After months of physical distancing, many Canadians are looking back at packed office meetings through a nostalgic lens. Not Anne Borden.

The co-founder of Autistics 4 Autistics, an Ontario self-advocacy group, once worked at a law firm. She doesn’t remember it fondly. The constant background noise, her colleagues’ shuffling and shoulder taps, and the many distractions of a crowded workspace were simply too much for her. “The open-concept office is really like a living nightmare,” she says. “Maybe there’s a few autistic people out there who like that, but I’ve never met them.”

About 1 to 2 percent of Canada’s population, or anywhere between 380,000 to 760,000 people, are autistic, according to estimates from the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Their behaviours can vary quite widely, but can include avoiding eye contact, struggling to understand emotions in others, an intolerance for changes in routine, sensory overload, and highly focused interests.

Online meetings are perfect for many of the autistic people Borden knows – in fact, some tell her physical distancing is actually improving their mental health. But Zoom meetings aren’t enough on their own to meet the needs of autistic clients or coworkers. A poorly moderated videoconference with plenty of crosstalk can be as uncomfortable as a hectic in-person gathering.

How can social impact organizations run virtual meetings, from service delivery to internal check-ins, that allow autistic people the chance to pitch in and be productive? The answer isn’t complicated, expensive, or time-consuming – and it isn’t just important for autistic-focused organizations. Any social impact organization might have an autistic co-worker, client, partner, or collaborator. Leaving them out might mean missing out on a great idea, or providing subpar services.

Borden boils it all down to basic principles: listen and adapt.   

Learn to love the text box

By Borden’s estimation, 30 percent of autistic adults are partially or completely nonverbal – meaning they’ll depend on the text box, or chat function, to make themselves heard. One easy way to help nonverbal autistic people during meetings? Slow down. “When you’re in a Zoom meeting, you have to remember that it takes people time to type,” Borden says. “So when you call on someone in a Zoom meeting, you want to make sure that you give them time to type their whole answer in.” She also recommends assigning someone to watch the text box to make sure an answer isn’t lost amid the back-and-forth banter of a meeting in full swing.

Using Zoom to mute everyone except a designated speaker is also a huge help. Anyone with communication or auditory processing difficulties can have a tough time trying to make themselves heard, and autistic people are often overwhelmed by multiple voices speaking at once. “I hear every sound in the room during a meeting,” Borden says. “For someone like me, it’s absolutely great to just have one person talking at once because it’s easier to focus and hone in on what that person is saying.”

David Niemeijer, founder and CEO of AssistiveWare, says his company’s meetings accommodate three different communication styles: those who speak verbally, those who speak through text-to-speech software, and those who simply type into the text box. For the last 20 years, AssistiveWare has created accessible communication systems, including text-to-speech programs used by some autistic people. He says maintaining a balance between verbal and nonverbal users is very important. “We’re really trying to level that playing field,” Niemeijer says.

Do your homework

Brittany Morrison, program coordinator at the Autism Aspergers Friendship Society of Calgary (AAFSC), says consulting just one autistic person on how to help the entire community fit in isn’t enough. “We can’t give you skill-sets. We can’t give you things to do,” she says. “If you want to know more, then you just need to talk to them. They’re people just like anyone else.”

Asking meeting participants about their preferences before a meeting is one of the easiest ways to ensure everyone is included. Do they use text-to-speech software? Would they prefer to type or speak aloud? Are they comfortable with having their camera on? Borden says her meetings with the International Autistic Leadership Summit offer participants the option of turning them off. Looking someone in the eye is quite challenging for a lot of autistic people, she explains, so many simply keep their audio on. “That’s a really nice option because then you don’t feel like you’re rude if you’re not making eye contact all the time,” she says.

Giving autistic people time to prepare before a meeting is also hugely important. Morrison suggests giving people as much advance information as possible, even if it’s just a schedule. Routine is very important for many autistic people, and will help them feel more at ease in an unfamiliar situation.

Let everyone mingle – but also take frequent breaks

A common misconception is that all autistic people hate socializing. Not true at all. What many autistic people find draining are long meetings — in person or online — that drag on for hours at a time with no chance to decompress. Add Zoom fatigue to the mix, and setting strict breaks becomes essential.

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) holds leadership training in Washington, D.C. every summer for autistic college students in Canada and the U.S., a week-long opportunity for them to learn about systems change and advocacy. Obviously, training went digital this year. Haley Outlaw, programs manager at ASAN, says the network decided to cut back from six hours of seminars a day to four, with breaks in between. “There are accommodations you can build in, but it can still be more stressful and taxing,” Outlaw says about virtual meetings.

But creating spaces for autistic people to socialize online is still hugely important. Morrison says the autistic people she works with can feel very isolated, especially with the cancellation of her organization’s in-person social gatherings. At a digital Dungeons & Dragons gathering hosted by AAFSC, only one young man showed up. When Morrison asked him if they should just cancel for the night, he said no – that online meet-up was the only meaningful conversation he’d have that day outside of his immediate family. 

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In the midst of COVID-19, it feels as though life is forever changing in impossible ways. Virtual meetings aren’t one of them. Outlaw points out that her organization – and the broader autistic community – has been using digital workarounds to meetings for many years. The neurotypical world has just taken a while to catch on.

And virtual meetings are incredibly useful for non-autistic people, too. Outlaw says relying on a text box or captioning software during a virtual meeting could allow someone with ADHD to catch up if they’ve zoned out. Telecommuting is a boon to parents, Borden adds. “Everyone benefits from all of these things,” she says.  

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