Hi, there! I’m Dr. Matt Zakreski. I’m a full-time professional speaker and clinical psychologist when I’m not writing articles. I specialize in working with gifted and neurodivergent people or people with different brains, such as those of us who are ADHD, Dyslexic, Autistic, gifted, OCD, etc. There’s a common misconception that neurodivergent folks are a tiny minority in modern society, but there are a lot more of them than you’d think. Research shows that one out of five people is neurodivergent.
Think about your four best friends. If none of them are quirky, off-beat, and unusual, then… congratulations! You might be neurodivergent! And if they all are, well, neurodivergent people tend to run in packs, so you still might be part of the club.
Traditionally, I’ve served kids and teens, but I’ve started doing much more work with adults and businesses over the last few years. Many of the strategies are similar, and I am passionate about fighting for those who have been traditionally misunderstood and underserved like neurodivergent folks tend to be. My journey started with one remarkable email:
Subject: WHAT CAN I DO??
“Dr. Matt, can you please help me figure out what to do with my employee ‘Tina’? [not her real name]. She is, without a doubt, the most talented programmer we have in the office, but she is SO unpleasant interpersonally. She is brash, rude, and has poor boundaries, and honestly, people don’t like being around her. Tina followed one of the employees into the men’s bathroom to yell at him for getting some code wrong! I know she’s brilliant, but she has to learn how to get along with others, right? She gets more done than anyone else when she’s here, but her presence also decreases the effectiveness of the rest of my team. I don’t want to fire her, but I also can’t risk alienating my entire team. What do I do?”
Wow. She followed him into the bathroom? Now that’s the kind of email that sticks with you.
Most systemic supports for neurodivergent people have traditionally existed within the educational system. Many neurodivergent learners need special accommodations to fully access their education, whether that’s extra time to complete tasks, working in different environments, scaffolding to get things done, and time and space to self-regulate. Those accommodations are usually implemented through an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), which is covered under the FAPE provision of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). FAPE stands for Free Appropriate Public Education, which states that all students, regardless of their learning needs, deserve equitable access to meet their educational needs (and without added financial burden). Other accommodations, including behavioral support and communication strategies in the classroom, are covered under the 504 Plan aspect of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 504 Plans can be used to aid kids with ADHD and Autism in addition to helping students with physical challenges, eyesight or hearing disabilities, allergies, trauma, chronic illness, and many more.
You might be familiar with these terms and systems if you have kids. As a clinical psychologist who works with many kids, I spent a lot of time in IEP and 504 Plan meetings because we all work to ensure that everyone has concrete, overt strategies that allow them to learn. And even though mindset is so prevalent in the educational years of a child’s life, the supports have traditionally fallen off a cliff once a child turns 18 and leaves formal education. The American workplace has been slow to adopt these similar mindsets, but things are really starting to shift in that space. And that’s where you come in!
The framework of a 504 Plan is very similar to that within the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which covers aspects of a person’s life (physical, emotional, medical, and psychological) that would interfere with their ability to live effectively. When a 504 Plan is implemented, it gives the person and the system a set of guidelines around what that person can do, can’t do, and needs help doing while, vitally, laying out the groundwork for how to help them get those needs met. For example, a common accommodation in a 504 Plan is to allow students to move around in the classroom if they need to move their bodies to best learn. The Human Resources version of this accommodation would give your employees options for a standing desk, a swivel chair, or working from home. These may be things already being done in your office, but formalizing the process protects the employers AND the employees (just like these 504 Plans protect students and schools).
Standard accommodations for your neurodivergent employees include:
1) Voice-to-text software (good for those with dyslexia and dysgraphia)
2) Sensory rooms (Autism)
3) Cloud-based schedules that can be accessed from anywhere (ADHD)
4) Private offices (everyone!)
5) Working from home as needed (everyone!)
6) An assistant to take care of day-to-day minutiae while they focus on big-picture concepts (giftedness, ADHD)
But what does this have to do with Tina?
Tina, the employee in this case, was struggling because she was neurodivergent (gifted and Autistic, for the record). She was shocked to find that her employer and co-workers were put off by her behavior. Her initial response was: “Well, I’m right, so if they’re offered, that’s not my problem!” but when that bluster wore off, she wanted to quit; “if they hate me so much, then I just don’t work for them!” However, she not only liked her job, but they also needed her to meet their goals. So quitting, while tempting, wasn’t going to be a long-term solution. So, what was there to do?
We started by changing the level and amount of resources. Tina didn’t want to come into the office, and her teammates didn’t want her there. So, we changed her contract so that she could work from home and only had to come into the office for mandatory meetings (about 5-8 per year, usually when the CEO or CTO were in town).
“Thank goodness for Zoom!” she said. When Tina was in the office, she had a printed schedule for the day and some bulleted talking points for the meeting(s). This helped her feel more in control and less anxious. She was allowed to have a place to retreat to to calm her nerves. And perhaps most importantly, the company provided her with the support and resource for me to continue working with her to build her social and emotional skills.
The major takeaway is that we can change the environment and the plan, but we must also set people up for success by teaching them new skills on how to do better if they’re ever going to actually DO better. That’s where I come in. Social skills are a series of techniques that can be taught and mastered. I’ll talk about that more next time in the next article in this series!
Why does all this matter?
If one out of five people is neurodivergent, that means that working with, for, and under neurodivergent adults is not an “if” it’s a “when.” Some fields tend to draw certain types of neurodivergent folks—Autistic people in Computer Science/IT, ADHD people in marketing, and dyslexic people in the arts, to name a few broad examples, but these people are in every office and in every town doing basically every kind of job. The more we understand about our colleagues, coworkers, and clients who are neurodivergent, the more empowered we are to effectively help them and not lose our minds while doing so.
Here is a brief summary of a few common neurotypes:
1) ADHD: – Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. ADHD is not just the “hey, squirrel!” thing that it’s portrayed as in the media; it is a complex neurodevelopmental pattern of underperformance in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of our brain. I point out ADHD as a brain difference because there are still a lot of people out there who think that ADHD is caused by too much sugar or TikTok. The PFC is the part of our brain where our Executive Functioning skills are, which include time management, organization, impulse control, emotional regulation, task initiation, and task completion. Gosh, do you think any of those skills are necessary to be effective in the office?
2) Autism: Autism Spectrum Disorder. This is a broad range of neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication. Autistic people (many of whom in the community prefer using ‘identity-first’ language, as opposed to ‘person with Autism’) range in functioning from remarkably gifted and drastically impaired. Autistic people come with many strengths that are as varied as any community. Over the past several years, there has been a huge push to employ more Autistic people, with Employee Resource Groups and special hiring companies such as Auticon (https://auticon.com/) and Aspirtech (https://aspiritech.org/) .
3) Gifted – giftedness is much more than the really smart kid you hoped to be paired up with in Chem Lab in High School. Giftedness is its own neurotype that comes with significant strengths (rapid processing, creativity, deep recall of information) and significant weaknesses (weaker social-emotional skills, an intolerance of people who don’t think/work as fast as they do). Giftedness is not a question of being “elite;” people who are gifted aren’t any better or worse than anyone else. It might be helpful to think of them as very tall; yes, tall people can do things that short people can’t, but they also struggle with some things that people of typical height can do without worry. It is a question of difference, rather than being “better.”
4) Dyslexia – dyslexia is a neurodivergence that impacts a person’s ability to read and process words. Dyslexic people may struggle with reading, writing, processing sound, and phonetic awareness, but they tend to be remarkable problem-solvers and strong communicators. Think of how much of our world is based on words! If you’re going to make it as a dyslexic person, you’re basically forced to develop strong coping skills. If you play to a dyslexic person’s strengths, their creativity and resilience will undoubtedly surprise you.
As a psychologist, I will argue that meeting the social, emotional, and occupational needs of neurodivergent people is the right thing to do morally and ethically. The cool thing is that it is also the right thing to do for the bottom line. Neurodivergent people are a HUGE untapped job market; they have skills others might not have and perspectives that your other employees would never consider. To return to Tina for a moment, she hated the fluorescent bulbs in the office while she was there; a few other people did, but only Tina was motivated enough to do something about it. She researched LED lights, found that they were cheaper and more pleasant, and found a state grant program that paid for the changeover for ten years! Most people in the office never thought about the lighting, but Tina (like many neurodivergent people) has significant sensory issues. The fluorescent lights were really bugging her, so she found a solution that not only improved the quality of life for the office but saved the company money.
Diversity is what makes people great. We have different races, ethnicities, religions, creeds, sizes, shapes, genders, sexualities, and more. Let’s add neurodiversity as another piece of that beautiful mosaic. When we embrace a diversity of thought, we make the world richer, and more interesting, inclusive, and lucrative. And then we all win!
About The Author
Matthew “Dr. Matt” Zakreski, PsyD is a professional speaker and clinical psychologist who specializes in working with neurodivergent (gifted, 2e, ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, etc.) people. He has spoken almost a thousand times all over the world about supporting neurodivergent people in all walks of life, from schools to college to the workplace. Dr. Matt specializes in taking knowledge of the brain, human behavior, and clinical psychology and making that accessible and practical for people to improve their lives.
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