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

But where do we draw the line? At what point are we allowed to say that someone simply doesn’t have the skills or capabilities to do the job? Or is that unthinkable these days?

@Sweetpotatopudding No. I was told there was one in my branch at interview. I was not allowed to work in a different branch but told to climb the stairs on double crutches to my upstairs desk (lavatories on ground floor). Also required to do huge mileage. I'd said at interview I couldn't do stairs or much driving.

Sadly experience with remote interviewing shows that a subset of people will cheat given the chance. If they had the questions in advance I can guarantee they'd get someone else to prepare anwers for them.

We could do advance notice questions for a baseline but we'd still have to do at least a few unplanned questions face to face to make sure the interviewee is actually able to answer them.

And even aside from all that, interviewers are going to want to follow up questions raised by the initial answers. I can't imagine how a job interview could give value if the only questions that can be asked are the ones that were pre-disclosed. I think you'd have to redesign the whole thing into a written process so secondary questions could be raised to the initial responses.

Which has to come back to the question that is glaringly not being asked - what's in it for the employer? If there's an untapped teasure trove of NT employees out there it makes sense (and don't get me wrong, I think for some skillsets and some NT people that is absolutely the case) but if one just goes by this thread it seems like all the demands are being made of employers and colleagues simply in the belief that doing the right thing is its own reward.

Genuine question - does the government support employers with the additional overheads of Reasonable Accomodations?

There's loads of case law on where the line is drawn. It is indeed fine to say the request is unreasonable, if it is unreasonable. Costs, difficulty of implemtation, impact on colleagues, impact on business, being unable to do the core of the role can all be reasons to turn down a request. Its very individual to the size of company, disability and the request made.

How exactly does an autistic person register as disabled please? There is no central register!

Regarding interview questions, I agree that people will cheat if they know the exact questions, but there is definitely scope to make interviews more accessible by making it clear what structure it will follow, i.e. number of questions, what areas/ topics will be covered, who will be interviewing you etc.

Our workplace gives questions in advance as standard, except where there is a role where being able to think on your feet is critical. There really isn’t much, if any, cheating. Of course there are follow up questions but it really helps everyone be able to give their strongest examples.

Cheat in what way? It's not an exam. Interviews I have had are example and experience based. It just removes the element of pressure or sitting in silence trying to remember a time you dealt with a difficult customer or helped a colleague do whatever

Cheat in what way? Quite simply, lie.

Claim to have done things you have not, delivered things you have not, give examples of experiences that you have not in fact had, and you did not in fact learn from.

I guarantee if we circulated interview questions ahead of time we'd have some applictants use chatGPT to prepare some great responses.

Lots of things don’t come naturally, we have to work on them, that is not unique to ND people. The issue is generally that where one sees someone else getting an adjustment both that you would like/would make your life easier (especially where the change is not something the beneficiary of the adjustment cannot do, but per your example finds hard) & means you have to pick up the slack then off course one will feel resentful.

And please don’t pulll the “so you think we should all sit at home and claim benefits or starve” again, those are not the only 2 options. In many cases an alternative job might suit better, especially where a core part of the role is apparently so hated, see PPs comments about the young lady who wanted to be a barrister but couldn’t make eye contact.

Perhaps also worth reflecting on why you are so fixated in being a victim, if as you say your adjustments genuinely don’t create unfairness then why do you care what other people think?

"Here are some sample interview questions. Please suggest 3 great responses for each one and explain why each response is effective".

By cheat, I mean get chatgpt to write you the answer!

Registered disabled means receiving disability benefits.

They claim disability benefits.

No it doesn’t. That’s not a register.

It is routinely used in that sense. Registered disabled in common parlance means disabled and registered to receive benefits for your disability.

By no means are all ND people "disabled".

That doesn’t mean anything 🙄

Everyone with an autism diagnosis is disabled. Because autism is a disability.

Whose common parlance other than yours?

You can be disabled without claiming disability benefits. The law doesn’t discriminate.

I think it’s too simplistic to view the world as NT/ND. We are all individuals with strengths and weaknesses, stressors and triggers etc. We all have areas of work we’d rather not do or which cause us angst. Being NT doesn’t mean everything comes easily and we don’t have things we find difficult. Yet NT colleagues are having to do ever more due to the ever increasing amounts of colleagues with RAs.
So many people are claiming to be ND these days, some genuine, others I’d suspect not, that it can feel like there are more colleagues with RA than without. And this impacts hugely on a work team. For example, in my team of 8, only two have no RAs. Luckily we’re very much a team and our RAs largely balance out. But there are times when it can feel like a piss take when you’re the only one completing one aspect of the job (the heavy duty, tiring task) because no one else is able to.

It is the same reasons they hate people getting "special" treatment for being a single mother. I have flexible working and start later than other people. Because I can't get child care earlier. Ds2 has autism and I'm a single mother. There is no one, except during school holidays to leave my dc with.

Few colleagues have rolled their eyes and asked me to come in earlier. To help with the ward in the morning. I learned to say no and to tell the manger about the pressure some people try to put on me. I feel supported and when I mentioned it to her, the talking in front of me stopped. Being there for three years also helped.

I also have type 1 diabetes, which my work place occupational health said, I can get reasonably adjustment for and not do any night shift. Not a lot of people got jealous over that, as night shift pays more. Most time, jealously is irrational.

You can disagree all you like - doesn’t mean you’re not wrong 🤣

From the autistic society:

Autism influences how people experience and interact with the world. It is a lifelong neurodivergence and disability.

The Autistic Society have a vested interest in having the spectrum recognised as a disability.

And this is part of the problem with all this nonsense. There are people diagnosed with autism who can't even take themselves to the toilet and there are others who are the leaders of FTSE100 companies and brain surgeons.

It's a complete nonsense to consider all those people as disabled.

My husband has autism, he is not disabled by it. I have ADHD, I am not disabled by it.

Unless you also want to include being poorer than average, having a less than average IQ, being taller or shorter than average, and a million and one other things that cause people difficulties in life, as a disability.

Difficulty is not the same as disability.

The government also classify it is a disability- that’s why it’s protected under the equalities act.

You don’t have to agree with it and of course you’re well within your rights to say you don’t consider yourself disabled, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a disability.

It is considered a disability. That doesn't make it one.

Do you really think you can lump people who smear their own shit on walls with people who do brain surgery?

The coverall diagnosis of ASD is completely ridiculous, it is clearly not one disease. ADHD is potentially more likely to be one disease, though it has some very different flavours so that too is in doubt. And it is also a spectrum disease and not everyone who has it could possibly be classed as disabled by anyone but those with a vested interest in adopting that label.

I dont understand how it is possible to meet the diagnostic criteria for autism whilst not also meeting the equalities act definition of disabled, which is the important one when discussing reasonable adjustments. I dont know about adhd. The difficulties in an autusm diagnosis are supposed to be clinically significant.

There are other ways to think about disability, but this is a thread about reasonable adjustments so the equalities act is the relevant one.

Your reasoning also means my friend who is blind but a lawyer, and his friend who is blind but a IT manager, my colleague who is a deaf and a teacher and paralympians are not disabled because they do impressive things.