As the working environment moves away in the UK from a manual, factory, manufacturing society towards a service led economy, and the introduction of IT to all walks of life, the workforce is having to adapt, having to be able to interface with machines, and often this is with keyboards and computer screens.

People who have had had no reading or writing skills, or what we now know as dyslexia, have been able to hide their problems by undertaking purely manual work. These working age people were not screened for any deficiencies in their comprehension whilst being educated, and were thus not diagnosed as suffering from dyslexia, nor offered or given help to overcome the problem.

A brief history of Dyslexia

Since the mid 17th Century, it had been noted that some people had difficulty in reading, but it was not until the 1940's and 50's that the medical profession began to take an interest in why. A clinic was formed by Maisie Holt at Barts Hospital London, to treat children with this reading difficulty in the mid 1950's.

More research was carried out in the 1960's, but it was not until the 1970's that education to train teachers and teaching children began, with the foundation of the British Dyslexic Association (BDA), and the Dyslexia Educational Trust.

In the 1980's the UK Government recognised that there was a problem, and at least two acts, Education Act of 1981, and 1983 stated that some children have special education needs (SEN).

Throughout the 1990's, more recognition of dyslexia had been gained, with 1994 being declared the Year of the Young Dyslexic Adult.

Various figures have been quoted as to what proportion of the population has dyslexia. This is due to the absence of consistent selection criteria, according to T.R. Miles and E. Miles (1992), but based on Government statistics the BDA estimate that approximately 10% of children have some form of dyslexia.

No formal measurement of dyslexia exists, Vail and Critchley have divided the group of sufferers into two and three groups respectively, but both agree that undiagnosed dyslexia can be a source of internal strain and worry.

It was not until the Education Act of 1993 and the Code of Practice 1994, that parents become more enlightened, and their expectations of the educational system raised, Philomena Ott (1997), How to Detect and Manage Dyslexia. This still leaves the vast amount of adult dyslexia suffers in the workforce today undetected.