Reasonable Adjustments and Why Accessibility Matters for Neurodivergent People
Someone asks to wear headphones at their desk. Someone requests written instructions alongside verbal ones. Someone asks for the fluorescent light above their desk to be switched off.
It can be easy to assume that an adjustment is a favour; something extra, or unearned. It’s rarely spoken, but it can shape responses to requests, and how neurodivergent people feel about asking for what they need in the first place.
The thing that can get missed is that a reasonable adjustment isn’t extra. It’s what lets someone do the job everyone else is already doing, without a barrier in the way that no one else has to contend with.
Nobody would call a ramp special treatment. It doesn’t give a wheelchair user an advantage over anyone else; it removes an obstacle that was not there for others in the first place. Noise-cancelling headphones, flexible start times, written as well as verbal information. These work the same way. They’re not advantages. They are what a level playing field actually looks like for a brain that processes the world differently.
There’s a difference between equality and equity that’s easy to lose sight of. Equality means treating everyone the same; the same desk, the same lighting, the same instructions delivered in the same way, regardless of whether that works for the person receiving them. Equity means giving each person what they actually need to reach the same starting point, even when that looks different from what the person next to them needs.
A reasonable adjustment isn’t a departure from fairness. It’s what fairness looks like once you account for the fact that not everyone starts from the same place.
Employers and service providers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and many neurodivergent people are covered by this duty, whether or not they think of themselves as disabled. In practice, that duty asks organisations to think in terms of equity, not just equality; to look at what an individual actually needs, not simply what’s offered to everyone as standard.
The law defines disability broadly. It covers a ‘physical or mental impairment’ that has substantial (more than minor or trivial) and long-term (a year or more) effect on someone’s ability to carry out normal daily activities. Many neurodivergent people meet that definition, even if they’ve never used the word ‘disabled’ to describe themselves.
It can be difficult for neurodivergent people to ask for reasonable adjustments that support them working in a way which works for their brain, for many different reasons. Some of these reasons may relate to how safe it feels to ask and how this might be received. This is where organisations can make a huge difference in creating that safety.
What would shift if adjustments were consistently treated as ordinary practice; the same way a fire exit or a wheelchair ramp is just part of how a building works?
None of this requires an organisation to guess. It requires building positive relationships, asking the person what they need, believing them and building it in without ceremony.
It’s rarely the case that those in management are opposed to supporting staff. Often, it can be a lack of understanding of what neurodivergence actually is, day to day , that leads to decisions which might inadvertently make things harder. The person can become the ‘problem’ to be managed, not because anyone set out to make them feel that way, but because their lived experience is not understood.
A proactive manager works differently. They take the time to understand what neurodivergence might mean for someone, rather than assuming they already know or treating one person’s experience as representative of everyone’s. They build flexibility in from the start, rather than treating it as a concession handed out after enough persistence.
It also helps not to expect all the answers in one go. Whether someone is recently diagnosed or has been diagnosed for some time, they can still be getting to know themselves and their neurodivergence, and won’t always have a complete picture of what they need. Adjustments tend to surface gradually, in a drip, drip way, rather than arriving as a finished list handed over in a single conversation. It’s not indecision, it’s someone learning about how their brain works and having the space to continue learning about themselves.
None of this requires management to have all the answers either. It requires a willingness to ask, listen and be open to learning, without expecting their neurodivergent colleague to be their teacher.
This might not always feel simple. Budgets are real, teams might be stretched and not every adjustment looks the same from one person to the next, regardless of whether people have the same diagnosis.
But the starting point matters.
If the position is ‘prove you deserve this’, the responsibility is placed on the person asking and can imply a position of disbelief. If the position is ‘what would remove the barrier?’ the process starts in a collaborative way and is far more likely to create safety.
If you’re navigating this as an employer, a colleague, or a neurodivergent person trying to work out how to ask, this is exactly where training and conversation can create real accessibility.
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