It’s World Autism Month, also called Autism Acceptance Month, which is great. I think knowing more about autism, and being more accepting of autistic people, is great. Let’s do that. Let’s do it all month! Let’s do it in the rest of the months, too!
One thing common to Autism Month, particularly in the creative industry, is posts extolling the benefits of autistic employees. We’re creative problem solvers, and we have different perspectives, and we’re more focused, and we’re more honest, and we’re a secret weapon and office diversity is good and companies are more profitable when they’re more neurodiverse, and cool, I’m glad we can be such an excellent tool to improve your productivity.
… Sorry. It’s kind of a sensitive point for me.
In addition to all that, autistic people are also human beings who, when qualified to be hired for jobs, should be hired for jobs because they’re qualified. But a lot of myths and misconceptions can stand in the way of autistic people getting hired, or get them hired for a job that isn’t a good fit. So I’m going to share some fun facts about autism you might not know, and fix some of those misconceptions you might have been carrying around.
Fun Autism Fact: We’re all individuals.
I don’t think anyone would openly, consciously assume autistic people are all the same, any more than people would assume that about any other group. But subconsciously, yeah, maybe. But, in fact, we are all individuals.
If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person. (IYMOAPYMOAP.) While an autism diagnosis is based on certain common criteria, the actual experience of being autistic varies greatly. And we don’t all think the same, either — the autistic community doesn’t even agree on some basic topics like what terminology to use. We have different talents and qualities and face different challenges and require different levels of support. (That’s how it’s discussed, btw, in terms of high or low support needs rather than “high-functioning” or “low-functioning” — I’ll touch on it in a minute.)
You haven’t met “an autistic person,” you’ve met Steve. And while hopefully meeting Steve has made you more aware of some of the nuances of autism, if you meet Annette and say, “Hey, want to talk about trains?” she’ll probably look at you like you’re on drugs, and she’ll be within her rights to do so.
Misconception Fix: We are, in fact, like, regular people.
I mentioned the posts talking about hiring autistic people and our different way of thinking, different perspectives, creative problem-solving skills, and so on. And while that’s not untrue, it also makes me cringe a little (even when it’s posted by an autistic person — we don’t always agree!) because I don’t want to be hired for my Autism Superpowers — I want to be hired for my talent. Autism is a thing that happened to me, but my exceptional copywriting work is something I nurtured myself. Y’know, like a person.
Hiring autistic people for our autistic traits gets kind of dehumanizing. It turns us into “secret weapons” or assets or creativity generators to be pumped for our brilliance. It’s great to make an effort to include people of all neurotypes in your hiring method, and it’s cool to highlight the strengths common to autistic people and not just the challenges. Just remember that when it comes down to it, we’re people, and you should hire autistic people as people who are good at their job.
Fun Autism Fact: The “spectrum” isn’t that kind of spectrum.
People often imagine the “autism spectrum” as a straight line from “barely even autistic” to “wow, hella autistic,” but it’s not like that. You can think of it more like a color wheel — autistic people all have different traits and challenges that we exhibit to different degrees. Executive function, language, cognitive function, sensory issues — an autistic person might have major issues with some and minor issues with others, affecting their lives in different ways, so trying to identify what configurations might qualify as “more autistic” or “less autistic” doesn’t really work out. (Nor does — sorry, folks — “everyone’s a little autistic.”)
Autism is also usually accompanied by what I like to call ride-alongs (because “co-occurring conditions” is a mouthful.) Technically, diagnostically, autism is characterized by social challenges and repetitive behaviors, and most of the other traits we experience are kind of bolted on, like intellectual disabilities, ADHD, sensory issues, learning disabilities, and so on. They come so frequently attached to autism that we don’t even usually discuss it in terms of autism and [insert commonly associated conditions] — they’re just “autism things,” and different people experience them to different degrees. So: wheel.
Misconception Fix: What you’re seeing on the surface isn’t, in fact, necessarily what’s going on underneath.
This isn’t to say autistic people are, like, dishonest or secretive or something. Autism is just very much an inside thing, and neurotypical people tend to like making assumptions based on outsides. It’s easy to assume a person with a flatter affect doesn’t actually have emotions going on, isn’t excited or upset, but they very well could be — it’s just going on inside, even if it’s not showing a lot on the outside.
It’s easy to assume a person who’s slow to process information or answer questions isn’t that bright, but that’s probably untrue — the information is probably in there, but it’s hard for the person to access, and you could get some really good ideas if you’re patient and give them a minute. And it can be particularly easy to look at a nonspeaking person and assume that because don’t speak, they don’t have anything to say, but you could be very wrong about that — there could be plenty going on in there, and they just need a method other than the spoken word to express it. (I mentioned “high performing” and “low performing” — they can make it easy to miss the struggles of a “high performer” or the potential of a “low performer,” so talking about levels of support needs puts the focus on the needs of the autistic person rather than the visible, potentially misleading “performance.”)
Yes, it’s a little bit of work to learn this novel and unfamiliar way of reading people. (I’ll touch on that in another minute.) But it’s worth the effort. And God knows we’re doing work on our end.
Fun Autism Fact: Boy howdy, are we doing work on our end.
A lot of that work is called “masking,” which is, consciously or unconsciously, working to hide our autistic traits and appear “normal.” Forcing eye contact when it’s uncomfortable, forcing ourselves to tolerate intolerable sensory stimuli, suppressing stims, and mentally scripting social interactions to avoid seeming awkward are just a few examples of the way many autistic people try to put on a neurotypical front for your benefit. That’s why “lack of eye contact = dishonest” and “camera-off meetings = slacking” can be unfair, if not a little bit hurtful — y’all, for real, we’re doing our best.
There’s a theory related to autism called the “double empathy problem,” which posits that social challenges aren’t entirely on the autistic person failing to understand the person on the other end of the conversation — they’re also on the other person in the conversation failing to try to understand the autistic person. It’s like two people speaking different languages — if a Spanish-speaker is struggling to get their point across in English, you could say, “Eh, I don’t understand you, laters,” or you could learn a little Spanish to better understand them and hold up your end of the communication.
I mean, a huge part of our job as advertising people is understanding our audience so we can effectively communicate our message to them. Maybe extend that effort to your autistic colleagues as well.
How to hire autistic people
This one has gotten a little bit challenging of late, since any active efforts you might undertake could get you accused of the dreadful DEI. (HORRORS. Put on pearls, and then clutch them.) But at the very least, you can make sure your hiring process takes into account the fact that not everyone you interview will be the same. You might have already passed up on some talented creatives because their lack of eye contact or their struggle with small talk or their flattish affect made you overlook their actual talent. Rethink your standards for “nailing the interview,” and keep that in mind while you’re interviewing.
And it’s good to keep in mind that you might already have autistic employees and not know it — they might not have disclosed it to you, or might not even know. What to do about that? Provide accommodations as if everyone were autistic! Offer WFH options, make sure you have at least a few quiet spots in your trendy open office, make expectations clear and use consistent systems and processes. The cool thing about just about any disability accommodation is that they also benefit people who aren’t disabled.
So, happy Autism Acceptance Month! And in case you were wondering, there’s no better way to celebrate Autism Acceptance Month than to have a red velvet cake DoorDashed to your favorite autistic copywriter. Nothing says “I embrace you”* like a cake that has “I embrace you” written on it.
*Figuratively. Hugs from strangers make me uncomfortable.