In July, I attended the Teaching and Learning with AI conference and listened to Jackie Towson from University of Central Florida talk about AI as a teaching tool for neurodivergent students. Her point was that making such tools available to neurodivergent as well as disabled students was a way of accommodating student needs. As I was listening to Towson’s presentation, it occurred to me that AI is a useful tool for neurodivergent employees as well as students because they can share the same skill challenges.
Workplace Challenges for Neurodivergent Employees
Neurodiversity refers to a variety of cognitive challenges that can impede performance in school and at work. People classified as neurodivergent include those with ADHD, autism, and dyslexia. Depending on the individual, they can have difficulties with communication, maintaining focus, performing certain mental tasks, and time management. Many companies avoid hiring neurodivergent applicants who are perceived as lacking needed KSAOs (knowledge, skill, ability, and other characteristics). Others have begun redesigning jobs so that the job KSAOs better match neurodiverse employees. AI can offer a third option by providing an AI assistant that can help overcome skill challenges.
AI Is a Useful Tool for Neurodivergent Employees
AI is a useful tool that an individual can interact with via a computer or other electronic device. AI can be passive, like a chat bot on a website that sits in a corner of the screen waiting to answer questions. It can also be proactive, prompting the individual by asking question or making suggestions. Such tools can be leveraged to assist neurodivergent employees by becoming a personal assistant and coach. Towson’s suggested uses and more can be helpful in the workplace as well as in school.
- Taking Notes. Processing written material can be a challenge for many people. AI can help by creating summaries of material, and synthesizing multiple documents.
- Indicating What Is Important. AI can not only summarize material, it can indicate what is most important. It can makes lists of things that need attention.
- Time Management. Keeping track of what needs to be done and getting it done on time is something AI can help with. An AI can be fed the tasks that need to be done and the time frame for completion. It can break tasks down into subtasks with completion dates. The AI can then be designed to prompt the person about what needs to be done. For example, it could provide a task list at the beginning of each day, or more frequently if needed.
- Communication. Many neurodivergent individuals can struggle to communicate their ideas. AI can be helpful in either generating messages (e.g., emails) or in critiquing an email, making sure the content and tone are appropriate.
- Proofreader. For those who have a tough time seeing spelling and grammatical errors in their written material, AI can be a proofreader that flags errors. This is a feature build into Microsoft Word that underlines misspelling and grammatical mistakes.
A Reasonable Accommodation for Everyone
AI is a useful tool for neurodivergent employees, as well as employees who are not. Rather than considering it a reasonable accommodation, it should be considered an investment that can make all employees more effective at their jobs. By making people better able to perform at work, it adds a new dimension to the person-job KSAO match as it acts as a virtual team mate to help with tasks that an individual finds difficult. Perhaps in the future, skill in utilizing AI will be considered an important KSAO for employees.
Image generated by DALL-E 4. Prompts: Image representing AI. Make it more the shape of a widescreen TV. Make it less human looking.
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