Americans with Disabilities Act? Apply to us?

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Hello, I would like to know if any here have had experience with workplace accomadations for AS, or if any has had to invoke the ADA. I've been at my job for a long time (doing very well, but working much, much harder than NT's), but some new changes are very likely going to bring out my weaknesses in areas such as social skills, organization, processing speed, and "not freaking out." I am also concerned that under a new evaluation system, my mannerisms, once thought to be harmlessly quirky, will now be used against me, Oh, and there's this thing about eye contact, that a collegue recently pointed out. (I had spec. ed services as a child and teen, and have a formal diagnosis of AS.)

Since I've recieved outstanding evaluations for over ten years, I am sure that I can do this job. But I worry that I will be punsished for not being NT.

Oh, I am a teacher. A weird one, but a good one. Problem is the new education standards apparently call for standardized teachers. I can do the job, but I can't be NT.

Thanks for any comments.

Provided your employer is already aware of your disability, the ADA does (theoretically) apply, but my experience with getting any bureaucratic agency to stand behind and enforce it has not been positive. Its great for getting a wheelchair ramp built, but the suits have no concept of what autism is, or what types of accommodation it requires, so their solution in my case was to pass the buck to any other agency they could think of and make condescending excuses. I played email and phone tag with about a half dozen state agencies (including one called "Disability Rights Commission" and a state senator) for four years before I gave up.

The only time I found the ADA to be effective was in dealing with an organization who took a great deal of subsidy funding from the government. If you file a formal complaint of discrimination with the government agency that controls their funding (which you may be able to do online), the cash flow comes to a screeching halt until an investigation is completed and THAT will get people cooperating in a hurry. In your case, however, it might leave you open to reprisals at work.

In any case, be advised that the ADA only allows you something like a 6 month window to file a discrimination complaint, from the time the discrimination occurred, after which 'statute of limitations' the guilty party skates scot-free.

The ADA does apply to people with AS.

Thanks for the information. Since I work for a town governement, I'm pretty sure the law would be followed. (This kind of thing works fairly well around here.) I am not happy with the idea of telling co-workers about my condition. I think those who haven't guessed will think that I'm fake--well I am faking it. At least they might stop asking me to go faculty parties.

I think if anybody hassles me about eye contact, looking to the side when answering a question, making faces, forgetting a person's name, talking to myself, etc. I will let people know about the AS. I'll never know why these things are such a big deal anyway.

So let me get this straight. You can hold down a job for a long period of time and you have been receiving outstanding performance evaluations and now people are telling you that you have to CONFESS that you are mentally ill and that you have to CONFESS that you are disabled and ret*d just so you can get protection under the ADA.

The ADA only provides for reasonable accommodation but since your autism cannot be cured will reasonable accommodation do you any good?

So after your confession you can expect horrible performance evaluations and if this makes you angry it is further proof that you are mentally ill which is by your own confession.

So rather than playing the disability card why not just deny that you have a mental illness because the truth of the matter is people are envious of your brilliance.

Leaving aside your misunderstanding of the word "ret*d," your point is well taken. I haven't changed, but some aspects of the job have changed. A reasonable accomadation would be for people not to give me crap about, or punish me for, what is beyond my control. It's not too much ask.

I'll give this more thought before taking any action,

Thanks everyone.

Posted by myself in another thread. This is what I've been going through:

Some of this will be familiar to those who read my intro thread Lurking No Longer, but I'll recap: I had made a social skills mistake at work (removing headphones form the head of a patron who had appeared to have stolen them from the library). I had at the time been working up the courage to get my official diagnosis and appropriate therapy. I was aware my conduct was inappropriate and it decided me to schedule an appointment with a counselor who works exclusively with people on the autism spectrum. At the time I wrote up the incident report, I explained in an accompanying e-mail that I attributed the act to autism and had now found an appropriate therapist. I went to the autism spectrum counselor and she was shocked that my psychiatrist (who was treating me for clinical depression and to whom I had previously confided my suspicions that I had Aspergers) hadn't yet given me my official diagnosis. Though I couldn't continue with the autism spectrum counselor, because of an alleged conflict of interest, she recommended to my psychiatrist that he give me my offical diagnosis, which he did, and I submitted my letter of diagnosis to the Personnel Department, my chain of command at the library, and City Investigations when I was called to give my version of the incident. At this point things started going crazy. Next thing I knew I had been scheduled for a fitness-for-duty examination, which my library director alleged was for the dual reasons of the original incident and the autism spectrum diagnosis. In a couple of meetings in her office as well as a previous e-mail, my library director seemed to be skeptical of my autism diagnosis and even the existence of autism, whether Asperger's or classic, at all. She also dredged up a lot of things unrelated to the incident that displayed her personal antipathy to me. Rather than wait for the fitness-for-duty appointment, she next ran up the charges in the original incident to "assault" and "fighting", so she could recommend termination. I hired an attorney. After being on adminstrative leave for a couple of weeks, I had my City Hearing and was officially terminated as of Sept. 20. My original plan had been to make my appeal to the Personnel Board and then file a complaint with the EEOC if that failed. Meanwhile I started searching for a new position, though I knew it may not be easy to land a library assistant much less a librarian position with a discharge on my work history. It seems the City Attorney is nervous about the potential EEOC suit, so he apparently approached my lawyer to propose that I apply for disability retirement with the City, even though I've already been discharged. I would only be paid 26% of my previous salary plus benefits, but I could remove that discharge from my work history and could look for work elsewhere provided my salary and retirement benefit did not exceed my previous salary. When my attorney told me about the option, I expressed some doubt due to the request having to go through my library director and her presence on the board that approves it. I received notice yesterday that my Personnel Board hearing had been scheduled, but after thinking about it, I authorized my lawyer to ask for a continuance on the Personnel Board hearing and look into the disability retirement option. My thinking is that even if my library director did interfere with my disability determination, it would strengthen my grounds for the EEOC suit. Of course, I suspect the City Attorney may lean on her to go along with it. Meanwhile I have at least one potential employer who seems to be seriously interested in me for a library technical assistant position. Neither the City disability nor a low-paying library technical assistant position would pay the bills alone, but combined or with a part-time job on top I might come out okay financially, if the disability is approved, and be in a position to work my way back up. Sorry about the long post, but it's complicated. Do you think I'm right to try for the disability retirement?

Like you I was employed by a city government in a public service position and had positive merit evaluations for 13 years. I am not saying this will happen to you, but this can happen. If you do disclose, be very careful about any errors that could lead to disciplinary action. Like my city government, yours may wish to take the risk of an EEOC suit over what they may regard as a potential liability. Most NTs don't think of Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton when they hear "Aspergers", they think "school shooter". In any case, the investigation of an EEOC suit can take a year or more and there is no certainty of prevailing. You might want to go back to school, so you have a back-up career if you aren't close to retirement age.

I'm sorry to hear about all that crap you had to go through. I will certainly think twice before taking any action at all. Maybe things will blow over, I don't know. I hope things will be better for my son (now in his teens) and his contemporaries.

I think your lack of an official diagnosis is going to hurt you. Go with your lawyer's advice.