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

I taught a partially sighted pupil once, who was awarded 50% extra time. She was desperate to study medicine.

But, realistically, it was never going to happen. She wasn’t a bad student, but far from brilliant, and she was getting half as much homework done as everyone else, and that came at a cost to her learning.

It wasn’t her fault and everyone felt sorry for her, but you just couldn’t make a suitable adjustment that would (honestly) allow her to achieve the grades to study medicine, let alone actually get through the course.

Adjustments are great when they are like that much-posted meme of providing a step to a shorter person, so they can see over a fence. But if the adjustment is paying a second person to look over the fence and tell him/her what is happening, it ceases to be reasonable.

I think because some of the adjustments feel unreasonable in practice. For example, if a SEN child lashes out and hurts another child in the classroom, the other child is expected, in practice, is just put up with it in the name of being kind. This doesn't feel reasonable if you're the parent of the child who has been hit.

Also, if you're able to pay, it's reasonably easy to get a diagnosis of ADHD for example. This unlocks certain benefits in employment and education contexts like being able to work from home more or getting extra exam time or special equipment. So the incentives to get a diagnosis for actually quite minor conditions or dare I say even normal variations in human personality is large. This takes away from people who obviously need support (I'm thinking of someone like Harvey Price as an example many people would know of).

I think this thread is really proving OP’s point.

And who wants to be treated by a doctor who needed lots of adjustments to pass their exams?

so should disabled people just sit at home and do nothing all day. would it be fair for them taking your money via benefits

I posted earlier to say that there are occasions- like someone who dreams of being a pilot but is visually impaired- where a job cannot be done by someone with a specific disability, and rather than request unreasonable adjustments, a different job is the appropriate course of action.

I was replying to the more general point, that in eg degree exams it is wholly reasonable to give adjustments to the written exam process to allow disabled people equal access to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, where the exams are testing knowledge and skills.

If a job requires instant recall of large volumes of facts, without access to technology, and production of long documents to an extreme timescale, then the application process for that job should test that explicitly, rather than relying on eg degree exams as a proxy.

Depends on the adjustments.

I wouldn’t care if I was operated on by a surgeon who needed extra time to pass their written exams as long as they know which bit to operate on and are competent as a surgeon.

I wouldn’t care if I was seen by a GP who needed specialist software to make notes and write letters as long as they were knowledgeable.

I am trying to say this kindly, I wouldn't expect someone with no legs to walk up stairs. But, I would hope that children and adults with poor mobility receive OT or physio to help maximise their mobility and standard of life.

Likewise, I think children and adults with ASD should be encouraged and supported to maximise their own standard of life through support and interventions.

The problem is that society now sometimes incentives the problem. Take DLA, it is a life changing sum of money for families thst need it. But, where is thr incentive for parents to improve their child's independence. You are told in no uncertain terms that if circumstances change you must let DLA know.

I feel like the world is becoming a harder place and we need to do our best to encourage our children and ourselves to challenge themselves even when it is really difficult. I kbow this feels unfair, when life already feels so hard for children with ASD.

I thibk many reasonable adjustments in the workplace are reasonable, but a tiny vocal minority take the pee.

Is it though? She thinks people begrudge adjustments due to discrimination and jealousy towards disabled people. It seems OP genuinely believes that everyone else should just suck up the consequences of any RAs without complaint.

Posters have suggested that actually the resentment comes from the implications that the adjustments have on them and their lives. There are lots of people without adjustments that are disabled or have their own very real struggles and they simply can't facilitate the adjustment without themselves being hugely detrimented. Do their needs not matter? Are they considered lesser because they can't be formalised in the way that OP's can be?

I suppose if someone's reasonable adjustments are negatively impacting someone else's working life it then becomes an issue. In my experience it's things like answering the phone which no-one particularly likes, having early starts and early finishes which a lot of people would like but instead they get all the lates because 1 person has had reasonable adjustments and it's taken them out of the rota. It would appear the reasonable adjustments required are always the things that make one person's life better dumps the crap on everyone else. Speaking from experience

If you stuck a wheelchair user at the bottom of some stairs and said ok get up those stairs they most likely would be able to, but it would be slow and would be a struggle, might cause pain, might cause stress, and have a knock on effect for their ability to perform, but they probably could in many cases.

So why should they if their job and life can be made easier with adjustments?

The same goes for invisible disabilities.

This. Some adjustments are reasonable but the person with the disability should also be realistic in what jobs they aim for. If you can't do a big chunk of the role due to your disability then you should look for a different job.

We all do that, surely?. I'm useless at making small talk so I've never considered a career in e.g. sales. If someone has ADHD then don't pick a carer that requires lots of attention to detail with strict deadlines. If you've got autism and find social interaction difficult, don't choose a field where that's a requirement.

That's why people who are severely impaired can't do jobs such as law or medicine.

But i've given examples on this thread of prospective lawyers who want to be able to enter the profession though they can't look at someone's face due to anxiety not and not be able to answer phone unless they have a private room.

Like the other poster gave of the partially sighted student who wants to be a doctor it can't happen.

Because endless adjustments have been made in school and be kind mentality and there's nothing you can't do.Students such as this, who have massive social problems and neurodiversity.Think every door is open to them.I m afraid it just isn't.

I know but asking other people to work faster/harder won't work in the long run. At all.

You need to read and hear what people are saying.

The adjustments can't be unfair on other people. That means it's up to the workplace and the management of that workplace to ensure these adjustments do not negatively impact everyone else. Whether that's by changing working practices, shifting deadlines, offering other incentives, hiring additional people etc will vary according to each one.

It may also be that some professions are out of reach for some ND or disabled people because of what they can or can't do, just like some professions are out of reach for others because they do not have the skills/intelligence to do them.

I think the individualised (dare I say neoliberal) nature of it can cause problems. With exams, as you are directly competing with other people based on results, it makes a material difference if you don't have time that others get. Of course some people will try to gain the advantage. It's a competition. We could approach things more collaboratively.

When I have needed to make changes at work, I have tried to make those changes for everyone, to improve everyone's working conditions. Instead of just carving out an exception for myself or burdening others, I've tried, where possible to make general changes. So I've negotiated to improve sickness policies for everyone when I've been offered an individual variation in contract, altered socialising policies, set up things like transcription services, live captioning, and so on.

I can't keep my physical disability private but I'm not "out" as autistic at work so unfortunately I have to sit through a lot (a LOT) of lectures by junior staffers on neurodiversity. They all (in one role 80% identified as ND) seem to have ADHD and mainly this comes up as, bluntly, weak reasons why they can't do their job and why someone else, someone less different and special, should do it instead. This approach doesn't seem to be helping anyone, just making everyone anxious and unproductive.

I have a really different perspective from the MN orthodoxy on autism and without imposing my own beliefs, where possible, I try to work with these staffers to unpick these ideas a bit. I find actually often they CAN do their actual job, they just have some issue with some particular method or process or expectation about HOW they do it, or how anyone does anything, and I try to help them see how to get away from these shoulds and oughts and just focus on outcomes.

They may well have this diagnosis or that, but really what is important is: what is the goal, what resources do they need to achieve it, and how can we do that as efficiently as possible. If something is a blocker, let's get rid of it. If something is pointlessly hard, let's stop doing it. Let's make it easier for everyone, because work is hard enough and any energy wasted on this stuff is just friction, pointless drag.

Since you ask: I think the hostility arises because there is a perception - which may be unjustified - that it is 'too easy' to get a 'label' which then gives that person advantages over others who feel they too have similar difficulties or anxieties but have not gone down the diagnosis route because they just see it as part of being human.

We all have differing personalities and are all somewhere on a spectrum ranging from supremely confident, with wonderful focus and organisational and social skills, to the absolute opposite; it’s difficult to draw a definitive line between those who need a label and special help and those who don’t.

I would only complain if I was expected to do more than I was being paid for. Happy for reasonable adjustments to be made for those that need them just not taking on extra responsibilities for the same money.

@KeenTaupeDog ,

‘so should disabled people just sit at home and do nothing all day. would it be fair for them taking your money via benefits’

They should do a job they are able to do despite their disabilities and with reasonable adjustments that don’t affect everyone else.

That might mean a different job or being paid 50% salary if they are only getting 50% of the work done.

We can debate what is reasonable until the cows come home but sometimes people with disabilities might need to work more hours to get the same salary, if they are slower, for instance.

In my two careers (finance and teaching) some people were just way more efficient than others and thus worked fewer hours to get the same results. Is that ‘fair’? I think, ultimately, we have to accept life isn’t fair and work places exist to create product (physical or intellectual) and not to support people.

(But that doesn’t mean a friendly and supportive work place shouldn’t be the norm.)

That sounds very frustrating and in fact feels very unfair. I think though you need to direct your frustration at your employer.

Adjustments are about levelling the playing field - so making things equitable not equal. Disabled people (include those with neurodivergence) need them to stay well.

There is also quite a big moral issue here, although I appreciate this doesn't help you on your situation. Employers need to be open to employing disabled people. Tbe government is currently complaining about the size of the benefits bill for out of work disabled people. This will only go down if employers are willing to take them on and that obviously means reasonable adjustments.

You only get £250 for the laptop, so not a decent one. My son didn’t get one, despite being Audhd, because he already owned one. I’m also an English teacher and I see lots of kids who definitely do need the extra time (including my own son). My child may not need the extra time if he accesses adhd meds but has been on the NHS priority list for two years and still has not got them.

Don't you think people do? Try to redirect work related issue to to their employers if they can?

2025 is not a good time to complain a lot at work. A lot of people struggle getting jobs and employers can replace you in no time. And they will.

I can honestly see both sides.

I'm autistic and can have extreme anxiety in some situations. I once had a job where I had to be observed by my manager regularly, and have them evaluate my performance, including how I interacted with others. This was incredibly stressful for me, but it was part of the job, so I accepted it. I was terrified of negative feedback and my anxiety made my first few observations much worse than my normal performance, but as time went on, I got used to it. It never stopped being horribly stressful, but it wasn't as draining.

Then there was a new policy introduced. Instead of being observed, we were going to be filmed, and we'd have to watch the video back with the manager and hear their comments. I can't do this. My anxiety levels were absolutely off the charts even thinking about this. I'd never have applied for a job which required this sort of thing. So I said I couldn't, and my manager agreed that I could carry on doing it the old way.

Of course, none of my colleagues liked the new video policy either. I'm sure they thought it was unfair that I got out of it - nobody enjoys it, why should I get a special exception? I can see their point, and if I were in charge, nobody would have to do it. But I wasn't, and I had to do what I could to protect myself. My manager knew I wasn't making it up, as previously I'd been in a somewhat similar situation and ended up having a panic attack, running away, and totally shutting down once I got somewhere private. Very embarrassing! Apart from isolated things like this, though, I was good at that job.

It's hard when there are things nobody likes - crowded trains, loud offices, lots of uncertainty - but the effect they have on me is more severe than most other people. That's what nobody sees. Unless of course it all does boil over and I can't cope! That's really embarrassing and unprofessional, so I try really hard to manage things so it doesn't get to that point.

I would've agreed with you at one point. I work in HR in an organisation very liberal with reasonable adjustments. However in recent years the demands, in particular from late diagnosis ADHD women, have been insane and ever increasing. Vague demands for more support but they're unable to actually identify what support that is, demands for changes to the fundamental elements of their roles, demands for reduced caseloads which will have a direct impact on colleagues, outrageous behaviour including shouting and crying at their manager, refusal to attend the office or meetings, threats of tribunal at the hint of them needing to actually come in to work. Shocking. These people clearly can't manage in the workplace so they should go and claim benefits as far as I'm concerned

I work in the public sector and these people are doing an essential job with various statutory provisions around it and I genuinely worry for the vulnerable people they are supposed to be supporting

If you're introverted to the point that it causes the same symptoms/problems as an autistic person would experience then should introverts also be able to ask for reasonable adjustments?