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autistic adults understanding and working alongside other autistic adults

NAS93143

Hello, 

I am looking for some advice and hoping you can help! I work in a company with people who have lived experience of a learning disability, many are autistic. Some colleagues have been struggling recently to deal with other colleagues whose behaviours are different to their own. I was wondering if there was any training/guidance on how they can help and understand other people, when they find it hard to process certain behaviours themselves? 

Sorry - that probably all sounds very confusing but hopefully you know what I am trying to say!?

  • There are some autistic people and other neurodivergent (adhd, dyslexic) I work really well with, better than many neurotypicals.

    There are also some neurodivergent and autistic people where our traits just do not gel. I am a big stimmer and do a lot of rocking, some other people find this incredibly distracting. Some autistic people (my younger brother and a uni peer) have little volume control and are very loud. I find this really overwhelming and difficult to deal with. 

    I tend to deal with this by avoiding those people as much as possible, it's not either of ours 'fault' but it means that it's generally difficult for us to work together or in the same space. Sometimes when it's a volume problem, I wear earplugs around them, the other neurodivergent people usually understand this, it's generally passing neurotypicals that have a problem with it. 

    I don't know if any of that is helpful, but it's my experience of struggling with other people's traits.

  • Hi NAS93143,

    It sounds like a good resource for you to look at might be the 'Employing Autistic People' guide for employers which you can find here - https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/employment/employing-autistic-people/employers - which has information and advice on how best to support people on the autism spectrum as an employer, and links to other related NAS resources like the Autism At Work programme and the 'Understanding Autism in the Workplace' courses NAS runs.

    Hope this is of some help,
    Ross - mod