Beyond Adaptations and Accommodations: Management Practice that Matters as the Key to Retention of Employees with Autism (Part 1)

Abstract

United Nations declares that employment is a basic human right. Numerous public policies reference the devastating impact of unemployment on health and social inclusion and seek to promote the economic participation of people-with-disabilities. Some researchers reckon high levels of economic marginalisation are experienced by people with a disability in Australia, in comparison with other OECD countries. In the literature, 80% unemployment rates are reported among working-age people-with-autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This is a critical area of concern that is currently under-researched and poorly addressed. "ASD-ness" (ASD behavioural characteristics) can be regarded as personal differences rather than disorders. Acknowledged experts such as Drucker and Cliffton & Harter argue that individuals gain more when they build on their talents rather than focusing on improving weaknesses. The authors, therefore, take an ASD-ness-strengths-basedapproach philosophy which, in a nutshell, regards ASD-ness as a source of employmentstrengths and autistic behavioural challenges as personal differences not deficits.

Keywords

• positive-autism
• productivity
• management
• drucker
• strengthsfocused-employment
• evocative-analytic-autoethnography