Critical Reflections on Employment Among Autistic Adults
David Nicholas, Malvina Klag
Abstract
Encouraging efforts have emerged in recent years to study and build employment opportunities for adults on the autism spectrum. In this Perspectives piece, we acknowledge this important work while offering critical reflections for consideration as the field of employment in autism advances. We call for five areas of increased focus: (1) nurturing long-term versus short-term employment success; (2) broadening employment readiness efforts beyond only the individual to the entire community employment ecosystem; (3) providing professional development that starts with an individual's strengths, and not with their disability; (4) building community employment support that can be independent of family support; and (5) striving for a good life versus just the next job. Overall, we aim to help galvanize the field toward greater consideration of individuals' quality of life and development, the broader community ecosystem around individuals and their families, and vocational stability over the life course, all on individuals' own terms. Lay summary: We hope that these recommendations help spark new conversations and collective approaches toward improving the employment landscape for autistic individuals. These approaches would move beyond a short-term job focus and individual-level readiness programming to also build supportive community ecosystems around individuals over time. In this way, we hope that individuals can more easily achieve employment over the long term that both works for them and contributes to the important and overarching aim of quality of life.