Sam Altman-backed Mentra aims to match neurodivergent jobseekers with ideal jobs | TechCrunch
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Neurodivergent individuals often have a harder time finding jobs than their non-neurodivergent counterparts. Unemployment for neurodivergent adults runs

I read the article but I didn’t check out the platform yet. Thought it might be useful for my fellow autistic people.

  • 520@kbin.social
    4·
    1 year ago

    There is none afaik. We‘re autistic. Some of us are gifted, others have learning disabilities and others again have neither of those. The idea imo is that a severely learning disabled autistic person and a gifted autistic person could stand in for eachother instead of being divided by words since they share the base condition.

    While I understand the sentiment…that’s a massive messaging failure, especially when you’re representing a group of people that largely already have issues communicating.

    Labels don’t just exist to bully people. They exist to get ideas across effectively. NTs rely on labelling for quick and effective communication, so if you don’t have accepted ones… they’ll make their own, with your permission or not. And you may not like what they come up with.

    We’d be better off taking a page from the LGBT playbook here. They have their accepted labels for identifying pretty much every offshoot there is, in the service of quickly communicating the idea. Like when you hear someone is gay, you know they’re a guy that’s into men, or depending on context, a woman that’s into other women, etc.

    We could have non derogatory labels for people who can live independently, those that might have hearing sensitivity considerations, those that need a bit more help, etc. It would actually do wonders when we talk about our autism to NTs. It would do away with a lot of the harmful stereotypes and myths too.

    • Haui@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I get your point. But you have to accept that autism and the community around it is like a billion years younger than lgbtq. It’s a good idea to work out this stuff but it will take time.

      Also, low and high functioning never had anything to do with being able to live alone. It was derogatory because it split people in two different boxes that had no meaning other than a crude division. It is a bad idea to label someone „low functioning“.

      In any case, I‘d really like to not discuss these basics too much anymore because they have been discussed at length a thousand times already. I suggest you buy a book or read online to get these basics down.

      Books I liked: Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, The complete guide on aspergers syndrome by tony attwood and my wife is currently reading a hidden force by ed thompson and one more that I cant find the name of. I hope this helps.

      • 520@kbin.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        I get your point. But you have to accept that autism and the community around it is like a billion years younger than lgbtq. It’s a good idea to work out this stuff but it will take time.

        Sure, but that doesn’t mean we cannot use what worked for them.

        We too have to deal with all sorts of stereotypes and myths meant to make us look like absolute demons. It is worth looking at how they overcame that.

        Also, low and high functioning never had anything to do with being able to live alone. It was derogatory because it split people in two different boxes that had no meaning other than a crude division. It is a bad idea to label someone „low functioning“.

        I can accept “low functioning” probably isn’t the kind of label to be using. You might have noticed I’ve been avoiding using it. There are other possible labels for those who need more assistance.

        • Haui@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Exactly. Now we have found points to agree on. On both counts I‘m fully with you. We should absoputely take a page out of their book here and there and we can help people define themselves once we understand the autistic condition (which we dont at this point).