As someone who was diagnosed as autistic relatively late in life, acceptance and accommodation of neurodiversity is a subject that’s personal to me – I know from experience how different my life would be without the “hacks” that bridge the gap between me and the neurotypical world, and how hard I continue to have to fight to get them.

Neurodiversity acceptance and celebration is more than a moral obligation – it enriches your organisation and team, gives you tools and techniques to make your entire workforce more fulfilled and effective, and increases your resilience through a broader set of perspectives and viewpoints.

Fundamentally, neurodiverse people think and process the world differently, and the neurodiverse conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia and more describe common traits or patterns of thinking. These differences mean that the neurotypical world – the world designed by the majority of people who aren’t neurodiverse – can be anywhere from mildly uncomfortable to totally impossible to comprehend or manage for a neurodiverse friend or colleague.

I’m going to assume that you’re a responsible, socially conscious team who wouldn’t dream of ignoring a request by a disabled colleague or customer for reasonable adjustment for their disability; however, I’d suggest that’s not enough – we need to normalise the embracing of neurodiversity in the workplace and beyond because, whilst it will be of immeasurable benefit to your neurodiverse colleagues, everyone will benefit from it.

First, a few facts you might not be aware of.

Some estimates put as many as 15-20% of the population as neurodiverse.

So, if 1 in 5 or so of your colleagues, customers, suppliers, freelancers, contractors or partners isn’t asking you for accommodation for their neurodiversity, they may well be suffering in silence. Why? Well, one possibility is…

A high number of people are undiagnosed until later in life (if at all), self-diagnosed, or misdiagnosed as having mental ill-health rather than neurodiversity.

Getting a diagnosis of neurodiversity is hard. Stereotypes still prevail, and even the medical profession isn’t immune. Atypical neurodiverse presentations (ah, the irony!) – such as autism in girls – are often overlooked. Chronic NHS underfunding has a huge impact on diagnosis and support – in Bradford, a district of circa 500,000 people, the adult neurodiversity service is less than 3 FTE clinicians. When my diagnosis was first mooted, the only route to an NHS diagnosis was via this overworked and underrecognised team, who’d been closed for new referrals for a couple of years and had no date to reopen referrals. A private diagnosis costs upwards of £2,000, and some NHS trusts still won’t accept private diagnoses.

For this reason, many of the neurodiverse community consider self-diagnosis to be equally valid – because getting a diagnosis is long, hard, and potentially costly, meaning a substantial number of neurodiverse people would miss out on support if the bar is set as high as a clinical diagnosis. And, of course…

Disclosing a neurodiversity is hard.

I’ve never met a neurodiverse person who hasn’t suffered some form of discrimination, bullying, harassment, maltreatment or other negative reaction or response at some point in their life. Often, it’s thinly camouflaged by “I’m happy to make allowances but…” We’re often not victimised for our condition itself but the traits which are inherent in our neurodiversity. Such as training on empathetic managers making eye contact, something many of the most empathetic autistic people find deeply uncomfortable. Or, we’re met with a range of well-meaning but uncomfortable reactions or assumptions “you don’t look autistic”, “are you good at maths?”, “my {relative} is autistic and he …”, “your email was full of typos – that’s not professional”.

So, those 1 in 5 colleagues may feel uncomfortable talking about their condition, may feel unable to do so without a formal diagnosis which is unattainable for them, or may not even know they’re neurodiverse.

“Isn’t everyone a bit autistic?”

Please never say this to a neurodiverse person about their condition. There’s a whole range of reasons why it winds us up, and it isn’t true anyway. (Headline – it’s often used to minimise our needs as a precursor to refusing to accommodate them or otherwise ignore what we just disclosed. Even with the best of intentions, please just don’t go there.

BUT

Everyone DOES think differently. That’s why you have to go a long way to find two people with the same Spotify history, and there’s more than one restaurant open on Friday night. Diversity of thought is something to be celebrated.

Defining “good” versus “bad” diversity is a slippery slope, as history shows of one Hans Asperger (of Aspergers fame) who spent his War years working for the Third Reich as part of the machinery to sterilise or murder “the wrong sort of autistic person”. Many autistic people are deeply worried about research aiming to find genetic causes of autism as something that will lead to selective abortion of people who may turn out to be autistic – a current concern in 2023, not consigned to the history books.

So, celebrating diversity, neurodiversity and differences in thinking benefits us all.

We need to normalise accommodating neurodiversity.

What does this look like? Well, imagine a world where people actively ask you how you like to work, communicate, interact with your colleagues. For me, an openness to embrace this is the difference between my top A game and my distinctly D minus or below.

When my communication preferences are respected, I get concentrated time to focus, set myself up by following my day routine and am working in my physical comfort zone (with a healthy dose of symphonic metal on noise cancelling headphones), my fingers fly over the keyboard, churning out line after line of code and feature after feature of wonderful software. Start to compromise on those things, and it feels more and more like wading through treacle until I feel I might as well not bother being at work at all. The difference between good and bad days is indescribable.

But, whilst autism means there’s a slightly drastic reason for that in my case, good and bad days are true for everyone to a greater or lesser degree. And it usually boils down to environment – distractions, interruptions, discomfort, etc.

So why not normalise accommodating different ways of working and thinking? Why make the ability to work at our best something we have to fight for?

How about these ways of normalising accommodating neurodiversity:

When forming a new project team, take the time to ask and get to know how people work, what their working hours are, how they like to collaborate and communicate? At PatronBase, we do this as part of every project in the kick off phase – it may benefit neurodiverse people more than most, but we think it’s good for everyone.

Treating comms preferences as if they were legal obligations to make reasonable adjustments, regardless of who makes them. In my case, when I ask you not to copy me into a topic, it probably is a request for reasonable adjustment, but does that matter? If someone asks not to be copied in, simply doing so without debate shows your empathy and abilities as a team player.

Seeking opportunities to discuss what’s comfortable and what isn’t, non judgementally. If a colleague often chooses to work in the meeting room, it could be because they find the open plan office too noisy or distracting. They might find the fluorescent lighting too harsh. They might find the fluorescent lighting too noisy (yes, that’s a thing). Normalising talking about comfort and discomfort may allow you to address issues impacting others.

Prioritising mental wellbeing – seeking to understand where your colleagues are at in terms of stress, positivity, burnout, fatigue, and acting on it. Sometimes, encouraging a colleague to take a wellbeing day is transformative; in other cases, helping a colleague keep busy at work as an escape from difficult times at home can help them far more than time off. Be willing to listen to your colleagues without scepticism, even if their reaction or needs differs from your own.

Focus on the “what” more than the “how” – for example, allow your colleagues to decide between video calls and chatroom conversations for regular check ins, on the basis that effective information sharing is more important than how the information is shared.

Embrace different viewpoints – encourage all participation, on the basis that no idea is a daft idea, and follow through (even if the idea seems impossible)

Be honest and open when you are unable to accommodate a request – having a frank discussion will be appreciated by your colleagues and may open the door to creative solutions.

These are all things that would have a huge impact on your neurodiverse colleagues but may well have positive impact on your neurotypical colleagues too, through fostering a culture of respect, empathy and openness.

And besides, can you afford to write off or hamstring up to 20% of potential colleagues, just because their square peg doesn’t fit in the hole that’s only round because “that’s how we’ve always done it”?