Research area

Short description

Dyslexia is often thought of as a problem of childhood. In fact it is a lifelong condition. Dyslexia affects 1 in 10 of the population. Experts estimated that up to 25 million workers in Europe are affected by dyslexia. Dyslexia in the adulthood means a lifetime of underachievement, frustration and often unemployment.
Many adults with learning disabilities are underemployed, often stuck in dead-end jobs that do not tap into their true vocational potential. Many others are not finding employment at all. Many are unsuccessful in their pursuit of further training, and few are accessing the adult services that have been developed to serve them.

It can be said that the awareness to problems of dyslexic employees is very low European wide. Trainers are not aware of dyslexic person needs at their working places. Trainers do not recognise their needs while preparing training materials or providing courses. Managers and employers are not informed about dyslexia; therefore they do not care about special attention on their needs and loose the advantages having persons in their companies and organisation who think different.
The European Disability Policy now requires all employers to take account of and address the needs of dyslexic people in their workforce. Therefore the project `s aim is to contribute to the build up awareness and understanding on dyslexia in adulthood.

Aims

Project Aims

• To help employers become aware of dyslexia and how it may affect their workforce. The interactive information will help employers to address the needs of dyslexic people by making them aware of the "reasonable adjustments" they may need to make, particularly in relation to workplace training, as well as indicating what benefits dyslexic people may bring to the workplace. The interactive course will dispel myths about dyslexia, indicate how dyslexia may affect adults at work, and help employers to consider how dyslexia may affect their colleagues and customers.
• To help workplace trainers and those organising training to consider how they can make sure their practices are “dyslexia friendly”. It includes guidance on producing training materials and training methods.

Project Results

• E-books on dyslexia and how it may affect the workforce, on what benefits dyslexic employees can bring to the company and organisation, on how to make adjustments to working places and on how to organise and provide workplace training to dyslexic employees
• Center of Best Practices
• Resource Center of useful technical Equipment and Software

All results will be offered in following languages: English, Hungarian, German, Bulgarian, Finish and Spanish.

Runtime

Homepage of the project

• http://www.adystrain.org/

Leaflet

Areas of expertise

Partners

• 
  DEIS Department of Education Development, Cork Institute of Technology

• e-Learning concepts Rietsch KEG – Österreich

• SPUNK – Österreich

• ЕТ Инфоарт (Infoart) – Bulgarien

• EURO-training – Bulgarien

• SUELL – Dänemark

• Confederación de Empresarios de Aragón – Spanien

• Helsinki University of Technology Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli – Finnland

• GNW – Ungarn

• Ibis Creative Consultants Ltd – United Kingdom

• Adult Dyslexia Organisation – United Kingdom