What reasonable adjustments do people find they get?

Craig39089 said:

My employer has pretty much point blank refused things on this list or just ignored them entirely.

Then they have broken the law! I'm not suggesting that you immediately jump into legal action, but you should at least assert this to your employers; reasonable accommodations are your legal right according to disability laws. You are in a more fortunate position here than many disabled people, because your desired accommodations have been determined by professionals; so what is "reasonable" is relatively easy to establish, and your employers have no grounds to claim that you are attempting to obtain unfair privileges.

I didn't have an official diagnosis yet when I was last working, but my employer was very sympathetic to staff with disabilities and mental health issues. Among the things they allowed me were:

• Greater flexibility in working hours. Just being able to avoid rush-hour commuting made a big difference to me. I was lucky that I could scrape by on less money, so I also reduced my hours, allowing some mid-week "me time" and to go shopping at quiet times.
• Dividers/screens around three sides of my desk to avoid getting distracted by other people's movements around me.
• Always communicating work-related information in writing/email.
• Relaxation of dress codes. We arranged that smart-casual was acceptable usually, but that I would dress more formally if advised in advance that customers would be in the office.
• Use of a locker so that I could change into work clothes at work. This was after having problems with my BO because I got very sweaty on my commute (over 2 miles walking each way - and that was just so that I could catch the bus!)

Craig39089 said:

others like adjusting communication styles don't seem to be to me

Yes, and for autistic people, possibly one of the most important of all; so often, it is only vocational aspects of work which get looked at, but for many of us, it is the social experience of being at work which is most exhausting and most likely to lead to problems. There are two main difficulties with this one, I think.

• Employers fear implementing it because it isn't just a simple, single action that they just take once and then write off in the accounts. It's an investment in finding new best practices for everyone who comes into contact with you, and maintaining those practices long term. I've seen this myself. Even when there were good intentions to communicate with me more directly and in writing, it usually only took a few weeks before everything just reverted back to how it was before. People slip back into the old habits easily because that's still how they treat all the non-autistic people in the workplace. It's an open-ended commitment requiring monitoring and maintenance, and employers don't like that.
• To work well, what it really requires is autism awareness; again, for everyone who comes into contact with you. The variety of communication that goes on in a workplace is huge. Simply giving everyone a bullet list of examples of what they should or shouldn't do isn't likely to be very effective. People really need to know how to appreciate your perspective so that they can work out how to communicate in any situation. This means treating you as an individual person rather than a generic unit of "human resources". You always have to consider too, that any attempt at raising awareness can mean drawing attention to yourself that you might not want, or having to disclose your diagnosis to people who you'd rather didn't know.

What I suggest you do is to try to find some concrete examples of things that will help. Over the course of your working week, keep a note of times where you have struggled with communication, or have misunderstood what you've been told. You might be able to see certain patterns in it which can tell you what to focus on the most. From my own analysis, I realised quite quickly that my main problem was being told something when I'd been interrupted without warning. I can't switch into "conversation mode" quickly enough and what I'm told doesn't sink in. So, I arranged that my line manager would always call me into his office rather than him come to my desk. Some concrete examples like that are easier for your employer to understand and implement than an abstract concept like "communication style".

What do you mean by work related communication being in writing? I would think day to day communication in writing would be unrealistic so interested in what kind of communication this covers  

Pretty much anything other than chit-chat; arrangements for meetings, giving me a new task, reminders about deadlines. Anything I've actually got to remember, basically. Of course, it depends what kind of work you do; I've mostly had office-based jobs at a computer, with lots of arrangements to be made between team members. It might be less relevant in other kinds of work where you always get given jobs that you do straight away.

I think attentional as well as, or maybe even more than, memory - you can't make a memory of something if you don't perceive it in the first place.

When people just tell me things, especially if there's no warning I'm going to be spoken to, their words just don't always sink in. I can even come back with a stock response sometimes without even realising that I'm doing it; like there's a reflex I have that just says "OK, whatever" to make people go away, without me ever taking my attention off whatever I'm doing. I'd often find myself thinking, "hang on a minute, was someone at my desk a moment ago? Or was that yesterday? Or last week? Who might it have been?"

Even, when someone does give me fair warning, the problem becomes that the conversation usually goes way too fast for me. My processing of speech can lag so far behind that I hear "it"s and "who"s and "that"s in the conversation with no idea what they're referring to; I'm very often just winging it with stock phrases, hoping that I will catch up before I have to say anything meaningful.  So writing works much better for me generally, I can focus on it at my own pace, and re-read to make sure I'm properly comprehending everything. Likewise for writing; if I take my time and can edit, I can put my thoughts into words quite well, but in real-time conversation, I find it much harder and am more likely to be misinterpreted.

My guess has been that my work has been the exception to a lot of the usual rules because of it being what I understand to be a special interest.  When it gets to things like making tea and coffee for the office, then I have to write things down to remember people's preferences until I got it memorised. 

So sounds like the receiving communication issues are more of a memory issue than understanding issue? 

My guess has been that my work has been the exception to a lot of the usual rules because of it being what I understand to be a special interest.  When it gets to things like making tea and coffee for the office, then I have to write things down to remember people's preferences until I got it memorised. 

So sounds like the receiving communication issues are more of a memory issue than understanding issue? 

I think attentional as well as, or maybe even more than, memory - you can't make a memory of something if you don't perceive it in the first place.

When people just tell me things, especially if there's no warning I'm going to be spoken to, their words just don't always sink in. I can even come back with a stock response sometimes without even realising that I'm doing it; like there's a reflex I have that just says "OK, whatever" to make people go away, without me ever taking my attention off whatever I'm doing. I'd often find myself thinking, "hang on a minute, was someone at my desk a moment ago? Or was that yesterday? Or last week? Who might it have been?"

Even, when someone does give me fair warning, the problem becomes that the conversation usually goes way too fast for me. My processing of speech can lag so far behind that I hear "it"s and "who"s and "that"s in the conversation with no idea what they're referring to; I'm very often just winging it with stock phrases, hoping that I will catch up before I have to say anything meaningful.  So writing works much better for me generally, I can focus on it at my own pace, and re-read to make sure I'm properly comprehending everything. Likewise for writing; if I take my time and can edit, I can put my thoughts into words quite well, but in real-time conversation, I find it much harder and am more likely to be misinterpreted.