How Do We Educate the Workplace About Developmental Disabilities?

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by Judy
Friday, October 02, 2009

This is my first post here and my motivation for writing it is the following.  My son is 31, developmentally disabled and mildly autistic.  He was fortunate enough to get a job a year ago with the federal government through the Ticket to Work program.  They were made aware of his disabilities and he has been provided training, plus he has a job coach through the job development agency that found him the job.  It seems lately that his boss has been pushing him for speed more and more.  He has one speed - slow.  He's good with details and gets his job done, but not as quickly as they would like.  He just got a new boss the other day and this one is being even more insistent on efficiency and how he has to go faster, etc. 

From what the job coach tells me, these people don't have a clue about developmental disabilities and don't really seem to want to hear that my son probably can't go any faster than he is.  I've thought about how to educate employers more about what to expect from people with autism and developmental disabilities, but I really wouldn't know where to start, what's legal, etc.  It just bothers me that this is the federal government, which created this work program for people like my son, but they have no idea of how they should be treating him.  His new boss was even asking him to work the same flex hours that she does - 6 to 2 - which would wipe him out totally.  Plus, as an employee, he has a right to his own flex hours. 

Anyway, was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for how to address this without looking like a meddling parent.  The job development agency is trying to address this, but they can't even get reimbursed from the state any more for any time they spend with him.  His job coach has been asked to come in every day for an indefinite period of time, which is ridiculous since he's been doing the job for a year and doing it well, just not very quickly.  She says not to worry about them firing him, but I do, nevertheless.  He likes this job, he makes a decent salary that enables him to have his own apartment and it would be crushing to him to lose it.  Thanks for any ideas anyone might have.