Can people with learning disabilities get a good paying job?

[SouthMan28]

As I have a mild learning disability and people say I'm only good enough to work in McDonald's! For which upsets me!

Is there any chance people like me can get a good job and career in life as I'm only 29!

As I feel like l'm stuck in low skilled jobs all my life!

Have you known people with mild learning disabilities to have good jobs and careers?

Train driver? HGV driver? Both well paid.

HGV driver? They generally earn well.

Can you be more specific about your learning disability?

I know there’s been some debate on the thread about dyslexia but for example I’m dyslexic, I struggle to read as fast or thoroughly as other people. I almost always avoid reading aloud and my handwriting is terrible. Half the time I can’t read it. I also struggle to find the words for things sometimes. I can’t really add up in my head at all and rely very very heavily on predictive text or spells check when writing. My organisation skills are questionable, if I don’t concentrate I can easily forget things like socks and shoes.

I’m an architect and I think a good one! I’m happy with my salary and enjoy my job. Responding to emails and writing letters probably takes me twice as long as everyone else but nobodies ever said anything and I have good relationships with my colleagues and clients.

As you’ve got a qualification in construction already I wonder if you could look at college courses or apprenticeships for architectural technicians? Again it depends a lot on what your difficulty’s are but that role is more likely to be ‘back of house’, can require very little writing and you spend most of your time drawing things in a pc either in 3D or 2D.

A learning disability is a medical condition which effects your IQ and all that which a lower than the typical average IQ entails, generally needing some kind of support and assistance to live independently and well.

A learning difficulty is a medical condition which does not affect your IQ but provides a barrier, or extra challenge to learning. This would include dyslexia, dyspraxia, asd, Tourette's syndrome, sensory processing disorder, any specific audio/visual processing disorder etc

Adaptations can be made to the workplace for those who have a learning disability or difficulty or sometimes both, to access training and promote success in their career.

I'm sorry to be pedantic about language but it is important you know your conditions, how they affect you and your rights to reasonable adaptations in the workplace and higher education setting to get you doing what YOU want to do not what others say you can do.

For what it's worth, I support adults with learning disabilities, learning difficulties and mental health conditions in higher education and one of my students has just achieved a placement for an industrial electrical engineering course. He's a natural but needs extra time to organise himself so his new boss lets him know his tasks a bit more in advance than usual. Thriving he is, I'm so proud.

I was also going to suggest HGV driver.

Not a bus driver, they are paid rubbish wages and have to deal with the great unwashed public.

Wishing you all the best OP. Definitely make sure you're getting all the legal adjustments you're entitled to. Work out your strengths and what you enjoy and take it from there.

Remember it's not all about salary, but thinking about pension provision early on is also important as is enjoying your job. You might also want to consider the route to your chosen role with an aim to get there in 5/10/15 years and therefore where to start lower down the ladder. Often people are promoted internally, so starting near the bottom of the ladder but working your way up is a good way to advance, rather than trying to go straight in near the top.

Not exactly a career as such but at the carpet retailer I work for, we have an estimator with quite profound learning difficulties. I'm not sure exactly what they are but you can tell from talking to him. He can't hold a conversation and any kind of social interaction is generally a pointless exercise in frustration on both sides but holy shit is he smart.

His mental mathematics is crazy. Plans it in his head as he is measuring. He prefers to draw his cut plans by hand rather than use a tablet but fucks it up so rarely that the company are happy enough to just let him and we scan it into the system for him. Its a reasonable adjustment.

He does tend to be a bit blunt and isn't particularly tactful with the customers but we usually warn them when we arrange the survey that he isn't much of a conversationalist and doesn't mean to sound rude, he just has learning difficulties and autism so his social skills are a little rough. For the most part, they're understanding and not bothered if he isn't very chatty. He's very good at his job, respected for it and generally well liked. If anyone is funny about him, the store sets them straight.

He works full time and earns a pretty good commission from it. If he were able to live independently, he could easily afford a decent lifestyle.

I think that's the point of this massive post 😂 that you can do well in most jobs if you play to your strengths. Your skills are transferable, your organisation in particular makes you employable. Perhaps something in logistics?