Stop asking neurodivergent people to change the way they communicate
Neurotypical people can do more to close the communication gap.
This article was originally published on the Harvard Business Review website.
The majority of career advice you can find scouring the internet — how to nail a job interview, how to be a better listener, how to have a difficult conversation with your boss — is not inclusive of neurodivergent (ND) people. More often than not, it puts the onus on ND individuals to adapt and conform to neurotypical (NT) expectations of communication, which can be harmful and counterproductive to the community.
Type ‘communication skills’ into your favorite search engine and the top results are likely to be filled with advice about the importance of appropriately interpreting and displaying nonverbal cues (such as facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice), maintaining eye contact and modeling confidence and friendliness during conversations, writing and speaking clearly, and so on. These are the skills, according to countless career advice sites, that will help you get the job offer, succeed in the business world, and ensure your bosses and coworkers like and trust you.
“If you can’t communicate clearly, be it due to a hectic thought pattern or inappropriate language, your job interviews will suffer,” the top search result in my browser warns.
Despite this, some of the most skilled and capable people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing or working with fail to demonstrate many (or any) of the ‘must-have’ social skills that have been embedded into our corporate culture. Nearly all of these people, who happen to be ND and communicate in ways less familiar to NTs, have stories about how they have struggled to get hired, to keep their jobs, or to advance in their fields due to the pervasive belief that those who lack such ‘essential skills’ will be less competent.
The luckier ones have managed to overcome multiple barriers and setbacks only because someone recognized their abilities and was willing to overlook their ‘oddities’. Some accomplished people with one or more ND diagnoses in my circle include a now highly sought-after autistic business analyst, a dyslexic scientist in the nuclear industry, computer programmers and techies, and many artists, musicians, and other creatives. But they still remain the exception.
The problem of deficit framing
The expectation that ND people must jump through mentally and physically demanding hoops to communicate ‘correctly’ if they want to succeed in the workplace (or even be allowed a spot in the workplace at all) assumes that the way NTs communicate is the only ‘normal’ or ‘correct’ way. It’s an outdated assumption that signals to ND people that their natural style is a deficit to compensate for, and it inevitably leads to misunderstandings. When this happens, barriers to full inclusion are upheld.
As an autistic person with ADHD, I’ve experienced the devastating consequences of being misinterpreted and wrongly judged. I spent more than a decade struggling (and often failing) to hold the jobs I needed to stay out of poverty and maintain the health insurance necessary to get the care that could help me remain employed.
When I finally landed my first official job as an editor, I thought, “This is it!” I was so excited to be working in downtown Chicago on the 44th floor of a building next to the Sears Tower. They even flew me to their Dallas office for a week to meet more of the team. I’d never worked anywhere where they’d pay for me to travel.
Unfortunately, one of my more challenging ND traits is auditory processing disorder, and trying to function as an editor in a busy office with an open floor plan was quite difficult. For the first time in my life, I resorted to talking to my doctor about documenting my need for accommodation, as required by the employer to receive any consideration. I was begrudgingly moved into an office with a door I could close, but offices were typically reserved for management. Though I was much more capable of producing high-quality work in the quiet environment, the writing was on the wall.
Long story short, I was fired within four months when my doctor didn’t submit additional documentation on time to prove my need for accommodation. My mental health deteriorated. Having internalized the repeated message that I was incapable and had no value to employers, I would go on to spend the next few years subsisting on a meager Social Security Disability income. The circumstances caused me to question whether life was even worth living.
The long road ahead
I wish I could say that the workforce knows better now. I wish I didn’t have to see my two ND children, now adults, facing the same uphill battle I did.
Though it’s estimated that 15% to 20% of the world’s population exhibits some form of neurodivergence, the arbitrary biases against those with minority neurotypes continues to exclude many intelligent, hardworking ND people from obtaining and progressing in meaningful and profitable careers. It’s estimated that as many as 85% of college-educated autistic adults struggle with unemployment in the United States. Over the next 10 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as many as 1.1 million autistic kids will turn 18 and (hopefully) be entering the workforce.
For this next generation, I dream of a world where our peers, managers, and leaders have at least a basic awareness of how some brains and bodies operate a little differently, and more importantly, that this is normalized.
Bridging the NT/ND divide
The research-backed view, emerging in recent years, is that NTs and NDs are merely speaking different — but equally valid — social languages. As such, it’s on NT people, as much as it is ND people, to bridge the communication gap.
Before diving into suggestions for ways NTs can be better communication partners, however, it’s important to understand that many conditions fall under the neurodivergence umbrella. Across these conditions, and between individuals, there’s a vast amount of difference in how we think, communicate, and behave. Our levels of intelligence vary, and we are just as diverse in our interests and abilities as anyone else.
While not everyone needs to become an expert on everything there is to know about autism, ADHD, and other neurodifferences, there are a few behaviors NT people can act on immediately to move towards a shared understanding with the NDs in their lives.
Acts of allyship
1) Check your assumptions.
In her article ‘Different Listeners Listen Differently: Crossing the Neuro-cultural Divide’, Beth Radulski, an autistic academic and researcher, advises allies not to assume that someone isn’t paying attention to what you’re saying simply because they aren’t ticking off all the boxes on your NT social cues checklist. Instead, gauge the outcome of the conversation for both of you. Was there shared understanding? Were mutual goals clarified? If unsure, ask or send an email to follow up.
“Most people would say they’d rather be genuinely listened to, than have someone pretend to listen,” Radulski reminds us. Rather than asking “How can I teach [the ND person] to listen?” …the question should be: “What makes YOU feel heard — and how does this relate to your understanding of neurotypical social cues?”
2) Check your assumptions, again.
Before attributing any ‘negative’ trait you observe to a person’s character, give them the benefit of the doubt. What you may perceive as a bad attitude because “He always has such an angry look on his face!” may be a wildly inaccurate accusation about your autistic coworker. Likewise, a coworker who constantly interrupts you in meetings (“How rude!”) could actually be managing ADHD (and may or may not be aware of it).
Radulski advises, “The key here is to try to develop an understanding of non-neurotypical social cues, so that you can consciously notice and cross-reference this with your feelings of being unheard, misunderstood, or disconnected, in situations where that may not necessarily be the case…. For many [ND people], ‘listening’ means rocking, flapping, or fidgeting to focus. It means allowing the gaze to fall naturally rather than focusing on interpreting eye contact.”
When behaviors, like frequent interrupting, impact others negatively, intervention may be appropriate. Ideally, a skilled, ND-aware person will address the bothersome conduct. Situations like this should be handled with sensitivity and address the behavior itself and its effect on others without passing judgement or assigning motivation to the individual.
3) Communicate as clearly and unambiguously as possible.
This is one of those areas where there’s a lot of variability between what works best for one person versus another; but as a general rule, you can’t go wrong with keeping your language free of euphemisms, sarcasm, and vagueness. I’ll never forget the time my mother asked my (then undiagnosed) autistic boyfriend who was living with us, “Do you want to take out the trash?” and to her horror, he simply answered “No” and went back to what he was doing. He was completely bewildered by the anger that followed. He had answered her seemingly direct question with an honest answer, oblivious to the linguistic politeness she was employing out of habit.
For many ND people, it’s also helpful to be addressed by our names and for the speaker to pause occasionally to give us time to consider their message and respond. It’s especially important to be mindful of the environment, as background noise and other sensory input can make it more difficult for us to process what is being said.
4) Stay flexible.
Your ND coworker’s state of being is highly variable. They may have seemed just fine in that 9am meeting, but don’t be surprised if their energy seems very different later that same day. Many of us are susceptible to becoming overwhelmed or fatigued by all of the sensory input we’re exposed to. The amount of sensory input we can tolerate varies from day to day, too, as it depends on numerous factors — from how much quality sleep we got the night before to how comfortable our new shoes are today. For more on this, I highly recommend reading about the Spoon and Fork Theory.
5) Ask us!
Let me just say that this particular advice comes with a caveat, and I’ll get to that. But if you’re unsure of what an ND coworker or other ND individual in your life might want or need, ask!
One of the most important questions I suggest asking is, “How do you prefer to be communicated with?” Many of us struggle with verbal instructions for various reasons. This has been one source of a lot of miscommunication and workplace misery for ND people like me. When verbal communication is unavoidable, and it often is, following up with an email recap of a conversation or meeting, with action items highlighted, can be a lifeline. And if you’re in a position to follow through, consider asking, “How can I best support you?” — and mean it.
The Caveat: Only a tiny fraction of ND workers feel safe disclosing their neurodivergence at work. According to a 2017 report, “among college-educated employees in white-collar work environments, 30% of those employees worked with some form of disability,” but only 3.2% chose to disclose their disabilities to their employers. That includes all disabilities, not just the invisible ones that fall under the ND umbrella (and not all ND people consider themselves disabled). Furthermore, a UK study in 2020 found that 50% of hiring managers in the UK say they won’t consider neurodivergent talent when making hiring decisions.
An uncountable number of us, whether we’ve disclosed or not, have had such traumatic experiences at work that deciding whether or not to say anything to our bosses puts us in an incredibly frightening position. As a consequence, it’s safe to assume that you may have more ND coworkers than you’re aware of. With this knowledge, you can give everyone a little more grace.
A final word
One day, it’s likely that people will look back on the last few decades with a fair amount of shame about how ND people have been denigrated and forced to conform to exist in an NT’s world — in the same way that in the modern day, most of us feel shocked that as recently as the 1960s (and beyond, in some cultures), left-handed kids were forced to write with their right hand or face punishment.
The corporate world bears some responsibility to help the largely NT members of their workforce bridge the communication gap. We have an opportunity, and a duty, to radically alter the workplace and remove the barriers to full participation. It is incumbent on those of us in the know to reframe conversations on neurodiversity in the workplace so NDs are no longer excluded from the table. When businesses truly welcome ND workers, not only will those workers’ lives be dramatically improved; the business itself, and society as a whole, will benefit.
JD Goulet (she/they) is an instructional designer at Harvard Business Publishing.