agostino R (2009) Esquire the Meaning of Life: Wisdom, Humor, and Damn Good Advice from 64 Extraordinary Lives. Hearst.

[iii] Beck J (2004). John Britten – The Boy Who Did Do Better. Scholastic NZ Limited. ISBN: 9781869435486