ABSTRACT
Skilled and talented workers on the autism spectrum can come unstuck if employers use too much jargon and metaphorical, non-literal language or expect the employee to understand implied meanings. From the employer's point of view, it is important to ensure that workplace communication is clear. Workplaces often have their own dialect or jargon, but although workers are taught the technical jargon of the work process, we are not usually taught the social jargon. One executive told that efforts to make corporate communications more direct, in order to account for the difficulties autistic employees had with nuance, irony and other fine points of language, had improved workplace communication overall. Employers should be fully aware that imprecise directions – such as 'Go over these figures later' – can be bewildering to someone on the autism spectrum.
