Why so much hostility toward reasonable adjustments for autistic/ADHD students/workers?

[KeenTaupeDog]

I keep seeing backlash whenever someone with autism/ADHD asks for reasonable adjustments. Things like:
• being accused of cheating or getting “special treatment”
• people assuming you're lying or gaming the system
• resentment for accommodations that simply level the playing field

Why do so many people react this way?
Is it ignorance about what these conditions actually mean?
Envy?
Fear that fairness is “zero-sum”?
Or something deeper around stigma toward invisible disabilities?

Would be interested in honest perspectives — especially from those who’ve witnessed or experienced this dynamic.

If you dont think adhders etc. should be employed if they cant stay in work due to their adhd, then are you happy with them sitting at home and claiming benefits? Or dying of hunger?

Not looking to fight — just trying to understand where this reaction comes from.
Am a apsergers sufferer and people at uni accused me of cheating when they found out i had remote exams

Quite often you will be first out at cut downs if you request accommodations being NT with invisible disablities.
The understanding of invisible disablities is 0 in most of society.
Most people with invisible disablities simply have to find a job they can manage and work it out on their own or rely on benefits.

And and are vulnerable if they as NTs are given more work due to ND's demands for adaptations

on the exam point - maybe if it’s just supposed to be a test of knowledge, then do away completely with a time limit? Everyone take whatever time they need. How would those who get extra time currently feel about that?

I’d be fine with that.

Actually, to expand on that. I know Open University (don’t know if anyone else does this) have exams for some modules that are designed to take the standard 3 hours but give everyone either 24 hours or 3 days to complete and submit. I think that kind of thing is a fantastic idea. Most people shouid be able to complete in the 3 hours but anyone who can’t can take the time they need.

I'm against middle aged professional women suddenly needing infantilizing if that's what you mean.

See a couple of posts up where somebody said it better than me.I m not pandering to it in the workplace or other.

You suddenly need a million adjustments to get through life.Do it on your own time and not on your employers or on your fellow colleagues, you have to pick up your slack.

but nobody is asking for that.
The sideswipe at middle aged women was vile, and needed to be called out whoever made it.

Because from where i'm sitting it looks as though younger people think that older women should do all the shit stuff all the time and fuck 'em.

ETA: and i'd want to see robust data on that happening before i see it as anything other than tedious mumsnet ageism with an added dose of misogyny

Dd did 24 hour exams over lockdown.
She loved them. Gave her plenty of time to think and worked had for certainly 18 out of those 24 hours and got high marks. Stanislaus been a slow but accurate worker.
Her housemate (same subject) hated them. She struggled to concentrate for that long and needed much more sleep.
In the 3rd year They went back to 3 hour exams and dd2 did worse, but her housemate did way better.

24 hour exams don't suit everyone. In particular they won't suit people with fatigue who can't keep going as long as others. That's a different disability which is then disadvantaged.

Hi, I'm autistic and an ambulatory wheelchair user and yes many wheelchair users can get upstairs. It causes significant pain, stress and days of discomfort. Similarly so does using the phone for unscripted conversations just in a completely different way. I go mute, get overwhelmed, have self harming stims and would pluck my head bald from trichotillomania. I can physically pick the phone up and probably say "I'm, yes, hello?" But as soon as that conversation goes off script my throat will close up or I will go into shutdown mode.

I used to work in a contact centre, my job was webchat based. I went on mat leave and came back and found the entire business had restructured and everybody was expected to take calls. I was managed out of a job that I was perfectly capable of doing before they mandated everybody started taking calls. So it isn't always the person choosing the wrong job it's the job changing mid employment.

It's that 'I want what he's got' thing! I see it all the time in school. The children with dyslexia who get to do Nessy on the Ipads are eyed with envy. If you say the children who need to use the counters/dienes to do the maths, they'll all scramble for them including those who could do the maths standing on their heads. It must be part of human nature. Not a very good part.

24 hour exams don't suit everyone. In particular they won't suit people with fatigue who can't keep going as long as others. That's a different disability which is then disadvantaged.

It depends I guess. I haven’t actually done them, but if it’s an exam that could genuinely be completed in 3 hours by the average student then people who can’t keep going for as long don’t have to use the 24 hours - or could do it in several sessions, resting between.

This is interesting - is it only open university that do this?

That’s not my reading of the thread at all.
I’m a middle aged woman myself, I find the whole fad for diagnosing yourself midlife so tiresome.

i am neither here nor there on what middle aged women do. Each to their own.

I do have issues with the way the phrase was used more than once. As though middle aged women should always just STFU

As others have said, it comes down to fairness and there isn't a one size fits all. My severely dyslexic friend needed extra time in exams to have a fighting chance at showing what they could do. The students when I was at secondary whose parents openly admitted to essentially buying a private diagnosis just before exam time so their little darlings could get extra time and outperform others did not deserve it and that understandably caused resentment. And before anyone jumps on me, the parents were quite brazen and coached their children what to say to get the outcome they wanted. Properly sharp elbows and this is to the detriment of those who genuinely needed adjustments and those who didn't but didn't get the same extra time so were at a relative disadvantage.

Though if we are doing middle aged... my experience working in a field where ASD people can be very sucessful is that the ASD-related interpersonally challenging behaviour exhibited by some (of course not all) ASD people is much more tolerated in middle aged men than middle aged women. So there's that.

People worry too much about extra time being an advantage rather than a leveller (in gcses at least). Having been an invigilator the last two exam seasons. pupils finish in plenty of time in most subjects. There's very few sat writing to the last second.

Some children even need the time constraints to 'perform'

I think the vast majority of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists would see through this kind of cheating. They have ways to corroborate the information, for example by reviewing information from Different sources and by asking the same question in different ways.

In the workplace I think the main issue that comes up is RA impacting colleagues workloads. where I work reduced caseloads means more cases for someone else, we don't have the funds to pay for an additional person because one employee can't do the required level of work. That is what bothers people in my experience, not the perception of advantage

The problem is though that you're assuming they both complete the exam, and that only 3 hours is enough for either to complete. And that the people who can manage to work for longer will stop when they've done enough to get through.

In dd's first year the exams had already been set assuming 3 hours. They gave them 24 hours.
Some, like my DD spent around 18 hours working at every question. When adjusted, round the bell curve she got about 75%.

Her flatmate, couldn't work in more than 3 hour bursts and needed a full 8 hours sleep. So she was working at best 9 hours total. When adjusted she got less than 50%.

In their final year they returned to 3 hour exams and the results were approximately reversed once adjusted.

If they'd be only done 24 hour exams, then DD could well have got a 1st, her flatmate would have got a 2.2.
If they'd only done 3 hour exams then her flatmate should have got a 1st, DD a 2.2.

Because in exams it's about the bell curve, it does matter how everyone else does
So if the majority of people are able to work for longer and bring their mark up 10%, then the ones who cannot spend as long on it will look relatively bad and be disadvantage.

Me too. I had to stop my last job because they refused to make disability adjustments. I posted on MN at the time & got short shrift (for wanting a lift as steep stairs are hard with crutches). In rhe end I was not kept on at the end of a 1yr trial period. I also had to sign an NDA as part of my leaving. Ironically it was a charity supporting vulnerable people.

Do you mean you wanted them to install a lift?

Just give the questions to everyone in advance.

But not all autistic people are registered disabled.

And I don't agree with you that "disabled" is the definition of autism, or of ADHD. People with autism or ADHD may be disadvantaged by it, but by no means will all of them be disabled by it.

I would not describe myself as disabled or my husband as disabled. We have some difficulties that most other people don't have, but we also have some abilities that other people don't have. We aren't "disabled".

I was wondering this too

Agreed, and this should become more common practice. Unless thinking on your feet under pressure is an essential skill of the job, perhaps.

I dont know what registered disabled means?

but the diagnostic criteria for autism matches the equalities act definition of disabled very well. You may not identify as disabled and thats your choice but you would still recidve protection from discrimination or be able to ask for adjustments.