#70📖 Dyslexia - Understanding the Impact of Learning Disabilities on Product Managers with ADHD

Creating a reading and writing system that works for you.

Welcome to Tech Atypically 👋, your weekly blog for navigating the challenges of ADHD and being in the tech industry.

I am a coach specializing in ADHD and product management, and I help you change one belief and take one action each week.

Part 13 of the Performance and Productivity series.

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🦋The Takeaways

Belief: I can’t read and write as fast as my peers.

Reality: You can create a system that accommodates how you read and write to be faster.

Action: Seek a formal assessment, understand your strengths, and create a reading and writing system that fits your style.

⭐️Introduction

As a product manager or tech worker with ADHD, you may face additional challenges if you also have a learning disability like dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a common comorbid condition with ADHD, affecting reading, writing, and information processing. A 2013 review study found that 45% of people with ADHD have at least one learning disability like dyslexia.

Seemingly simple things like taking meeting notes, writing an email, reading technical documentation, or writing a product requirement document can be a great source of stress and anxiety for someone with dyslexia.

I know that pain well because I’m dyslexic.

I’ve never been formally tested but I have all the scars of someone constantly criticized for having incorrect grammar, swapping written numbers, and misreading test questions (Screw you, standardized tests).

In today's issue, I'm joined by dyslexia expert Michael Asaku-Yeboah, an accomplished coach and licensed therapist in the tech industry.

We discuss the impact of dyslexia on tech workers with ADHD and provide strategies to create a reading and writing system that works for you.

ADHD story: A few weeks ago for Easter, I bought my mom 5 gift cards to her favorite restaurant. I wanted to create an egg hunt for her before she moved. I hid the gift cards in white envelopes throughout part of the house. As soon as I hid them, I forgot where they were. She’s found 3/5 so far. Maybe she’ll find the rest when the movers come.

😵‍💫The Belief – I’ll never be as good as others

Dyslexia is a neurodivergent condition that impairs an individual’s ability to read write and hold information in short-term memory. Dyslexia is a spectrum condition that can manifest differently in each person.

Some common challenges of dyslexia include:

• Difficulty reading and processing information

• Struggling with spelling, grammar, and tenses

• Short-term memory deficits

• Challenges with phonetic pronunciation and putting words together

• Constantly re-reading sentences to grasp their meaning

• Difficulty with clearly expressing yourself on paper (or screen)

• The need to speak words to comprehend reading

When people become known for these types of behaviors at work, it can have major implications such as:

• Discrimination and Ableism: People with dyslexia may be passed over for career-enhancing opportunities or leadership roles due to stereotypes about their reading and writing abilities.

• Microaggressions: Managers may avoid assigning writing tasks to someone with dyslexia but evaluates them negatively for their lack of writing accomplishments.

• Anxiety and Panic Attacks: The fear of judgment and negative comments can lead to intense anxiety when faced with tasks like note-taking or writing documents.

• Overcompensating: People with dyslexia may spend excessive time trying to perfect their writing, neglecting their strengths in innovation and creative thinking.

These difficulties can lead to feelings of frustration, self-doubt, and the belief that you'll never be able to perform at the same level as your neurotypical colleagues. However, it's essential to recognize that having dyslexia doesn't mean you can't succeed in your role.

🤝The Reality – I have the power

While dyslexia can present challenges, it's essential to recognize and embrace the unique strengths that often accompany it. Some common superpowers of people with dyslexia include:

• Creative and innovative thinking

• Strong spatial reasoning skills

• Resilience and perseverance

• Emotional intelligence and adaptability

• Eloquence in verbal communication

• Strong memory for stories

Some of the skills may be inherent to the individual’s personality. However, some may be developed as survival skills.

You build resilience from people telling you repeatedly your writing sucks or learn to speak well to compensate for poor writing.

By focusing on these strengths and finding ways to showcase them, you can thrive as a product manager with dyslexia.

This is how I feel when I have Grammarly checking my work. It’s not perfect but it makes writing a lot easier.

🛠️The Action – Creating your reading and writing system

If you suspect you may have dyslexia, the first step is to seek a formal assessment from a qualified professional. This can be done by a licensed psychologist or by talking to your primary care provider.

🍒Here are some simple techniques to improve your dyslexia:

• Use Dark Mode on your screens: Using colored overlays to increase contrast can help your reading perception.

• Increase font size and spacing: Adding more spacing between letters and words can improve comprehension. Hence why you see so many line breaks in my newsletter.

• Create a distraction-free environment: Using ad-blockers, only looking at a single browser tab at full screen can help remove distractions to help you read more easily.

Once you have a clear understanding of how dyslexia affects you, consider the following tools and strategies:

💻 Assistive Technology:

• Ghotit: A tool designed for people with dyslexia that reads back your writing, highlights errors, and suggests alternative words.

  • This costs money but is installed locally and is approved for workplaces like Amazon that don’t allow data to be sent outside of the network.

• Grammarly: Helps with proofreading, editing, and grammar correction.

  • Free but requires you to send data out of your local network. I can’t live without this tool.

• Bionic Reader: Helps with reading comprehension by using typographic highlights.

  • If you read the line above easier, check out their product.

• Text-to-Speech Tools: Built-in options like immersive reader or third-party apps that read text aloud.

  • Most operating systems, including mobile these days have tools to enable text-to-speech.

  • You can use the Substack App to listen to this blog entry instead of reading it.

  • Checkout

    Harshal Patil
    article on how to “Reduce writing time by 58% with AI and voice”. This article used some of his techniques.

🧠 Mind Mapping:

• XMind: Allows you to brainstorm and organize ideas visually, making it easier to articulate your thoughts when writing.

• Miro: Another visual whiteboarding tool.

👥 Collaborative Work:

• Engage in collaborative projects that allow you to leverage your strengths in creative thinking and problem-solving.

  • Don’t be afraid to partner up with a friend or co-worker to work past a block.

📅 Planning and Piecemeal Writing:

• Break down writing tasks into smaller chunks and work on them over time, as ideas often come sporadically for people with dyslexia.

  • Another reason to not procrastinate.

  • AI prompts and task breakdowns are great for this.

🗣️ Requesting Accommodations:

• When appropriate, request accommodations, such as additional time for writing tasks or access to assistive technology.

  • Have the company pay for Ghotit and other assistive tools.

✨Conclusion

Dyslexia can be a difficult barrier to overcome in the workplace. However, it’s important to remember that you’re not “dumb” or “stupid” you’re just wired differently.

By seeking a formal assessment, understanding your strengths, and utilizing tools and strategies that work for you, you can thrive.

It doesn’t matter if your reading and writing system isn’t like other people's. All that matters is that the system works for you and your story gets across to others.

Take it from a fellow dyslexic product manager with ADHD. No one cares how you did it if the story is good.

✨Bonus: How two dyslexics with ADHD wrote this story

• Google Meet to host a meeting between Michael and Rawi

• Recorded and transcribed by Fireflies.ai plus Rawi's written notes during the meeting

• Processed the transcription in Claude.ai and outputted a first draft trained on 3 of my previous newsletters

• Copy pasted into Substack

• Edited by faulty humans with the aid of Grammarly

• Read aloud by a human for the last check before publish

• Immediately proofread after publishing to find a missed issue

🐼Work with a PM with ADHD to create your productivity strategy

⏭️Next Week

Dyscalculia - Understanding the Impact of Learning Disabilities on Product Managers with ADHD