What is Inclusion?

Inclusion (n), the action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure. See include.

Include (v), make part of a whole or set. To allow (someone) to share in an activity or privilege.

I have not made a secret of the fact that I'm autistic and non-verbal. I've previously shared much of my story of being an actually autistic adult who grew up in a world before DSM IV and the specific diagnoses that place me "on the spectrum." I'm in the process of writing a book about my journey, timed to release April 2020. I'm also an advocate, in as much as I've focused my efforts on helping things go right for autistic people and their loved ones.

With this in mind, I recently had a conversation with a representative of a major initiative in the US that aims to get autistic people "ready for work" and placed with employers who want to employ autistic people. I wanted to know about what they were doing and if there was a potential for collaboration / participation between me and my work at Towcester Abbey and this charity. The hour-long conversation left me shocked and dismayed at what passes for help and inclusion for autistics looking for work.

This charity runs what can be called an employment readiness "bootcamp" for autistic people. It's stated goals are to give autistics the skills necessary to find and keep a job. It also attempts to bring their clients together with employers, serving as a sort of recruiting service. Sounds good so far, right?

The more I found out about their methodologies, the sadder and more concerned I became. The program does not teach the autistic person to build on their strengths, simultaneously teaching businesses to recognize these strengths whilst accommodating the autistic person's weaknesses and shortcomings. No, this program helps the autistic person to build an effective employment persona - what we autistics call a "mask." Those that are the most successful at masking at work will likely be the ones chosen for employment with the charity's partners.

Do their employer partners actually want to hire an autistic person? Do their partners just want to check off an "inclusion" box, whilst requiring that their autistic employees not actually "present" as autistic on the job?

What is inclusion? Is inclusion a statement that says, I'll only include you if you learn to behave as the rest of us? It's not inclusion if one must fundamentally change one's way of being in order to belong to a company or group - it's conformity.

Inclusion is not conformity.

Many of these types of charities are fueled by the false narrative about the "new autism epidemic." There is a wealth of research and science (link and link as examples) behind the idea that what we now call autism is not new. As an example of this, USC's Jared Reser has studied autism's advantageous traits and it's link to human's hunter-gatherer past (link). Others have looked to our genetic past for clues as to how and why the autistic brain and body has survived and evolved over the millennia (link).

There is also science behind the long term impacts of "masking," or pretending to be something that you aren't whilst in an environment that's entirely hostile to you (link). Additionally, there's a plethora of research indicating that the more a person masks, the less likely one is to receive a diagnosis, and thus access to necessary supports and accommodations. This is especially true for female autistics (link).

With all of this in mind, how is a program designed to train away what makes us unique - but results only in teaching us to pretend to be something that we're not - any different than what was done to the First Nations people in Canada via the Indian Residential School system? Whilst there's disagreement over the classification of the type of genocide the First Nations faced, the goal of the system is certainly not in dispute. In Canada, the system was created for the purpose of removing Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and assimilating them into the dominant Canadian culture, "to kill the Indian in the child" (link). What should we think about a program that seeks to "remove the autism" from the autistic person so that they can become employed in the larger society?

Can a program simultaneously seek inclusivity and conformity?

Perhaps this distorted view of inclusiveness can be linked to the fact that there are no actually autistic people governing this group (or most of the "autism charities" that exist in the world). When I asked how many autistic people are employed by this charity in total, the answer was ... one,... but there are a lot of "parents of people with autism" involved. For the most part, the autistic community views "autism parents," "autism moms," and "autism dads" as parents who don't understand that our autism isn't a disease or a disorder - it's simply a different wiring diagram. It's not something that we're "with," so there's never going to be a time when we're "without" it. My operating system not a purse or a set of shoes to be swapped out as fashions change. The first job of moms, dads, and parents/guardians is to love, and then to provide a unique and appropriate space for their children to grow and thrive.

We not "broken" or "missing" or "trapped." We are working as designed, to factory specs (link). Think about that for a moment.

If you've read this far, thank you. If you're in a position to help or hire an autistic person, please do. But, please understand that they may need to have some accommodations in order to be successful. In my dissertation towards a PhD in Education, I studied some ways in which schools can easily accommodate autistic students in order to reduce the massive attrition rates that exist in higher education for autistic students.

Accommodation leads to actual inclusion. Rigidity requires conformity.

It's a lot easier and more cost effective to help things go right in the first place, rather than correct them when they've gone tragically wrong. If you're interested in working with (including) actually autistic people and understand the value proposition in hiring this unique demographic, then feel free to reach out (link). I would love to talk with you about this topic - my "special interest" - improving outcomes for actually autistic people.

Thank you. Have a great day, my friends.