Workplace Misperceptions.

Each Autistic individual is unique, so it’s very important to consult each individual on their own needs and working style, but in this article we will go through some aspects of Autistic thinking and behaviour that we have found to be commonly misperceived in the workplace.

Bottom up thinking

With bottom-up processing, we allow stimulus to shape our perception, without inputting pre-conceived ideas to help us process. Autistic people are very commonly bottom-up thinkers.

This is in contrast to top-down processing, where non-autistic people use their background knowledge and expectations to interpret what they are seeing and learning.

Think of it like a map. We Autistic people can’t drive until we have a complete view of the entire map - we need all of the streets and trees and houses to be individually assessed and accounted for, and then we get to the ‘big picture’ and can go out for a drive with full confidence that we know where we are going.

Top-down thinking is going out for a drive and using what you know about streets, trees and houses from past experience or societal conditioning to trust that you’ll find your way.

Neither way of thinking is superior, they are just different. But because bottom-up thinking is not as common, it is often treated by society as inferior. It’s often assumed that thinking big picture is best, and something that we should all be trying to do.

Often, this leads to Autistic people being held in junior positions in companies because our managers believe we aren’t capable of “strategic thinking” - which to a neurotypical person is working backwards from a goal in order to reach that goal.

Most of the time, the reality is that we can’t follow their version of strategic thinking, but if we are allowed to work through our own map-building process, we’ll execute that strategic goal perfectly, and more.

Teamwork

I don’t know a single Autistic person who at one point or another hasn’t heard the dreaded words:

• You’re not a team player

• You have a collaboration issue

• You need to learn how to work with others

• You need to work on how others perceive you

It’s true that a lot of Autistic people prefer working alone. And while stereotypically you might think that has something to do with our ‘rigid thinking’ and ‘need for control’, that is rarely the issue.

Because groups of autistic people can work well together. Just as well as groups of neurotypical people work together, in fact.

When surrounded by neurotypical people, Autistic people are in the minority. This means we are constantly given feedback that our ways of working with others are wrong.

They aren’t wrong. They are, however, very different. And that is because Autistic people tend to be very direct, and focused on work.

Direct & Work Focused

Autistic people rarely communicate for any purpose other than sharing information.

In any project with an Autistic person, I can almost guarantee you they will be relentlessly sharing all that they can create or get their hands on so that everyone around them can do their best work.

This means when neurotypical people break out into spontaneous debates - well, we can’t participate in that because we’re not prepared with all of the information.

And if neurotypical people are engaging in small talk to build a sense of camaraderie - well, that’s not what helps us bond with others.

And if neurotypical people give feedback or want to change something when we know they don’t have all of the information about why something was done the way it is - well we kind combust, because that is pretty incompatible with our bottom-up thinking style (which requires a lot of information).

Autistic ways of collaborating work too, and can lead to pretty amazing results. The final product of something that is based on a hell of a lot of information sharing tends to be pretty accurate!

So maybe its not that your Autistic colleague isn’t a team player. Maybe its just that they can’t figure out how to play by your rules - and really, they shouldn’t  be the only one having to.

A team dynamic needs to work for everyone, and it’s important that the rules of the game are both accessible to everyone and made explicit to everyone so that we can all participate.