National Autism Month
Every day, autistic people bring divergent, out of the box thinking to workplaces across America—in turn helping drive innovation in businesses of all sizes and in all industries. During National Autism Month in April, we celebrate the many contributions of neurodivergent people and commit to ensuring they can succeed at work.
To help promote disability inclusive workplaces, ODEP offers a variety of resources. To start, the ODEP-funded Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion (EARN) developed a Neurodiversity in the Workplace toolkit, which helps employers and employees understand the foundation and benefits of workforce neurodiversity. It also describes autism and other neurodiversity hiring initiatives implemented by a range of companies, including small businesses. For companies interested in developing new or assessing current autism inclusion efforts, EARN also offers a self-evaluation tool, Neurodiversity Inclusion: Checklist for Organizational Success.
Both the toolkit and checklist emphasize that providing reasonable accommodations, if requested, is central to ensuring workplace inclusion for autistic people, or people with any disability. On this front, ODEP’s Job Accommodation Network (JAN) offers guidance in common accommodations for autistic people as well as a range of related resources, such as a training video on interviewing autistic job candidates.
Additional resources to help ensure your business can recruit, hire, retain and advance neurodivergent workers and benefit from the advantages of neurodiversity at work—every month of the year—are available on ODEP’s autism webpage.