ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I discuss the effects of LDs and ADHDs on workplace function; specifically, how the cognitive, academic, social, and self-management difficulties, and in some instances strengths, associated with them affect workplace performance. I then outline and discuss ways to promote workplace success. The analytic framework I use takes into consideration individuals’ self-regulation skills, their ability to manage their own behavior in the workplace, their co-regulation needs and skills, their need and ability to rely on others for assistance dealing with some of their
difficulties, and their need for environmental structure, when they must depend on environmental structures and supports to succeed at their jobs. In most of the sections of the chapter this framework is implicit; in the section on empirically based treatments, it is explicit. There is not a wealth of hard data on the effects of LDs and ADHDs in the workplace, despite the many studies that have been done, because of methodological issues and the difficulties of gathering follow-up data, and no broadly agreed upon set of procedures for helping people, because of the breadth of the problems and varied ages and issues faced by the people affected, despite the many good descriptions of and attempts to organize assistive strategies and treatment. I offer an integration and overview based on an integration of my own clinical knowledge and experience with the information in the relevant literature.
