Episode 289 · 2 April 2026 · 50:44
The Canary in the Coal Mine: What Autistic Employees Reveal About Your Workplace, with BPS President Elect, Dr Laura Dean
Featuring Laura Dean
The Canary in the Coal Mine: What Autistic Employees Reveal About Your Workplace, with BPS President Elect, Dr Laura Dean
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The canary in the coal mine: autistic employees as early warning system
interview#autism#neurodiversity#workplace
What people get wrong about autism: stereotypes and the empathy myth
interview#autism#stereotypes#empathy
Why autistic graduates struggle entering the workplace
interview#autism#graduates#employment
Are diagnosis rates actually rising? The six-year NHS backlog
interview#autism#diagnosis#nhs
Why the 'spectrum' model is outdated and the problem with the 'superpower' narrative
interview#autism#spectrum#superpower
TikTok, self-diagnosis, and misinformation
What business owners need to know: stop gatekeeping support and universal design
interview#business#support#universal-design
The business case for neuroinclusion and one thing Laura would change
interview#neuroinclusion#business-case#change
Final takeaway: inclusion is system design
interview#inclusion#system-design#takeaway
Show notes
The Canary in the Coal Mine: What Autistic Employees Reveal About Your Workplace — with Dr Laura Dean
Guest: Dr Laura Dean — Chartered Occupational Psychologist, President-Elect of the British Psychological Society, and 20-year educator and researcher in autism and neurodiversity.
Around 1 in 70 of your employees is autistic — whether they've told you or not. So what does that mean for how you design work?
Dr Laura Dean joins Al and Leanne to introduce a powerful framing: autistic employees are the workplace's "canaries." The environmental stressors that cause autistic burnout — ambiguous instructions, fluorescent lighting, unspoken social rules — don't just affect neurodivergent people. They slow down everyone. Autistic employees just feel the impact first.
Laura and the team unpack why the "superpower" narrative can actually be damaging, why the myth of the empathy deficit gets it exactly backwards, and why inclusion isn't about special treatment — it's about system design that makes work better for every single person in your building.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Stop gatekeeping support. Don't wait for a formal disclosure to help your team. Ask everyone what they need to do their best work — you'll be amazed what comes back.
- Fix the environment, not the person. Predictability, clear written instructions, and sensory-friendly spaces make your whole team more effective and less likely to burn out.
- Drop the "superpower" label. Framing autism as a superpower reduces people to their utility. The goal is creating environments where people can simply be themselves.
More From Dr Laura Dean
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lauradean1
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottToday, the 2nd of April, 2026, is World Autism Awareness Day. Around 1 in 70 of your employees is autistic, and there's a very strong chance you wouldn't actually know because many have spent years learning how to mask it or adapting their behaviour to fit environments that weren't designed with them in mind. And that's exactly why this matters so much, because this isn't just about awareness days or good intentions. It's It's about how work actually functions day to day, how meetings are run, or how performance is judged. Essentially, it's how communication happens.
Leanne ElliottThe reality is a lot of what we call normal in inverted commas at work only works for a narrow group of people, and everyone else is quietly working harder just to keep up. So today felt like the right moment to have this conversation, not just about autism, but about what better work could look like for everyone. And I could not be more excited to introduce you to our guests today. Dr. Laura Dean. Laura is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, President Elect of the British Psychological Society, and one of the UK's leading researchers on autism in the workplace.
Al ElliottAnd she's got an approach that might make you change how you think about your whole team, not just your neurodivergent employees.
Laura DeanWe can think about autistic people as being that canary in the workplace, the same way you'd have a canary in the, in a coal mine, that when we see the burnout in autistic people, It's impacting efficiency across the whole workforce. It's just impacting these people more. So any sort of adjustments we might make that are going to help them, probably going to help everybody, you know, all along the workplace there.
Leanne ElliottThat's the insight that changes everything. Autistic employees aren't a special case to manage around. They're the early warning system for an environment that is making work harder than it should be for everybody. And the fixes, well, they make work better for everybody.
Al ElliottToday, Laura is going to tell us what business owners constantly get wrong about autism, why the superpower framing is actually damaging, and the one thing you can do this week that will help every single person on your team, whether autistic or not.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of work.
Al ElliottOur guest today, Dr. Laura Dean, has spent 20 years teaching occupational psychologists, researching autism in the workplace, and is currently Principal Occupational Psychologist at the Cabinet Office. And this year she's stepping up as President of the British Psychological Society. She also has a daughter who is autistic, which means this isn't just academic for her. So after this short break, we'll go and meet Laura and get into it. Don't go anywhere. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Laura DeanNice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Laura DeanI'm Laura. I'm a chartered occupational psychologist, and I've taught in HE for, oh, 20 years now, but whilst also working in practice. So I've taught, you know, many, many occupational psychologists myself. And last year I took on the role of President Elect of the British Psychological Society. So, I'm stepping up as President in a few months actually, but there's been a lot of work associated with that before I get to the President role. So, yeah, that's an interesting thing to be doing this time.
Leanne ElliottHuge congratulations. And yeah, if somebody had told me when we started this little podcast that I'd be talking to the President of the British Psychological Society, I probably wouldn't believe them. So, thrilled to have you here. I could probably do a whole hour with you just about the BPS and where it's going and its role in this crazy world of work we're in right now. But the topic of today's conversation is around autism. So, I want to start with a really basic question. I don't wanna make any assumptions. Can you give us a definition of autism, what autism is?
Laura DeanAutism's just essentially a difference in how the brain processes the world. So, that means like having different sort of default settings for sensory input, for communication, for desire for predictability. What that means in practice is that autistic people, um, it requires more effort for them to do things that we might take for granted. So things like they might have to manually work out when it's their turn in a conversation, or, you know, really think about whether something was a joke or whether it should be taken literally, uh, you know, what the social, social rules are. Um, but the flip side of that is, you know, it's often portrayed as sort of being broken or a deficit. It's a problem. But the other side of that is The difference in processing and the way in which autistic people engage with the world mean that they have strengths in areas like pattern recognition. They might be a lot better at pattern recognition. They're often better at identifying when things aren't logical. They're less likely to be influenced by peer pressure and hierarchies and how things are usually done. So, that's all beneficial in the workplace because that means they can sort of challenge things that are flawed early on and jump in and correct errors.
Al ElliottYeah.
Laura Deanmore directly, which might not always be received well, um, but, but is helpful for businesses. The problems really arise when organisations don't allow those differences and, and, you know, when autistic people are essentially operating in a world that, that doesn't tolerate any difference from those standard ways of communicating and engaging with the world.
Leanne ElliottAnd when people hear the word autism, what do they usually get wrong?
Laura DeanI think one of the biggest ones is sort of defaulting to those stereotypes of, um, you know, a greasy-haired boy in a, in a basement doing things on a computer, you know, that sort of, um, idiomatopoeic approach to things. Assuming that autism is, is about purely social awkwardness, sort of missing those cognitive and sensory elements to this. The other one is about thinking about it as if it's something that's really rare. This isn't incredibly rare. This is, in terms of, you know, reaching those clinical diagnostic thresholds, we're talking about 1 in 70, 1 in 80 people. So a significant minority, which reflects how beneficial autism is for society that we have these, these large, large minorities of people there. I think a really big one though is about misunderstanding empathy and thinking that autistic people can't empathize.
Leanne ElliottCan you tell me a bit more about that empathy issue? Because I, I have a nephew who is, um, he's one of my best mates, to be honest. He's, he's in his mid-20s and he is autistic and he is one of the most empathetic people I've ever had the pleasure of spending time with. So what is this issue around empathy and what are we misunderstanding?
Laura DeanYeah, so there's different types of empathy. Essentially, we have this, um, cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy is you very easily understand somebody else. You can put yourself in their position and with no difficulty at all, you can understand. And autistic people really struggle with that. It doesn't come naturally to them and they have to really work at it. What they have intact is affective empathy. So affective empathy is about actually wanting to put themselves in other people's positions, understanding and wanting to help other people.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanThen autistic people have actually been shown to usually have a more heightened level of affective empathy. That coupled with a sort of high need for justice, a strong sense of fairness in autistic people means that actually when they recognize somebody else is having a problem or worried or concerned, they are extremely empathetic about it. They just don't easily recognize that. And it's a high cognitive load on them to actually work that out.
Al ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanAnd I think the very sad bit about this is sometimes autism is sort of mixed up with things like sociopathy or psychopathy, because in psychopathy, what you get is the opposite. You get people who can very easily do the cognitive empathy. They know exactly what other people feel like, but they don't care. And they use that to manipulate other people. Um, so, you know, autistic people are having this problem in empathizing, but when they, they get it, they really get it. And they really want to, to sort of help and, um, and engage with people. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottGoing off on a small tangent for a second, you said then that autistic people have a desire to understand how people are thinking and feeling. I must ask, do we find a higher number of people with autism amongst the psychologist community?
Laura DeanAbsolutely. My doctoral work looked at how graduates enter the workplace, how autistic graduates, you know, struggle with that entry into the graduate workplace. It was very interesting looking at statistics in terms of where those graduates or where those students were, because there's an assumption that they will be in the STEM fields, you know, and they'll— I mean, psychology is a science, but that they'll be in that sort of hard end of the science. But actually, large proportions of the students were in places like psychology, or they were studying English literature, which I found a very interesting example. And it comes from that position of reading books, wanting to understand, trying to sort of get past this initial cognitive problem that they're having in a understanding other people and, you know, doing their best to sort of overcome the difficulties they're facing living in the world that's not catering for them.
Leanne ElliottSo you mentioned psychopathy as being something that gets lumped into autism that doesn't belong there. Are there any other things that tend to get put with autism that really don't belong there?
Laura DeanLots of things. I mean, I think quite often the idea that it's some form of mental illness, and that's That's going off a little bit. I think we're having better understanding now. I can see how that happens because we do have sort of high incidence of things like depression and anxiety amongst autistic people, but that is a correlation. Um, and that is more likely to do with autistic people struggling to live in a world that isn't, um, adapted for them, that's creating these additional conditions. It's not something that's intrinsic. There's often a lot of sort of confusion around things like, um, it's related to trauma or it's related to introversion or ADHD. And there are some, um, patterns between ADHD and autism, and there are some crossovers there that are quite interesting. Um, but it is really important that we recognize that in terms of diagnostic, uh, categories, that one of the things is, is that to be diagnosed as autistic, it can't be explained away by ADHD.
Al ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanExplained by any of these other things. So it's important that you consider the wide range of things that's impacting a people, a person's behavior before you would come back and say, this is, you know, this is the, the cause. And the, the idea of canary in the workplace for autistic people, I think is quite an interesting one here. You know, it's partly sort of linked to this rise in people thinking that they have autism and, and, and perhaps not, you know, reaching the diagnostic threshold is that a lot of the things that impact autistic people.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Laura DeanYou know, like fluorescent lighting or ambiguity in, you know, knowing what they're meant to be doing. They impact everybody, but they impact autistic people more. And so we can think about autistic people as being that canary in the workplace, the same way you'd have a canary in a coal mine, that when we see the burnout in autistic people, it's impacting efficiency across the whole workforce. It's just impacting these people.
Al ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanUh, more. So any sort of adjustments we might make that are going to help them, probably going to help everybody, you know, all along the workplace there.
Leanne ElliottWe are hearing a lot more of people being diagnosed with autism and rates rising quite quickly. Is that accurate, or are we hearing of people self-diagnosing or inaccurately being diagnosed? What's happening behind the headlines?
Laura DeanYeah, I mean, there are a lot of things going on here. Essentially, diagnosis rates are rising, but that's a fantastic thing. That's the same way, you know, when we invented telescopes, we suddenly see more stars. As we improve our diagnostic criteria and our techniques that we're using, we're obviously going to diagnose more people. Increased public, you know, professional awareness is going to help with that. And things like, you know, in the UK, we had the introduction of the Autism Act in 2009, which allowed for adult diagnosis.
Leanne ElliottRight.
Laura DeanAnd encourage those adult diagnoses going on. So lots more adult assessments going. So essentially a lot of this is about making diagnoses of people that should have been diagnosed in early childhood and they're getting them then much later on. But we're also much more aware of strategies that autistic people are taking to sort of hide their autism. The recognition that women in particular might be masking that and putting a lot of cognitive energy into masking or compensating. Um, and sort of burning themselves out by, um, engaging in strategies that make themselves, you know, more palatable to what a woman should look like in, in the workplace and in the world more, more generally. Another bit to this is that there is a, um, a sort of genetic element to autism. So what we've found is that, uh, there's been a significant proportion of people who've had children diagnosed, um, and then essentially gone, but they're no different to everybody else in this family. Uh, and then gone, ah, hold on. Everybody else in this family, um, you know, maybe there's, there's something about us all here. So then we're seeing, you know, um, some, some parents getting diagnosed as well there.
Leanne ElliottAnd how strong is that genetic component? Is it, is it unusual to have one lone person who might be autistic in, in a family? Is it more common to have a variety of people neurodiverse?
Laura DeanIt's an interesting one because what you find is that neurodiverse people tend to, to sort of hang about together and like each other and, you know, they communicate well together. So what you might find is a pattern of people partnering with other people who are autistic or, you know, have ADHD or things like that. But there is this, you know, reasonably strong genetic component to this, particularly across, you know, when we look across siblings, if one child has autism, there's a strong probability that another within the family will as well.
Leanne ElliottHmm.
Laura DeanOr they may have another aspect of neurodiversity, often things like dyscalculia, dyslexia, ADHD. There'll be those sort of patterns there across a family.
Leanne ElliottWhen I was— I was born in the mid-'80s, so when I was at school, it was the boys that we typically diagnosed, if at all, with something like dyslexia or autism, because they tend to be disruptive or violent or, you know, that type of behaviours. What, what does it look like in young girls? Are they more introverted in their, in their coping strategies? What does that look like?
Laura DeanWomen and girls are socialized from very early life to be accommodating to other people, to fit in in terms of what's, um, being asked of them more widely, and to engage in behaviors that appear to be, um, empathetic, that appear to be, you know, caring to other people. And so, They might be engaging in behaviours, not fully understanding why they're doing those things. What we find often comes to be the issue is, is during adolescence when things begin to change quite dramatically for girls and the sort of social rules are thrown into chaos and that creates a real sort of flashpoint. So girls who have managed to mask to a certain level, they've simply followed the rules, they've Often excelled academically. They've done all the things that they're meant to be told, and now suddenly they come across mismatched rules. You know, yes, you're meant to be doing all of this stuff that the school tells you to do, that your parent tells you to do, but there's also a peer group that has a whole series of rules, and you might be ostracized if you don't follow those rules that are in direct competition with others. Creates a massive tension and a big cognitive load for young women. And, you know, we all know being a teenager is horrible.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanNot, not, not least because when you're a teenager, you have to mix with other teenagers. Everybody's in this sort of difficult part of life, but it creates this massive tension. And that's where we often see a sort of flashpoint for, for girls and young women in, in those early or mid-teenage years. What we've seen in the past is sometimes aspects of autism have been misidentified. So In my doctoral research, I found that almost all of my female participants had already been diagnosed with something such as an anxiety disorder before they had an autism diagnosis. Many of them had been diagnosed with an eating disorder, which was nothing to do with an eating disorder in the traditional sense. It was to do with sensory sensitivity to particular Um, types of food. And so that, you know, desire to, um, you know, not eat a particular strong taste or texture. Um, and, you know, it sort of fit more neatly into our stereotype of the things, um, that young girls might, um, be experiencing. So often they'd had that other diagnosis first before it came round, um, to the autism diagnosis there. This isn't just about women. There's, there's other groups as well. You know, we know that Um, particular minority ethnic groups might not, uh, be diagnosed as, as often. Um, and that might be because of sort of ideas within a particular culture about how bad this is. There might be a stigma associated with it. It might be difficulty in sort of accessing diagnosis. There's, we know there's a massive class difference that you're much more likely to be diagnosed if you're from a, you know, middle-class family than if you're from a working-class family. So lots of different groups there being impacted by our sort of historical approach to autism and diagnosis.
Leanne ElliottYou mentioned there the socioeconomic difference. I'm wondering if I hear that there is a long waiting list on the NHS now for autistic screening, and so people are going through private means to do that. Is it okay to do that, to get that private diagnosis? Do we need to be mindful of how it's being diagnosed, certain companies? Or is it better to have a diagnosis and then, you know, get it quicker? Is there any pitfalls to going private?
Laura DeanWell, the people who are doing the diagnosis are very well trained and, you know, paying for a diagnosis does not mean that you get a diagnosis by any means. There will be a, you know, a thorough assessment there. What I think people need to be really aware of is why they want that diagnosis. What do they think is going to happen from that diagnosis? And what might the implications be if you've sort of built some aspect of your identity around this and built some community in an autistic community, and then you don't get that diagnosis? So I think it's really important that people think about what do they think the diagnosis is going to do for them, because good employers and, you know, good educators will make adjustments anyway. You should be saying, you know, these are the adjustments that I need in order to do my job well.
Al ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanAnd not be dependent on that diagnosis there. So, it shouldn't really make a difference in that sense. If it's something that, in terms of sort of self-knowledge, then yeah, I'd say go ahead if you've got the money. We know that the backlog on the NHS is around about 6 years at the moment. So, we have this incredible backlog. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottWow. 6 years. Wow, that is an incredible backlog. You mentioned identity there, and as you said, if somebody is, is getting close to an autistic community, then finds out they're not, does it work the other way as well? Particularly what you were saying about older people getting diagnosed or getting diagnosed later in life, what impact does that have on, on identity?
Laura DeanSo for some people, it's a valuable thing. It's something that sort of answers some questions that they've had about themselves or helps them feel more positive about themselves. But for other people that are really living with a lot of sort of stigmatising ideas around autism, that can be very difficult. And I think it is important that you're aware of having that diagnosis within that wider sort of system that you're living in and what it's going to do. The difference between an NHS diagnosis is that will be built in, you know, there will be those conversations with you first. You won't just have this diagnosis in isolation. Um, there'll be people helping you make sense of it. Whereas if you're paying for a private diagnosis, you might literally just go, you know, with your documents and your evidence and, and have that diagnosis. Um, and then walk away, you know, and you're entirely on your own there. So it, it is important that you sort of think about what that, that context is for you and for other people if you, if you go for that diagnosis. And, you know, maybe join some autistic communities, join some groups. There are plenty out there because autistic people really often don't like that sort of direct face-to-face communication. They are much more in online communities. There are those spaces to go and, you know, listen to autistic people telling their stories about diagnosis and what it means to them before you sort of make that decision for yourself.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
Laura DeanUh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work.
Al ElliottAnd we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Laura DeanI am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
Laura DeanDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.
Leanne ElliottI'll cut that out.
Al ElliottKeep that in.
Leanne ElliottWe often hear, and I think most people listening would have, would be familiar with the idea that autism is part of a spectrum. Can you explain to us what, what that means briefly? And also, I have seen some researchers question whether this is the right way to think about it. So I'm curious, what, what is the kind of the broad science of the spectrum and how is that currently being challenged? Yeah.
Laura DeanSo the idea of a spectrum, it has been helpful in the past, but it's no longer a terribly useful working model for us. The idea of the spectrum originally was sort of from not autistic to very autistic. Um, you know, and you was, everyone was somewhere, um, within that. This isn't really helpful because it encourages you to think about autism as one thing, and there's actually lots of different dimensions. So any individual autistic person might have differences in terms of their level of sensory sensitivities, their sort of tolerance for eye contact, their tolerance for, you know, physical contact with other people. There's lots of different aspects within that. And so when we think about just one spectrum, we are not really thinking about the sort of complexity of autism. There are, you know, a lot of academic arguments for thinking about multiple dimensions rather than a single line here. And also to move away from the idea of a spectrum, because what it does is it encourages people to think about severity as if, you know, it's really bad on this end and it's fine on this end. And that creates a value judgment on autistic people themselves.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Laura DeanWhen really people have different issues at different points in the spectrum and different strengths at different points, um, you know, here as well. So we need to be quite careful about continuing to use that idea. We've had much more recent models look at neurodiversity to see whether the groupings are right as well. And really, should we be thinking about autism as one condition, ADHD as one condition, Um, you know, all separate. There has been some research that's shown actually there's sort of different ways of, of putting people together and looking at different symptoms. But at the moment, we, we are using the sort of best working model that we have. So we're using those conditions, um, as ways of helping people understand themselves, even though there might be, you know, quite a lot of crossover, particularly between ADHD and autism.
Leanne ElliottI have heard various people say, either as, either as being neurodiverse themselves or not, referring to autism as a superpower. Is that okay? Is that problematic?
Laura DeanWell, I think it's fine for people to talk about themselves in the ways which are, you know, are beneficial for themselves, but it does sort of perpetuate this idea of, um, Autistic people being just so different that this is, whereas actually they have some strengths in some areas, some weaknesses in other areas. Everybody has, has those. And it creates this sort of narrative around the sort of idiot savant that, that is really perpetuated in the media quite often. Um, you know, from Rain Man, I don't know, it's like 30 years ago, that film, but more recently things like The Good Doctor as a As a series where we're giving this idea that this is a superpower, this makes you special and different, whereas we need to be looking at people as people in all of their interests and all aspects of them, not pulling out one element. I also think it's really important not to think about people as objects, you know, In terms of, it's not about how people are beneficial in the world or what they can do in the world. That is not what gives you value. And when you talk about people having a superpower, then what you're doing is framing them as somehow beneficial for capitalism. This is somebody who's useful in some way to society. Well, somebody doesn't have to be useful to have value in the world. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottAs you say, there's, there's so much more out there now in terms of, of media representation and of course on social media, whether it be influencers talking about, talking about their experiences as being autistic. And then we're also seeing lots of misinformation and self-diagnosis. When it comes to things like TikTok, where do you stand? Because I feel like there's, it's either completely antisocial or there's some way we can reform it to educate it? As, as a psychologist, as the president of the BPS, where do you stand on, on kind of the world of TikTok?
Laura DeanYeah, um, I will admit straight away I'm on TikTok, uh, you know, I enjoy it as much as, as the next person. Um, one of the things that, um, I think we're seeing there is there is a sort of common human desire to both feel different And to want some sort of label and also to want to create some form of community. So doing that sort of self-diagnosis allows people, particularly young people who are often looking for identity, to sort of become part of a group and feel special by, you know, doing that, that self-diagnosis. And definitely, you know, long waiting lists, high costs mean that people can't, you know, um, always get a diagnosis. So. There are benefits in, in that self-diagnosis, um, there. Social media essentially allows people to have those shared language and narratives, um, around something. They're not always, you know, self-diagnosing accurately here, but does that really matter? It, it, it can be helpful if it's helping people make sense of their experiences, or it's trying to, or Maybe it helps them remove some shame that they're feeling or self-blame that they're feeling. Um, maybe it's helpful for them because they can then try out some strategies which, yeah, may be designed for autistic people, but can be good for other people, uh, as well. It can help them sort of decide whether they want to pursue a formal assessment. Where self-diagnosis becomes problematic, it's when people are sort of engaging in very simplified checklists. And I've seen the TikToks where somebody goes, Yeah. Oh, do you know that, um, autistic people usually have blue as their favorite color? Blue's my favorite color. I, you know, and so misunderstanding, um, statistical things there. But where it's really dangerous is where people are self-diagnosing and they're not thinking about the other things that may, um, be causing the difficulties that they may have. So it may be, maybe they're ignoring an eating disorder that they have. Maybe they're ignoring trauma or some You know, medical condition. Maybe they do have a clinical level of anxiety or depression that actually, by focusing on an autism diagnosis and self-diagnosing, they're missing these other things that actually might be beneficial for them to get medical help with. This social media massively flattens complexity. It makes it all very simplified. But who are people hurting if it's just encouraging them to reflect on themselves and establish a sense of community?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanUm, that, that bit's fine. It might be a little bit annoying for people to, um, to hear, but for the individuals concerned, um, it can be very, very beneficial, assuming they're not missing other things, um, that could do with, with some, some, um, you know, some medical or psychological intervention.
Leanne ElliottAnd where— how does psychologists play a role in this? Well, I guess more educational aspect of social media, because you're right, there is a massive oversimplification out there, but people are responding because desperately looking for, like you say, that explanation, that why, or that identity, that community. And yet, as, as we've discussed already, even the models around autism, we're, we're rethinking and, and changing. How can psychologists communicate things in a way that is simplified but not oversimplified to the point of, of, yeah, my favorite color is blue, therefore I must be autistic?
Laura DeanIt's very difficult because I think a lot of A lot of the sort of public-facing autism guidance really is disconnected from the evidence and it's disconnected from the experience of autistic people. And it's often using quite outdated assumptions. I think psychologists can really help to give voice to autistic people so that they can be out there presenting, you know, real case examples themselves, as in, here I am, here's how I operate in the world. These are difficulties I face.
Al ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanHere are strategies that I've developed, um, which can be, be really beneficial. I mean, what we see at the moment is guidance around things like, oh, well, often on, on sort of early, um, childhood behavioral signs. So, oh, autistic people, uh, you know, avoid eye contact completely. And we know that most autistic people, women in particular, will mask and will have developed strategies for avoiding eye contact. They'll look slightly above the eyes.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Laura DeanEngage in conversations in other spaces. Maybe they'll go out walking so they don't have to talk face-to-face with people. And they can do that. It just has a high cognitive load on them. So the nuance is there in the evidence, but what's being promoted in the outward-facing literature is just, oh, they can't do eye contact. Well, somebody's giving me eye contact, therefore they're fine. And that's ignoring that.
Al ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanThat is going to require so much more cognitive energy for them. But it's hard to explain that quickly. So this really, for me, is about a drip, drip of this. You can't tackle it all in one go. You can just do very brief things and you can support autistic people in having their voices amplified in the world, including through the sort of literature that's going out and the marketing that's going out to ensure that we're hearing real stories.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanNot stereotypes of autism there.
Leanne ElliottIs this getting even more important that we're starting to see this information spread at the— scarily spread at the highest of levels? I mean, we look at what's come out from the US recently in terms of links between certain medications and autism, and it feels like there is guidance being made public by government organisations that is inaccurate. How does, as a person trying to learn, particularly for business owners and leaders, well-meaning, who are trying to learn, what the truth is. Are there any sources that you'd recommend that they go to to get the actual information that we need?
Laura DeanSo, you know, the Autistic Society, the— we really need to be thinking about other sources that are, you know, cited. Are they accessible to people? Really, it's about looking at the content of what's being given there because there's lots of sort of, you know, easy guides for people. And what you need to be doing is actually looking at the content of those. Is uncertainty being acknowledged in there? Because if it's not, then it's not a good piece of evidence. Um, are autistic people being involved in the production of that guidance? Again, if not, it's likely to involve a lot of stereotypes there. Are you reading something that's even 5, you know, 10 years old? Because it might be significantly out of date. The guidance should be evolving. with new evidence. It should be recognising complexity. Even if it's a short guide, it should be saying, we can't cover all of this here. This is a much more complex issue, and referring out to other resources there. But it's about being critical of what you read. Anything that's giving you very easy answers or very easy summaries is likely to be, um, dubious.
Leanne ElliottI feel like we're starting to see that from, from younger people especially. Like, you'll see the reaction videos on, on TikTok, on YouTube, where they'll debunk what, what somebody has said. And do you think this is going to be part of it as well, is that, as you say, that, that critical analysis and thinking and talking openly about why that might be an oversimplification?
Laura DeanYeah, and I think the gradual reduction in stigma that we're seeing worldwide. We might be seeing a little bit of a backslide, um, in, uh, the US at the moment, but generally we're seeing a sort of reduction in stigma. Means that people are more willing to talk about this openly and give their own experiences here. And, and that really helps. Um, and it, it's really helpful when people are more willing to go to actual evidence sources.
Al ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanI'm really pleased with the, you know, the open source movement, the fact that research evidence is much easier for ordinary people to access now than it was in the past. Um, you know, that we, we can actually get to those original sources and look at them, and people want to, to get to those original sources and look at them. That's really positive for me.
Leanne ElliottI agree. It's, it's, and I think there is that thirst at the minute for For, for truth. And I think also just for, for, yeah, challenging. And I think that's the one thing is, I guess, you see a swing one way, inevitably people will, will kind of want to get to the, to the facts, to, to really understand what's going on. So I guess that within terms of flipping it now to, to business owners who might be listening, I'm not gonna lie, I've spoken to well-meaning business owners who've gone, it all, you know, it feels like the right thing to do. It just all seems too hard.
Laura DeanYeah.
Leanne ElliottI don't want to get myself in trouble. I wouldn't know how to, to support somebody who's autistic in my organization. And my concern is they probably already do have people in their organization who are autistic, but they might not know about it. What advice do you give as a starting point for a business owner listening going, oh my gosh, what, what do I do?
Laura DeanFor business owners, I think there's some really important things to think about here. The first one is about, first of all, Don't gatekeep support. Don't assume that people are going to disclose to you because you need to have built up a high degree of psychological safety for people to disclose in the first place. And they also might not disclose because they don't know themselves. You know, we know that lots of people are autistic and don't know themselves. If you've got 70 people in your workforce, it's likely that one of them is autistic. So you'll Highly likely to have people there already. So to ensure you're not sort of gatekeeping support, the first thing is to focus on needs and not proof. Don't be demanding, um, evidence from people. Be listening to all your staff about, well, what would help you? And again, this is about universal design in the workplace. Things that help one person because they're autistic is likely to help other people as well. So, we're not just, while we have this desire to make workplaces fairer, I think for business owners, they're often more thinking about the efficiency, and the efficiency comes from that. Most of your employees will hate that strip lighting. Is the fluorescent lighting so beneficial or so cost-saving that it's actually a good thing to have because it's giving some of your employees a headache? Uh, your autistic employees might be hearing the sort of ticking noise of the fluorescent lighting and it's impacting their ability to concentrate. So, you know, asking everybody what, what their needs are, um, is really important. Not, not having that sort of proof there. Designing environments that reduce unnecessary stress for, for everybody. So things that benefit autistic people around having very clear instructions. Most people want clear instructions. Knowing, you know, what exactly is my task? When is my actual deadline? Not a pretend deadline that you've made for me. When's my actual deadline on this? What are the implications for missing the deadline? Those things are beneficial for all employees. So, we build that in and we have that sort of universal design on there. Recognising that many supports benefit everybody in the workplace means that you start to design a system that then is where people can feel more safe to disclose not just autism, but, you know, other disabilities as well. And that means that you then might put individual things in place for them.
Leanne ElliottYou mentioned lighting, you mentioned noise, clarity around what our roles and responsibilities and goals are. Is there anything else kind of contextually, environmentally that businesses could be doing that will support everybody, but also specifically people who are autistic?
Laura DeanSo clear expectations and communication is the biggest one there. And that's about things like having written versions of things as well as verbal versions of things, encouraging people to make their own notes or make their own recordings of meetings and things so that they can, you know, go away and listen again if something hasn't quite gone in. Increasing predictability wherever you can so that there is, you know, understanding of what happens, not just assuming that people know rules.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanAnd again, this, this is extremely helpful for people from working-class backgrounds entering graduate roles and more middle-class jobs when they might understand some of the rules around how people socialise in the workplace, or when you actually stop and start doing work, or how you communicate with other people in those spaces. So, making those things explicit. Flexibility in not just when the work is done, But, you know, how it's done, allowing people to, to take the, the method that works for themselves. We have a real big focus on teamwork, and you'll find that it appears in most job adverts, must be good at teamwork. But then you look at jobs and you think, well, actually, whilst that was a major part of your selection process, most of the work that I'm doing is on my own. I'm not actually working in a team very often, and when I am working in a team, Hmm. I could often do that work by myself. So, you know, recognizing, do people actually want to work in a team or not? Or would they rather have their element of the teamwork to, you know, to do by themselves? The flexibility in when people work really does help. Again, everybody, it helps people with childcare issues and it helps people with sort of physical disabilities and things, but allowing your autistic employee to not have to travel in the sensory hell, which is a bus at rush hour, you know, that can be really helpful if they start at 10 o'clock and finish at 6 o'clock instead of the 9 to 5. That's going to help them a lot because they're going to arrive at work feeling a lot, you know, better able to work. And probably the biggest one is just about having managers that actually listen, that, you know, Uh, are talking to people and actually listening, um, and not assuming. And that's why we don't just want people reading off some sort of checklist of autistic people want these things, and I, I have an autistic employee, but actually who will sit down and say, what have you found useful in the past? Um, and not as a one-off, you know, 2 or 3 weeks into the job, how's it going? Can we make any changes now? Have you thought about anything else that, that might help? You know, um, maybe you've been wearing your headphones up to now and you thought that would be helpful.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanBut actually now you're feeling a bit lonely because you're not involved in any, anything, you know, what, what changes can we make and keep making? It's not a one-shot thing at the start of a job. It's about checking in regularly with people as to how it's, how it's all working.
Leanne ElliottAnd for business owners, what's the benefit? I'm imagining I'm, I'm a— to be very stereotypical, and I'm thinking more like in a film or a TV show or something— I'm a commercially driven Not got time for this nonsense. I just need people to show up and do the work. Are there any performance benefits of employing people who are neurodiverse autistic? Any commercial benefits that teams might see from having, having members that are autistic?
Laura DeanYeah, there's lots of benefits here because there are, um, aspects of autism that, um, are really beneficial in teamwork environments. So one of the things is around actually being prepared to challenge. And thinking, well, others might regard it as creatively, but they're thinking differently. So they're actually coming at problems from a very different perspective. So bringing in those different ideas and bringing in those challenges that stop groupthink, which is often happening within organizations. So autistic people are brilliant for that. So we want that range of people. We also want that range of people within an organization because Because, you know, they are 1 in 70 of the population, and so they're 1 in 70 of the clients that you will have. They're 1 in 70 of people buying your products. So, you want to make sure that people from all different backgrounds are feeding into design processes, because they will all have different understandings of how a product might sell, or what might be beneficial features within a product. So, that's why we want diversity of all types.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanWithin organizations for that sort of efficiency and, uh, and bottom line aspect of that. And again, in terms of the efficiency in working, once we have people there, the changes that you make for autistic people in the workplace likely make everybody else efficient too. Having a quiet space, and it doesn't have to be labeled as quiet space, it can be a break room, but having one where people can retreat to.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Laura DeanWhen they've had a difficult phone call, when they're feeling overwhelmed, when actually something horrible is happening in their private life and they just can't face sitting with their colleagues for a bit. That's not just for autistic people. Having that space means that everybody can work more efficiently because they can take those, you know, few moments that they need before they go back into the workplace, and they're more efficient overall, and they're a lot less likely to get burnt out overall.
Leanne ElliottIf there was one thing you could change about how autism is spoken about publicly, what would it be?
Laura DeanIt would be about moving away from the extremes. It would be about moving away from the idea that it's, you know, it is a superpower or that it is a tragedy, that it's a deficit. Um, really focusing more on environments and the impact that environments have on everybody. Um, and that actually, Autistic people are people and everybody needs to find this right environment for themselves to work in. Uh, and we're all responsible for making sure that we all have this, this good environment to work in.
Leanne ElliottMay I ask you, you're so clearly passionate about this world. This is your PhD was in this area. You're President Elect for the BPS at arguably one of the most complex times for for everything psychology-based. What drives that? What can I understand about, about Laura, perhaps when she was younger, that shaped who you are today?
Laura DeanYeah, I, I am really committed to equal opportunities. My, um, initial area of work was very much around social class and the impact that had, um, on people entering the workforce and being successful in, in the workforce. And it spread out to different areas of interest. My eldest daughter is autistic herself, and I'm really proud to see how she's managed to shape a space in the world for herself and create a job for herself and be very successful in that when she would not fit neatly into existing structures.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura Deanworkplaces. And she's a little bit older, and I'd like to see people who are entering the workforce now, those sort of 18, 19-year-olds, to not have to develop their own business in order to do that, but to be able to enter workforces that were supportive and workforces that were nice places to be. I would like people to think work is a part of my life, not something I have to do.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Laura DeanI want workplaces to be nice, nice places for people to be.
Leanne ElliottMe too. How wonderful that would be. Laura, thank you so much. Before I let you go, if there's one takeaway you'd want business leaders, business owners to take from this conversation, what would it be?
Laura DeanI think it's inclusion is about system design. It's not about special treatment. It's about creating systems that allow people to be themselves.
Al ElliottThat was Dr. Laura Dean, and I think the canary framing is going to stick with us all for quite a long time.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's a really great way to look at it. What an absolute, absolute powerhouse of a psychologist. And 3 takeaways I think that are really important for leaders. One, stop gatekeeping support, please. Don't wait for that disclosure. Don't demand evidence. If you have 70 people in your business, statistically speaking, you're going to have at least 1 autistic one of them is autistic, and they may not even know it themselves. So ask everyone what they need to do their best work. Number 2, fix the environment, not the person. So clear instructions, flexible hours, written versions of verbal communication, a quiet space to decompress— these aren't really special accommodations. They make your whole team more effective and significantly less likely to burn out. And number 3, maybe it's time to drop the superpower narrative. Framing autism As a superpower sounds positive, but it can reduce people down to their usefulness. What autistic employees and all employees need is to be seen as people first in environments designed to let them do their best work.
Al ElliottYeah, Laura's central point, and I think it's one worth carrying into work this week, is that inclusion is system design. It's not about special treatment. When you fix things for your most vulnerable employees, you fix things for Everyone.
Leanne ElliottYou can find Dr. Laura Dean on LinkedIn. We'll put the link in the show notes.
Al ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work. We will see you next week.