When Neurodiversity Works

Bradley Boldt14min

Speaker 100:05

I was kind of a bit naive to how I was different from everyone else by didn't really quite have a concept of it. One day I was taken into special ed and I was given this book about what is this autism thing? And what does it mean? It's like, Okay, I guess that's the thing now, I only really realized what it meant later

Speaker 200:41

was around the time that I was seven, that I knew that there was something I don't want to say wrong, but that there was something different.

Speaker 300:50

I used to hardly talk. And I had to learn how to do anything on my own. I didn't really do.

Speaker 401:03

It seemed as if there was an instruction manual that everyone else kind of had for communicating and reading other people that I did not have. I don't know how I would be handling this, like, a year and a half ago when I wasn't working. All those skills, I kind of compiled into me being able to sit here and look and look you in the eye.

Speaker 501:39

Close to 80% of folks in the autism spectrum are underemployed. Many of them have master's degrees, and some of them have even done PhDs and all of them are so passionate. However, they have not found any jobs.

Speaker 601:58

neuro diversity in the workplace for me is that we give everybody an opportunity. The IBM ignite ASD program is where we have developed a pilot program where we have brought candidates that are on the autism spectrum, we see if we can place them within IBM in different capacities.

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