DS aged 14 applied for work experience in a big engineering company. He had a day of work shadowing there last year and become totally enamored with the company, spent a lot of time and effort learning new skills and preparing for work experience.
However, DS has ASD, (Aspergers) and this was disclosed to the company last year and in this year's application. The company was supposed to contact him to discuss reasonable adjustments, but they didn't. They sent a link to complete an online assessment, which he did when I was out shopping. He thought it would be an IQ type test in which he would score well, but it was a personality test, asking him to make impossible choices whether he is more like this or more like that. DS was panicked and confused, couldn't relate to many of the questions, couldn't make his mind which answer to choose and was pushing neither most of the time. He tells me it all depends on the specific circumstances. For example, he likes team work and is good at it, when it's with familiar people and performing a task which plays to his strengths, when the team makes him feel like he is an asset. On the other hand he has dispraxia and is useless in sports, so his classmates used to ask him not to come to school on competition days so he wouldn't bring the team down... This is not a teamwork experience to look forward to. He needed an option to qualify and explain, and discuss all this in context. People with ASD have experiences which are distinct to those of most 'normal' teenagers. So it is normal that DS would have a different take. He also looks at things from a different lens, so his self reported perception would be unreliable. It is often said that the best way to assess candidates with ASD is through work trials.
So DS now received an automatic feedback report which is totally not representing him. It says he is week in attention to detail, following procedures and complying with rules. But these are his strengths, truly, he is really good at those. Predictably, it say that team work is not DS's strengths and he is not suited for customer facing roles. But this basically confirms his diagnosis, it doesn't mean that he can't do well in the technical, very specific placement he applied for, which is not "customer facing". So we are expecting a 'Thanks, but no thanks' email tomorrow.
DS worked so hard to prepare for this...
Are those tests at all validated in the case of individuals on autistic spectrum ? Any literature on how ASD individual react to those? Any good practice guidance about this?
My concern is that they should have contacted me to ask for reasonable adjustments. He could have had more familiarization practice, some help to relate to the questions and identify the answer that really represent him. Could they give him another chance? Perhaps they should scrap this results all together and interview him, look at the portfolio of his projects, which does show huge accuracy, compliance and attention to detail.
Any literature as to validity of those tests vs ASD?
What reasonable adjustments should be made?
What could we do to save the situation?
Any comments/advice greatly appreciated.
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