What does it mean to promote neurodiversity?

"Many institutions of higher education, particularly the highly competitive schools, are unwittingly failing people during the admissions process when it comes to considering neurodiversity," writes Rob Hahn in a recent opinion piece for the New York Daily News.

Rob's son, Bobby, has Asperger’s; and, as Bobby was applying for post-secondary programs, Rob grew increasingly frustrated with universities' admissions policies.

"When many schools highlight their incoming freshman class, you’ll see data related to students of color and first-generation college students, but you won’t see a number related to students who identify as neurodivergent," continues Rob. "As schools continue to focus on race, socio-economic backgrounds and gender, they’re failing to admit some of the brightest individuals."

Bobby's experience led Rob to create The Neurodiversity Challenge, an initiative that helps institutions of higher education and companies do a better job at understanding more fully the value of neurodiversity; actively recruiting, admitting, and hiring more neurodivergent individuals; and celebrating neurodiversity by publicly highlighting how these individuals contribute uniquely to the overall diversity of a school or business.

Like Rob points out: neurodiversity is not about charity work. Instead, neurodiversity is about supporting, celebrating, and providing pathways of success for neurodivergent individuals. Neurodivergent students and employees are in no way less capable than their neurotypical counterparts.

In fact, JPMorgan reports that "after three to six months working in the Mortgage Banking Technology division, autistic workers were doing the work of people who took three years to ramp up – and were even 50 percent more productive."

Particularly now, in a world that looks different and feels so uncertain, neurodiversity is now. If you have not yet made neurodiversity a priority this year at your institution of higher education or business, allow me to highlight a few reasons why you are missing out on an incredible opportunity:

1. Neurodivergent individuals have the right to quality education and meaningful employment--just like we all do. 

28-year-old Oliver Willcox has a master's degree in applied math from Loyola University Chicago but applied to over 100 jobs before being hired at Iterators, a Boston software-testing company which only hires neurodiverse candidates.

Oliver also has ADHD, social anxiety, and a speech and language disorder.

"It was very frustrating," Oliver told Here & Now reporter Robin Young about his job search. "I was told that I was not a culture fit, or appeared very nervous. They turned me down not because of my skills, but because of things I can't change about myself."

Oftentimes, it is practices like standard interviews that prevent talented neurodivergent candidates from landing the job or gaining acceptance into a college or university. For many fields of work and study, does your ability to perform in a traditional interview really indicate your capability of doing the job well or potential success in a program of study?

2. Neurodivergent individuals have unique skill sets and talents that universities and businesses can benefit from.

“15 years ago, hiring neurodiverse people was seen as more of a corporate responsibility thing: it was about fairness, not organisational performance,” said Ed Thompson in an interview with freelance journalist Lucy Jolin. Ed is the founder of Uptimize, a company which provides training tools for neurodiverse people.

“If the diversity business case is so significantly about diversity of thought," he continued, "there is no more obvious way to do that than to hire people who literally think in a different way. And one of the reasons why this is exploding is because that is so tangible.”

As an example, many neurodivergent students and employees have strong attention-to-detail and "systemisers" skills, meaning they have the keen ability to spot patterns and trends easily. These skills, as well as their capacity to process information, data-driven thinking, and inferential reasoning mean that workplaces and campuses that are more neurodiverse are more productive, innovative, and better able to spot problems and develop solutions.

More than that, neurodivergent individuals are (in general) better equipped to thrive in a physically-distant workplace.

"In addition to our naturally occurring cognitive differences, neurominorities also have lived experience of isolation and limited choice that makes many of us well suited to the new social restrictions," writes Dr. Nancy Doyle, an organizational psychologist specializing in neurodiversity.

3. Neurodivergent individuals are less likely to complete a post-secondary program of study and are more likely to be unemployed.

College enrollment for students with autism spectrum disorders will increase by at least 114% in the next few years. However, fewer than 20 percent graduate or are even on track to graduate five years after high school. In addition to that, 85% of individuals with autism are underemployed or unemployed.

Despite their talent or skills, many neurodivergent individuals "fall through the cracks," so to speak, because institutions of higher education and companies fail to create basic support systems or accommodations.

Why is this so? I think that Harvard Business Review's Robert D. Austin and Gary P. Pisano make a good case:

"The second problem [why neurodiverse accommodations are not being made], especially common in large companies, derives from the assumption that scalable processes require absolute conformity to standardized approaches. As mentioned, employees in neurodiversity programs typically need to be allowed to deviate from established practices. This shifts a manager’s orientation from assuring compliance through standardization to adjusting individual work contexts. Most accommodations, such as installing different lighting and providing noise-canceling headphones, are not very expensive. But they do require managers to tailor individual work settings more than they otherwise might."

Neurodiversity is now. In 2021, my goal is to leverage my 35 years of experience in special education to help post-secondary institutions and places of employment better support neurodivergent students and employees so we can get closer to achieving #InclusionForAll.

If your university, college, or trade school does not provide clear pathways to graduation for neurodivergent students or if your business does not provide meaningful employment opportunities for members of the autism community, please send me an email. I would love to connect!