Thread by @JHMarble

At our RAC @CalSCDD meeting last week, another committee member (a parent of an autistic son) delicately brought up a concern w/ me that companies only recruit a certain slice of autistic people.

“Don’t be shy!” was my response. “Autistic people are loudly speaking out on this.”

This frustrates the #ActuallyAutistic community, as well as those being recruited. Autistic people have a wide range of talent and abilities. Almost every autistic person with a desire to work could be if companies were more equitable, accessible, and supportive.

We talked about how there are opportunities for the “top of the top” as well as opportunity for those who can and want to do basic remedial labor (I’m not knocking...I’ve done a lot of that and loved it). The vast majority of autistic people are lost in the middle.

We talked about using those two approaches & grafting them to provide more opportunities between them. There’s no reason a company hiring top-end developers can’t use that as a catalyst to identify opportunities throughout their company. The same for one hiring entry labor roles.

My suggestion was this: “I think it’s going to take a coalition of autistic people and parents arguing for this. I think we’ve both been saying this individually as groups, but there’s something powerful about all of us saying this together.”

We’re currently toying with an event or OpEd that could help companies understand.