pronouncing words

[emmaemma31]

i dont know about anyone else, but i really have struggled with pronouncing certain words or remembering how something is spelt. I once had a receptionist job and was answering lots of calls. I found it extremley tough remembering what the person had said and couldn't pronounce the persons surname or spell it half the time! i was made to feel so ashamed and this had happened a lot in many work places people dont like differences, and never heard of dyspraxia

[Jim]

I can partially relate to that. I know very well what it's like to have verbal dyspraxia coupled with difficulties with memory and concentration, i.e if there's another conversation or two going on in the background then I simply can't comprehend anything being said to me. Makes me feel like a right idiot.

However most of my jobs have minimal reception type tasks so I've never truly experienced too much trouble nor discrimination on those grounds, except that people simply will not accept that I can only do one thing properly at a time and hence the constant flow of interruptions whilst already busy I get at work do tend to make me feel overloaded and easily stressed.

With regards to your point about the phones you need to remember that you can only do what you can do. There is nothing wrong with saying "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that can you repeat it please" or "Can you slow down please, so I can write this down" or "could you spell that for me please?"

plus at the end of the day, who cares if your English isn't degree status? There's plenty of people in my generation without supposed learning diffculties whose English isn't any better than mine, in some cases significantly worse. Employers will ultimately know this, and doing a job correctly is more valuable than spelling something correctly of grammatically correctly. As long as it gets the job done, that is all which really matters.

[AlleyCat]

i was made to feel so ashamed and this had happened a lot in many work places people dont like differences, and never heard of dyspraxia

This kind of thing is probably the biggest barrier which people with dyspraxia have to achieving success in the workplace. Other people's (all too often intolerant) attitudes can be the biggest problem for us. No one should be made to feel ashamed or humiliated at work, and if anyone is being made to feel this way, the chances are that he or she has actually been the victim of harassment. The other day I was reading that it doesn't even matter whether someone has been diagnosed with a disability or not, if other people are subjecting someone to ridicule or making them feel violated in some way, that constitutes harassment. When I worked as an admin assistant for MAFF (now DEFRA), one of the field officers made some particularly nasty comments about the way I spoke, to the point where he seemed to be mocking me- I now wish I'd done something about it (perhaps reported it to HR), as it made me feel humiliated. This happened before I'd been diagnosed with dyspraxia, but what was significant was the way it made me feel.

plus at the end of the day, who cares if your English isn't degree status? There's plenty of people in my generation without supposed learning diffculties whose English isn't any better than mine, in some cases significantly worse. Employers will ultimately know this, and doing a job correctly is more valuable than spelling something correctly of grammatically correctly.

I see what you're saying, Jim, and I think you have made a particularly relevant point where people who have dyspraxia and dyslexia are concerned. However, I suspect that people with dyspraxia are more likely to experience intolerance and prejudice from others in the workplace because of the way they speak (eg speed, volume, tone) rather than because of what they say. As dyspraxia affects the way in which messages are transmitted to different parts of the body, I would have thought that some kind of issue with the production of speech is quite common in people who have dyspraxia- other people can then be quick to assume that the person isn't particularly intelligent, purely based on how that person's voice sounds. I think the Dyspraxia Foundation needs to raise awareness of how people with dyspraxia can have issues with speech production, as in my experience, this has perhaps been the single biggest barrier to me achieving what I want in employment and education.

[shadowgirl021]

I have trouble pronouncing words and in the middle of a conservation I have to say "ok start again" because what I just said was not what I meant to say and no-one seems to mind. Of course saying that I only say that in informal situations. If it is formal I ask if I can start again.
I do agree with what has been said, there is nothing wrong with asking them to repeat themselves. While I have been speaking on the phone, I have had so many people say "can you repeat that" and if they still cant hear they say it is a bad line which could be used as a maybe good excuse? I don't know, but there is no shame asking people to repeat themselves.