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# How to Survive with Dyslexia as a Developer

Severe dyslexia doesn't have to ruin your pull requests. Discover how IDE autocompletion, clever naming conventions, and generative AI can eliminate spelling barriers in your developer workflow.

- **Speakers:** [Niklas Wünnemann](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@niklas-wunnemann)
- **Event:** World Congress 2024
- **Published:** March 26, 2024
- **Duration:** 8:30
- **URL:** https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1845-how-to-survive-with-dyslexia-as-a-developer

## Summary

Working as a software developer with severe dyslexia presents unique communication and coding challenges, primarily stemming from phonetic spelling—the tendency to "write as I hear"—and a heavy reliance on text-based asynchronous workflows. While verbal communication can resolve daily team misunderstandings, typo-ridden commit messages or repetitive variable misspellings often create friction during pull requests and code review.

Navigating a modern codebase requires intentional strategies to minimize the impact of reading and writing disabilities. Leveraging the KISS principle in naming conventions alongside camelCase formatting allows IDE environment spell checkers to isolate and validate individual words accurately. Furthermore, heavily utilizing code auto-completion effectively eliminates structural typos, turning muscle-memory keywords and tab-completion for definitions into essential safety nets. However, plain text fields like code comments and print statements remain vulnerable to homophone errors and poor native spell-check coverage.

Generative AI and code prediction tools serve as the ultimate equalizers for neurodivergent developers. Integrating AI assistants like Tabnine or GitHub Copilot directly into the editor mitigates errors in unformatted text strings by forecasting developer intent. Meanwhile, feeding drafts of asynchronous messages, business emails, and technical documentation through large language models ensures complex terminology—such as multithreading or orchestration—is perfectly polished. By combining adaptive team culture, IDE capabilities, and AI workflows, learning disabilities do not have to hinder a successful engineering career.

**Keywords:** dyslexia in tech, neurodivergent software engineers, IDE auto-completion, AI code prediction, git commit messages, large language models, github copilot, developer communication challenges, KISS principle, pull request friction, writing technical documentation, tabnine, phonetic spelling limitations, software engineering accessibility, asynchronous workflows

## Chapters

1. **Understanding dyslexia and measuring its severity** (00:00) — An overview of dyslexia as a learning disability and how standard tests measure spelling and writing challenges.
1. **Navigating text-heavy team communication as a developer** (01:20) — Replacing hard-to-read text messages with verbal conversations prevents miscommunication in software teams.
1. **Writing code and minimizing errors with IDE tools** (02:59) — Shortening variable names and relying on integrated development environment auto-completion helps reduce spelling errors while programming.
1. **Correcting mistakes with AI and large language models** (05:44) — Using code prediction tools and large language models eliminates typos in commit messages and project documentation.
1. **Summarizing practical strategies for dyslexic software developers** (07:39) — Combining team adaptation with software features and artificial intelligence empowers engineers to manage learning disabilities effectively.

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