This book explores the career experiences of Generation A, the half-million individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who will reach adulthood in the next decade. With Generation A eligible to enter the workforce in unprecedented numbers, research is needed to help individuals, organizations, and educational institutions to work together to create successful work experiences and career outcomes for individuals with ASD. Issues surrounding ASD in the workplace are discussed from individual, organizational, and societal perspectives. This book also examines the stigma of autism and how it may affect the employment and career experiences of individuals with ASD. This timely book provides researchers, practitioners, and employers with empirical data that examines the work and career experiences of individuals with ASD. It offers a framework for organizations committed to hiring individuals with ASD and enhancing their work experiences and career outcomes now and in the future.

Neurodiversity in the workplace can be a gift. Yet only 15% of adults with an autism spectrum condition (ASC) are in full-time employment. This book examines how the working environment can embrace autistic people in a positive way. The author highlights common challenges in the workplace for people with ASC, such as discrimination and lack of communication or the right kind of support from managers and colleagues, and provides strategies for changing them. Setting out practical, reasonable adjustments such as a quiet room or avoiding disruption to work schedules, this book demonstrates how day to day changes in the workplace can make it more inclusive and productive for all employees. Autism in the Workplace is intended for any person with an interest in changing working culture to ensure equality for autistic people. It is an essential resource for employers, managers, trade unionists, people with ASCs and their workmates and supporters.

People with autism are being left behind today, with only 16 per cent in full-time employment. This inspiring book addresses the lack of understanding of the wonderful contributions people across the autism spectrum can make to the workplace, drawing attention to this vast untapped human resource. Employers who create supportive workplaces can enhance their companies by making use of the talents of people with autism while also helping to produce a more inclusive and tolerant society, and people with autism can themselves benefit materially and emotionally from improved employment opportunities. Packed with real-life case studies examining the day-to-day working lives of people across the autism spectrum in a wide variety of careers, this book provides constructive solutions for both employers seeking to improve their workplaces and for individuals with autism considering their employment options. It dispels popular myths about autism, such as that everyone is good at IT, and crucially tackles the potential job opportunities available across the spectrum, including for those who have no language at all. It also highlights the neglected area of gender differences in the workplace and the costs of autistic females’ ability to 'camouflage' their condition. This book is a must-read for parents, employers and adults with autism, and for anyone interested in the present and future of people with autism in the workplace who will benefit from the positive message that employing autistic people is not an act of charity but one that makes sound economic sense.

Autism is associated with many qualities that are highly sought after by employers such as reliability, persistence, attention to detail, creativity in problem solving and many others. The key to success in the workplace is understanding these strengths and identifying the support you need to help you flourish. This self-guided workbook provides advice, strategies and activities to manage the difficulties that can arise at work. You will be given the tools to help minimise anxiety, sensory overload, unhelpful thinking patterns, difficulties with social communication, and organisation and planning problems. The activities are interactive, and you can approach them on your terms. They can be dispersed throughout the day or week, and the workbook and accompanying videos include everything you need to set and achieve your employment goals. The course can also be undertaken with the assistance of a mentor, and the workbook includes resources and videos to help them support you.

Generation A: Research on Autism in the Workplace brings together scholars, practitioners, and educators to share their research on Autism in the workplace with a particular emphasis on Generation A.

Employees with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may be hugely beneficial to a workforce, but it can be difficult for individuals with no formal training to manage these employees successfully. This definitive guide will help managers and colleagues successfully interact with and support these professionals on the autism spectrum so as to ensure mutual success. Integrate Autism Employment Advisors use their experience advising employers on how to successfully employ professionals on the autism spectrum to identify the everyday challenges faced by employees with ASD in the workplace and sets out reasonable, practical solutions for their managers and colleagues. Barriers to productivity are highlighted, such as the sensory environment, miscommunication, and inadequate training of colleagues. Easy-to-implement strategies to adapt the working environment are provided, such as agreeing on non-verbal cues to signal ending a conversation or establishing parameters for appropriate email length. This book is an essential resource for anyone who works with professionals on the autism spectrum. It will allow them to engage with and support their colleagues on the autism spectrum in a respectful way and help them achieve a greater level of working success.

The Autism Job Club is a groundbreaking book for bringing adults with autism and other neuro-diverse conditions into the work world. This second edition of The Autism Job Club includes a new Foreword by Steve Silberman, author of the best-selling NeuroTribes, along with an Afterword by the authors. The Afterword covers the many employment initiatives for adults on the autism spectrum launched just in the three years since the book was originally published. The book has its basis in the autism job club that the authors have been part of in the San Francisco Bay Area, the job-creation and job-placement efforts the club has undertaken, and similar efforts throughout the United States. The authors review the high unemployment rates among adults with autism and other neuro- diverse conditions more than two decades after the ADA. Bernick and Holden also outline and explain six strategies that, taken together, will reshape employment for adults with autism: the art of the autism job coach; the autism advantage in technology employment; autism employment and the internet economy; autism employment and the practical/craft economy; autism and extra-governmental job networks; autism and public service employment. The Autism Job Club is a vital resource for adults with autism, their families, and advocates who are committed to neuro-diverse employment, not unemployment. But it also speaks to a far broader audience interested in how to carve out a place for themselves or others in an increasingly competitive job world.

The workplace can be a difficult environment for people with Asperger's Syndrome (AS) and this often impedes their ability to make use of particular skills and sustain meaningful and fulfilling employment. This is the definitive guide to surviving and thriving in the workplace for people with AS. It includes everything from realistic strategies for meeting employer expectations, to how to get along with your colleagues and work as part of a team, multitask and manage projects, and handle anxiety and effectively resolve problems. Common employment challenges are illustrated through examples from the author's extensive experience coaching individuals with AS at all job levels, from entry-level to manager and professional positions. The pragmatic recommendations in the book will benefit anyone with AS who is entering the workforce, as well as those who struggle to maintain employment, or who want to improve their performance and advance their careers.

Up to 85% of the Asperger's population are without full-time employment, though many have above-average intelligence. Rudy Simone, an adult with Asperger's Syndrome and an accomplished author, consultant, and musician, created this insightful resource to help employers, educators, and therapists accommodate this growing population, and to help people with Asperger's find and keep gainful employment. Rudy's candid advice is based on her personal experiences and the experiences of over fifty adults with Asperger's from all over the world, in addition to their employers and numerous experts in the field. Detailed lists provide balanced guidelines for success, while Rudy's "Interview Tips" and "Personal Job Map" tools will help Aspergians, young or old, find their employment niche. There is more to a job than what the tasks are: from social blunders, to sensory issues, to bullying by coworkers, Simone presents solutions to difficult challenges. Readers will be enriched, enlightened, and ready to work--together!

Neurodiversity in the Workplace presents a timely and needed perspective on the role and responsibility of employers and those working to increase the effectiveness of workplace practices to examine the many ways we preclude large segments of the population from employment; minimizing opportunities for building a truly inclusive work environment. This collection provides an opportunity to look at how discrimination can occur across the employment process and what can be done to minimize the exclusionary practices that prevent neurodiverse individuals from getting into the workplace, advancing, thriving, and contributing as each of us desires to do. With expertise from leading professionals, this book provides a holistic look at the application of leadership theories in a neurodiverse context and how the workplace can be adapted to accommodate for neurodiverse employees. This book also explores effective recruitment strategies by looking into applicant screening as well as interviewing and selection, adapting internal organizational resources to a neurodiverse workforce, and legal and regulatory environment considerations for autism hiring programs. Each chapter provides an overview of existing knowledge on effective workplace inclusion practices across the employment process, specific implications of research to date for a more neurodiversity-inclusive workplace, and what future research is needed to further inform these practices. This volume is intended to increase awareness about the challenges and opportunities in making the workplace more neurodiversity-inclusive, making it instrumental for I/O and other psychologists. This book is also crucial for management and business consultants; employers; diversity, equity, and inclusion specialists; human resource professionals; and others interested in neurodiversity inclusion more broadly.