If you’re neurotypical and you’ve worked with neurodivergent (ND) people, you probably have a fairly clear idea in your head of what ND communication is. I’m willing to bet the word “blunt” features in your description.
Many of the traits we associate with ND colleagues sound like a deficit: the inability to understand how people should speak to each other at work.
But the truth is more complicated and useful than that.
The Experiment
In 2020, researchers at the University of Edinburgh ran a scientific version of the telephone game, where a message is whispered down a line of people and arrives at the other end hilariously different from how it started. They did it three times with three different groups: a line of autistic people, a line of neurotypical (NT) people, and a line of alternating autistic and NT people.
The autistic line passed on the message just as clearly as the NT line.
In the mixed line the message totally fell apart.
What this means
For decades, the assumption in workplaces (and in clinical settings, and in schools) has been that communication problems between NT and ND people are created by communication deficits on the ND side. Therefore, ND people need help to communicate and adapt to the world.
This study doesn't support that.
What it suggests instead is something researchers call the Double Empathy Problem: the idea that communication difficulties between autistic and non-autistic people are a mismatch. Both sides are communicating in ways that make sense within their own neurotype. Communication breakdowns happen when the two groups collide.
It moves the question from "what's wrong with this person?" to "what's happening between these people?"
what this means at work
1. Miscommunication in mixed-neurotype teams is no one’s fault.
When an ND colleague seems to have "missed the point" of a briefing, or when an NT manager feels like their instructions weren't followed, the reflex is often to attribute this to individual shortcomings. The research suggests the problem is more more mutual than that.
2. "Clear communication" is neurotype-relative.
What counts as clear, professional, or efficient communication is actually just NT communication. Most workplace norms were built by and for neurotypical people. Indirect language, reading the room, implied expectations, and social subtext are features of neurotypical communication that can be entirely missed by ND colleagues. Meanwhile, the directness, precision, and literal clarity common in ND communication styles can be misread as bluntness, rigidity or lack of social awareness.
Neither style is better. They're just different.
3. The burden of adaptation shouldn't fall on the ND side.
A lot of neurodivergent people grow up knowing they are different from many of the people around them. At work they burn excess calories decoding NT norms, masking their natural communication styles, and performing neurotypicality as a condition of professional success. The research suggests this is both unfair and unnecessary and that better outcomes come from mutual adjustment.
4. The burden of adaptation shouldn't fall on the NT side either.
If communication is different on either side, the most effective way to reduce miscommunication is to build understanding on both sides and create a workplace that works for everyone.
5. Homogeneous teams communicate more smoothly, but this doesn’t mean we should be split up by neurotype.
Yes, the study shows that same-neurotype groups transfer information more accurately. But we also know from many other studies that diverse teams bring broader thinking, different problem-solving approaches, and perspectives that genuinely improve outcomes. The goal isn't to sort people by neurotype, it's to build bridges between the two communication styles to facilitate working together.
THe lens shift
The telephone study is just one small piece of research, but it points toward something bigger; that ND people have been carrying a disproportionate share of the work of cross-neurotype communication, based on the assumption that the difficulty was theirs to fix.
When workplaces openly accept that communication styles can differ and there isn’t one standard that everyone should meet, when they are built to accommodate different communication styles rather than enforce a single one, the research suggests things work better, not just for ND employees, but for everyone.
References:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32431157/
https://hbr.org/2017/03/teams-solve-problems-faster-when-theyre-more-cognitively-diverse
https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/talent/neurodiversity-in-the-workplace.html
