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

It's true that often people are excessively put out by minor differences that cost them nothing.

I am deaf. When I go to yoga, which sometimes I do, I need to see the instructor. When the instructor tells us to close our eyes, I do not close my eyes, because I'm trying to yoga here, and trying to decode what someone is saying without being able to see them is not relaxing. It's like saying here, empty your mind, and resolve these quadratic equations while you do that.

I have experimented with explaining, not explaining, emailing ahead of time, etc. Actually it doesn't matter what I do, most yoga teachers just absolutely cannot cope with me having my eyes open. They can't deal with it AT ALL. Even when they know why. It's a huge problem for them. It costs them nothing. I ask for nothing. I've just got my eyes open. Yet it will be brought up again and again; I will be urged to close my eyes, to relax, to go with it. They will pick and pick at me for this. I've tried a bunch of different teachers. None can imagine that I have this (slightly) different experience of the world and want to make this small, reasonable adjustment just for myself.

It's actually why I stopped going regularly. That's just one small example. People really do struggle with difference. I do understand why people feel they need a big stick, or hall pass, or bludgeon to get just normal practical things they need to get on with life.

But I don't think the solution is dividing the world up into NT and ND. I think it's a category error that causes more problems than it solves.

There are jobs - in fact whole organisations- where the requirements of the role actively suit highly academically able, ND people, in that such people will perform at least as well, if not better, than NT employees in the job’s key elements.

The adjustments required in relatively inessential parts of the jobs in such organisations are therefore absolutely worthwhile.

Where it is difficult is where an applicant or employee performs consistently less well in the job’s key elements due to their disability, in such a way that the adjustments that have to be made materially impact the scope or quality of the job done.

In some cases, those adjustments are still worthwhile - two employees can jobshare; the scope of the job can be altered; technology or aids can help. In others, the adjustments are unreasonable, and yes, the applicant has to find a job role that they fit better, in the same way as a non-disabled applicant may find their lack of certain abilities, skills, experiences or training mean they are not accepted by their preferred job and have to seek another.

I used to be a manager. The thing you learn fast, if you want to be a good manager, is to not accept poor performance. Nothing destroys the morale of a team faster if they see that poor performance is accepted.

Obviously, you then need to try and coach and/or make RA that will improve their performance - do they need more training, do they need different hours, do they have the right tools, do they need some time off to deal with a personal situation, can some processes be adjusted etc etc. But if it can't, or the person isn't willing, then the best thing to do for all concerned is to put them on a PIP and get them out. If the job is wrong for them, best they go find something they can do either within the organisation or elsewhere. Trying to fit square pegs into round holes is damaging to both the peg and the hole.

The above holds true for all staff, NT or ND

I’d say “I’m deaf so I need to see you to understand what’s going on” quite abruptly and loudly if I was “encouraged” to close my eyes. That would shut them up for sure.

Frankly, what else would it be?

‘Workplaces aren’t charities’ I completely agree.

Have you not read the thread?
It is also that some adjustments put extra burden on the other workers - when that isn't acknowledged or compensated for people feel rightly aggrieved.

I can tell you this does not work as I explained in my post, but thank you for your advice.

If you read the thread you would see what gets people's backs up. It's not on to accept a job and all that entails, then once you get settled in start trying to cherry pick the best bits and dump the crap on someone else. That isn't a RA it's blatantly unfair

Exams from at least A level upwards are supposed to demonstrate ability relative to other people. There is very little point in them if they don't do that effectively.

Like it or not, adult working life is a competitive activity.

Thinking more:
. adjustments that help someone do the job are good and reasonable
. adjustments that help someone to avoid aspects of the job can be more problematic for co-workers

That's the worst understanding of autism that I've seen in a long time.

Ha, spoken by someone who isn’t deaf.

The exact same happens to me - I just don’t do yoga or Pilates - if I can’t see the instructor, I generally don’t know what they are saying, and I don’t like wearing my aids when exercising. No one is going to be that person in the middle of a relaxation bit and go “SORRY I CANT HEAR YOU” and the instructor is not going to walk over and look at me for each instruction, and even if they did it would be the complete opposite of relaxing.

So those kinds of classes just aren’t for me. I might do something off YouTube at home, but so what?

"Trying to fit square pegs into round holes is damaging to both the peg and the hole.

The above holds true for all staff, NT or ND"

The trouble with that view, is that the square peg is seen as the problem. Whereas if people made the effort to square off their holes, or even use a box cutter in the first place when they were making their holes, the square pegs would be really useful.

Square pegs aren't the problem. It's the fact that society insists that all holes must be round.

Well that's fine, if you're going to operate a society which supports those people out of work because they don't have the ability to demonstrate their knowledge.

DD2 has an expressive language disorder. It means that she can't communicate her knowledge clearly and succinctly, so she can appear confused, lacking knowledge, not that bright. She took her driving theory test last week, after 10 days of practice. There are over 750 questions to learn. She scored 49/50. Because it was multiple choice, clicking options on a screen, so it took the language barrier away.

The problem is that we have a society which isn't willing to bend criteria to allow people to use their skills, won't employ them because they are a 'square peg', then uses their unemployment as a stick to beat them with.

Have any of you seen the job 'Hidden Figures'? There's a couple of great storylines that illustrate the issues quite well:

• the black 'computer' is working in a 'white' area but she needs the toilet. She has to run a mile in heels to the 'black' toilet. Then she's criticised for being away from her desk.
• the black woman 'computer' is trying to do complicated calculations, but the white male boss has redacted pretty much everything that would allow her to do the calculation. She's not allowed an unredacted copy because she doesn't have clearance, and she doesn't have clearance because she's a woman (and black).

There was no way she could be as good as the white males in that workplace. The whole system was against her.

That's what many disabled people face at work. Systemic barriers that are there because it works for people who don't have disabilities.

Interesting. I'm speaking from direct experience of friends and co-workers.

Not every autistic person is the same. But those whose disability results in an inability to deal with people are not well served, as a PP suggested, by removing "dealing with people" from a role that requires it and being left to form their own theoretical beliefs about what people would or should do.

Did you read the post I was replying to o just jump straight in with a knee jerk reply?

There is a difference between changing the environment in which a job is done to remove barriers, and changing the job itself because parts of the job that need to be done are "barriers".

Because it's not a genuine diversity of working environments in a structural sense.

There's so little room for genuine structural flexibility where it counts. Recruitment, for instance - always via interviews. ND people who might be great at a job never get it because interviews are a particular Achilles heel for a lot of ND people.

Lack.of part time options is another. Lots of ND people burn out on full time wwork. Sticking to part time work, however, squashes career options.

Finally, when you are ND, it's exhausting working with things designed for NT brains. Trying to force myself into a linear mindset feels like tottering around on very high heels all day.

True. Often, though, no consideration is given to how the results of a job can be achieved in other ways, because it's always been done one way.

This is a great illustration.

Also this one.

So true

It was talking about an autistic person using a special interest to become an expert to earn a living, without a lot of "people management". Given the example, I'm going to assume a highly educated / academic person.

People with high IQ plus autism are not "black and white" about their special interests. In the situation given, they want detail about their special interest. They want to gather every relevant piece of data about that interest, assess it, and come to a balanced conclusion.

In this situation, this person isn't "isolated from feedback". They are very interested in relevant feedback. They just don't want to manage feedback from random people.

I understand what you are saying but allowing people to believe that that they are as capable as others by extending exam time is surely one of the ways that people end up in jobs that really aren't suitable for them and demanding unreasonable reasonable adjustments and either being fitted and becoming a failure or being resented by the workers around them?

Your daughter did well to achieve that and now she could take a driving job without reasonable adjustments in the driving element of the job, so I'm not sure it really compares with, for example, extra time for an English exam.