LITT: Neurodiverse
Neurodiversity is a viewpoint that brain differences are normal, rather than deficits (1). LITT: Neurodiverse is a space for library staff who are neurodiverse, who have ADHD, Austism Spectrum Disorder, anxiety and other learning disabilities or mental health disorders, to come together and support one another in a positive space.
The Idaho Libraries Neurodiverse listserv is a great way to stay connected between chats. Check out our listserv guidelines before posting.
LITT: Neurodiverse is on hiatus!
Notes from Past LITT: Neurodiverse meetings
Resources
Articles
- Autism @ Work Playbook: Finding talent and creating meaningful employment opportunities for people with autism (2019) – Guide from ACCESS-IT, the Information School, University of Washington
- Top 10 UDL tips for Designing an Engaging Learning Environment (2016) – Resource from CAST
- Neurodiverse Voices: Good Practice in the Workplace (2020) – Issue 1 of the e-journal AchieveAbility
- Neurodiversity at Work (2016) – Research paper by Helen Bewley and Anitha George
- Loud Hands in the Library: Neurodiversity in LIS (2013) – Essay by Emily Laurence
- Neurodiversity at Work (2018) – Guide from CIPD
- Everyone Communicates Differently infographic – From neurodiversitylibrary.org
- What it means for a disabled librarian to “pass”: an exploration of inclusion, identity, and information work (2020) – Article by Shanna Hollich
- Systemic workplace barriers for academic librarians with disabilities (2019) – Article by Joanne Oud
- Disability at work: Libraries, built to exclude (2018) – Article by Jessica Schomberg
- Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage (2017) – Harvard Business Review
- Neurodiversity is critical for innovation in the workplace (2022) – Fast Company
- An intersectional approach to inclusion at work (2022) – Harvard Business Review
- Why higher ed needs leaders with disabilities (2022) – Inside Higher Ed
Audio/Video
- What Exactly is Neurodiversity? – How to ADHD
- Neurodiversity, work and me – Life at HSBC
- The power of neurodiversity in the workplace – Texthelp
- When Neurodiversity Works – IBM Consulting
- “Neurodiversity at Work” – The Anxious Achiever, Season 5, Episode 8
- dyslex.io: What is Neurodiversity? – British Dyslexia Association
Things that have helped (in no particular order):
- Supportive supervisor/director
- Avid notetaking, listmaking
- Visual timers
- Medication
- Headphones
- Using scripts
- Being proactive with supervisors
- Fidget toys
- YouTube channel: How to ADHD
- 1:1 conversations with supervisors explaining their needs
- Normalizing differences
- Not stigmatizing behaviors
- Formal and informal accommodations
Things to consider:
- The onus is on the employee to teach the employer and that can be difficult/anxiety-inducing
- It is sometimes difficult to communicate our needs as we are learning them ourselves
- Pretending it doesn’t exist or ignoring differences doesn’t help
Resources:
- Job Accommodation Network: https://askjan.org/
- This article “Managing a Person with ADHD” might be useful for supervisors/managers.
- Supporting Neurodiverse College Student Success: A Guide for Librarians, Student Support Services, and Academic Learning Environments
- Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger Syndrome by Rudy Simone
- Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong
- The Adult Side of Dyslexia by Kelli Sandman-Hurley
- @dyslexia_in_adults on TikTok
- Adult coloring books / Zentangles
- Fidget toys, fidget objects
- The Electricity of Every Living Thing by Katherine May
- Bittersweet by Susan Cain
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
- Black Girl Lost Keys
- Universal Design for meeting accessibility
- Social stories – helping to prepare someone with autism to visit a space with online guides
- Text to speech tools like https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/
- What Can a Body Do? by Dara Hendren
- Floreo – VR for neurodivergent people: https://www.floreotech.com/
- Project Enable
- CHADD – https://chadd.org/
- Annie made a zine about her experience with autism and shared it with her coworkers.
- When and how to disclose at work
- Expressing it in creative ways
- The perception that the disability is part of who you are vs. your whole personality
- Waiting until it feels safe to do so
- Benefits and drawbacks of medication
- Strategies of managing the chaos at work
- Blocking out time to work on projects
- Using the Asana calendar to sort tasks
- Book recommendation: Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau
- Getting a formal diagnosis, what’s that process like?
- How do you get things done when your brain won’t cooperate?
- Bribery – eating cookies after doing the task, for example
- Wait until it’s a borderline emergency and use the panic to drive you through
- Turn it into a game
- Find a fun and unusual way to do the thing
- Just get it done, the C’s get degrees approach
- Future ILA presentation topic: Neurodiverse workers have huge strengths – the task for the employer is to find those strengths and utilize them.
- How do you respond to people who doubt your diagnosis?
- The experience of accessing accommodations as an adult student
- How staff get evaluated
- Does it fully recognize contributions of neurodivergent people?
- What would inclusive evaluations look like?
- Slow librarianship / sustainers vs. rockstars
- Ask A Manager: My manager says my shyness is seen as rudeness
- “Fit” in hiring practice
- If you fit in you have inside knowledge
- To fit in, neurodiverse folks come up with strategies, which is more work that we’re doing
- Grit / resilience
- Why are we lauding people who have found a way to function in a broken system?
- Why do they need to be resilient?
- Vocational awe seems to be playing a role: https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/
- NPR Life Kit: Why you should stop complimenting people for being ‘resilient’
- Productivity / responsibility theater
- During the pandemic we were forced to innovate and try new things, now we’re told to go back to “normal”
- How do we keep the good insights we learned?
- We’re all about flexibility, creativity, and meeting people where they are. If we can’t do that internally, what are we doing?
- Burnout
- How are we inclusive internally?
- You’re not going to get benefits of diversity unless the organization figures out how to foster diversity in itself
- ILA is happening October 6-7 in Lewiston! Are you going? There will be a mindfulness room if you need a quiet space to be for a while
- We talked about the article from Fast Company: Neurodiversity is critical for innovation in the workplace
- Someone shared this article: An intersectional approach to inclusion at work
- A common ableist trope in fiction is the villainous disabled character, and unfortunately Cloud Cuckoo Land plays into that trope. It also relies on stereotypes in depicting Seymour’s autistic-coded traits, which is unfortunate.
- Are there positive depictions of neurodiverse people in media that you know of?
- Atypical
- Heartbreak High (featuring an autistic actor playing an autistic character)
- Everything’s Going to be Okay (featuring an autistic actor playing an autistic character)
- There’s a national shortage of a common medication for ADHD, and it is predicted to last for a while.
- If you are struggling with not having the medication you need, these four tips from the YouTube channel How to ADHD have helped me:
- Readjust your workload and expectations of yourself – treat it like a “bad brain day”
- Lean harder on your coping mechanisms and adjust them so they are easier to do
- Let people know
- Pay attention to your brain chemistry, you might need to take extra care to stay afloat while you struggle
- If you’re looking for help managing a disability, the Job Accommodation Network has great resources that may help. For example, on the Autism page, there is a list of accommodation ideas organized by limitation or by work-related function.
Book recommendations:
- Fast Minds: how to thrive if you have ADHD (or think you might) by Craig Surman, Tim Bilkey, and Karen Weintraub (2014)
- All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum by Kathy Hoopmann (2020)
General discussion:
- ADHD medication shortage
- Conversation starters, scripted responses
- Fidget toys
- Naming our feelings can be hard, try the feelings chart: https://www.purewow.com/family/feelings-chart (there’s an adult version and a kids version on this page)
- Here’s another fun feelings graphic using the emotions from Inside Out: https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8860247/inside-out-emotions-graphic
Questions or comments about LITT: Neurodiverse chats? Contact Annie.