Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 27, 1990 TAG: 9005240014
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN HARTE COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"You're a bright person who seems capable," he'll say, "but we just don't feel it's working out."
Those are weasel words, designed to excuse the fact that the boss is either unaware of the nature of learning disabilities or ill-equipped to help you compensate for yours - which could belong in any of four large categories involving reading, listening, attention and visually processing information.
In the main, American workplaces are inhospitable to people who confuse their b's and d's, who can't remember directions or series of numbers, or whose reports scream disorganization.
For these people - whose native intelligence is usually sound - losing a job is a constant risk. At best, a learning disability haunts a career. At worst, it condemns its victim to an endless series of entry-level positions.
Barry Graham, 23, has done everything from driving an equipment van to being a bouncer.
What he hadn't been able to do until now is feel any real confidence that he will be able to become schooled enough to go into business.
"You try to hide" the learning disability, says Graham, whose difficulties involve reading and spelling. "But people will notice the backward letter."
That kind of concern has caused the former claims examiner to keep to herself, never going after a promotion for fear of facing the embarrassment of not succeeding.
According to the Pittsburgh-based Learning Disabilities Association, 5 percent to 10 percent of the population would share those feelings. Some specialists say the proportion is closer to 20 percent, and a handful will claim that up to 45 percent of Americans have mild to severe learning impairments.
Whatever the extent of the problem, only the luckiest few manage to find a niche and, by devising ways to compensate, stay there successfully, according to Thomas Sticht, a nationally known expert on training the learning disabled.
"They'll self-select themselves into life roles that downplay their deficiencies in sales, marketing management, occupations that call for oral skills, action orientation and interpersonal skills," he says.
A 41-year-old Atlantan with two college degrees typifies Sticht's profile.
"I'm in advertising premiums sales. I hate to read directions and can't spell, but I have a good secretary. I can't do math, but I have a calculator that can," says the woman, whose teen-age son is also learning disabled.
Moving such individuals beyond first jobs and developmental courses in college requires care and planning, says Virginia Mayer, adult services coordinator at The Howard Schools in Atlanta. "They need a different route to get them into the work force."
Wood Smethurst, headmaster of the Benjamin Franklin Academy in Atlanta, explains that working brings its own set of problems to people who have already had 12 years of struggle and possibly stigma in school.
"Adults will get in trouble taking an exam - the SAT or GRE, the GMAT, the real estate exam or the bar," or when a promotion to loading-dock supervisor requires a man to read and process invoices, Smethurst explains.
Today, more corrective education is available, though some tutorial schools don't care to deal with adults and the self-esteem and behavioral problems that may have developed across years of frustration.
And once such a person begins working, he or she has to confront company attitudes, says Arkansas legislator Caroline Pollan, an advocate for adult literacy and the learning disabled.
Pollan has recruited some of that state's largest employers to establish testing and identification programs. With $29 million, including a donation from Wal-Mart, the National Learning Center has been established at the University of the Ozarks to offer college courses to learning-disabled adults.
"These people include some of the nation's brightest. A company that doesn't recognize that some of its employees are going to have special learning problems is wasting enormous amounts of money on hiring and training," Pollan says.
Many companies do have generous benefits and assistance programs for their employees, but don't specifically target "learning disability" for special attention. Not all will extend themselves to help the learning disabled.
They might shy away from including learning disability remediation in company-wide benefits practices, an Atlanta consultant observes.
"There was a time when companies were striving for a good public image. They took pride in accommodating through benefits their people's problems," says Don Caton of The Wyatt Co.
by CNB