Hi. My D has her heart set on nursing. She is a HS junior with dyslexia. She works really hard but will not have the high GPA (maybe 3.4) that I’m seeing lots of kids have. She will not submit test scores.
Understand that there are multiple paths to a nursing degree, maybe starting at a CC, but she wants the full college expeirence and couldn’t agree more. She will be taking a nursing program through her HS tech school this spring that will allow her to take her CNA exam end of Junior year. She will have great recommendations, and good work experience.
Would appreciate any thoughts/experience for kids that have some learning challenges. Appreciate your honest opinions!
@Cheryl24 i don’t know what state you’re in, but we have a dyslexic friend currently in nursing school. She attends University Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, TX (off I-35, conveniently located between Waco and Austin).
Small campus, small classes, large teaching hospital minutes away at Scott & White in Temple, TX. Our friend has done exceptionally well! Great nursing program.
I don’t know where you live but if going to college in Pennsylvania is a possibility, check out their 50+ direct entry programs. My D22 was a half-day vo-tech (Healthcare Pathways) student from 10th grade on and did her academics through an online program. Her GPA was ~89, with higher grades in the vo-tech program than in academic courses. No honors courses, no APs, 1 DE. SAT was 1030 (submitted to some of the schools). She was admitted to 3 direct entry programs and 3 pre-nursing programs. She chose a pre-nursing program in a small Christian college close to home (though she is living on campus). We made sure that there was a high chance that she would be able to enter the nursing program. She isn’t dyslexic so I can’t comment on that aspect, but she wasn’t a strong student in high school and is doing well so far in college, better than some students who were directly admitted. I attribute that to her strong desire to become an RN and her willingness to study hard. I think if you concentrate on the smaller, less competitive schools and carefully check out their disability services, she will have positive admission results and a good chance for success in a nursing program.
I’m not directly involved with the nursing program at my university, but over the past several years I have had a number of nursing students who take one of my courses to fulfill one of their gen-eds in humanities. (I teach linguistics, arguably the most science-y of the humanities.) A number of them have faced dyslexia or similar processing issues, and a handful have discussed them with me.
For nursing, I’d frankly be more stressed if the issue was dyscalculia than with dyslexia. No matter, though, support is going to be needed. Therefore, it will be critical for your child to connect with their university’s disability support services office both to make sure that appropriate accommodations can be made and to connect with any needed supports such as tutoring services.
I will note that nursing requires the ability to quickly and reliably distinguish between small differences in written (both handwritten and typescript) text, which of course hits at the core of dyslexia. This means that your child will also have to spend a fair amount of extra time essentially training themself in making such distinctions. This can, however, be done and done well; again, the university’s disability support services can point to resources.
So yes, it’s an extra hurdle, but honestly a manageable one, and one that has supports in place (it’s just a matter of accessing them). And completely separately, I’d echo the suggestion upthread to target direct-entry programs, even if only because that would help remove an additional stress at the outset.
Does she have particular strengths that should be taken into account? While nursing is a great goal and certainly not out of the question, there are a lot of different health care roles that can be rewarding, and kids aren’t necessarily aware of all of them. At this stage I would also consider broadening the focus a little bit and considering which roles could best capitalize on her strengths. That doesn’t mean she can or should avoid working around her challenges; it’s just worth thinking about both sides of the equation.
For example, some people with dyslexia have very good spatial skills. When you asked about nursing, one of the schools I thought of was Misericordia University in PA, which has a strong nursing program but also has an extremely well-regarded program in medical imaging. There are some folks with dyslexia who would truly excel in this field; others, not so much. https://www.misericordia.edu/medical-imaging
Likewise, some people with dyslexia can excel in the arts, and fields like art therapy, music therapy, etc. could be terrific.
I’m definitely not saying to give up on nursing - if it’s really what she would most love, then she should seek out a program with good supports and put in the effort to make it work. It’s just that a question focusing on deficits makes me wonder about particular strengths and how they might inform her decision process.
Is there a particular patient population or setting that she’s interested in?
@aquapt thanks for your thoughts. She really does not interest in anything else at this point. She has always worked around her challenges so I think we will need to have some good back up plans.
One possible backup could be becoming a Child Life Specialist. My friends who have kids with serious health conditions have frequently said that these professionals have been a godsend when their kids have been hospitalized. There are both undergrad and grad programs in this field:
I just wanted to say that I think @dfbdfb nailed it with this issue. I have two kids with dyslexia, and although they have excellent reading comprehension (after years of multi-sensory reading programs), they frequently make errors in writing/reading between two similar words, especially if they have similar meanings.
I can imagine my moderately dyslexic son in a medical terminology class. It would be like beating his head against a brick wall. His biggest weaknesses are 1. Spelling and 2. Learning new words visually, rather than orally/conversationally. My mildly dyslexic daughter might be able to get through it with support and determination, however, she would likely get anxious about making mistakes. I don’t know nursing well enough to know whether similar drug names could be an issue. I find the names of drugs hard to spell/remember, and I’m not dyslexic!
I really appreciate the other suggestions you’ve gotten on this thread. I’m always looking for people with experience with dyslexia and school/careers.
Others have made some excellent points in this thread, and I agree with them. Yes it is likely possible for her to be a nurse. And yes, those particular LDs will present a challenge both for training to be a nurse, and for the actual work of being a nurse.
One of my kids has dyslexia/dysgraphia but excels at math. He also has OCD/anxiety and ADHD. He wants to be a commercial pilot, but that won’t be possible for him because he will never receive medical clearance for even a basic pilot license. We will be having a conversation with him soon where we encourage him to pursue a career in avionics, but gently steer him away from piloting. My other kid has no LDs but has spent some time in hospitals, including with child life specialists. His hospital even has teen specialists, so cool! I have taught college courses to nursing students.
I LOVE the idea of child life specialist for your daughter if she’s interested. That could be an excellent fit for her. Child life specialists are so wonderful and I am grateful that they are becoming more and more common. I’m sure it’s an up-and-coming profession and I couldn’t be more thrilled about that.
I don’t want to discourage her from becoming a nurse. But it would also be unfortunate if she got far into her nursing program/career and found that the LD challenges were too much to handle. The dyscalculia could be a particular challenge because doing basic arithmetic on the fly is crucial for drug dosing, which is a bread-and-butter task in the inpatient setting. Modern electronic systems aim to reduce provider error, but it is far from foolproof, and it is still the human nurse that ultimately dispenses the drug. There are obviously nursing roles that wouldn’t involve much or any math (more outpatient or admin).
If she has her heart set on inpatient peds care, she may want to steer away from a role dispensing meds, and toward other roles.
Again, I don’t want to discourage her from pursuing her goals, but for her to have the information she needs to make the training and career choices that will be the best fit for her!