“I never heard about autism, ADHD or dyslexia when I was young.”
It’s a comment we hear regularly. Sometimes from line managers. Sometimes from senior leaders. Occasionally from people who are themselves starting to wonder why certain things have always felt harder than they seem to for everyone else.
The assumption behind the question is understandable. If neurodiversity is suddenly everywhere, surely something must have changed?
Perhaps. But not in the way many people think.
A century ago, looking at the night sky, you could see only a few thousand stars. Today, powerful telescopes show us there are hundreds of billions in our galaxy alone. The stars were always there; we simply lacked the tools to see them. Neurodiversity is much the same.
For decades, workplaces were largely designed around a relatively narrow view of how people learn, communicate, process information and perform. Those who fitted comfortably within that model often succeeded. Those who didn’t were frequently labelled differently. Often as “naughty”.
Many people learned to mask their differences. Others left organisations altogether. Some built successful careers but at a personal cost that remained largely invisible to colleagues around them. Today, we are simply getting better at recognising what has always existed. That awareness is being driven by better research, improved diagnostics, social media, changing workplace expectations and, perhaps most importantly, people finally feeling safer to talk about their experiences.
For employers, however, this creates a challenge. The ones that handle this to their best advantage are asking the right questions on how to improve the productivity if neurodivergent colleagues.
How do we build environments where different ways of thinking can succeed without requiring a diagnosis, a lengthy referral process or someone reaching crisis point before support is available? Microlink can helps hundreds of colleagues and their line managers to remove the barriers and improve the outcomes.
The question facing employers isn’t whether neurodiversity is real, growing or over-diagnosed. So the stars haven’t changed, we’re simply seeing more of them.
And once you’ve seen them, it’s very difficult to pretend they’re not there.
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