Autism Falsehood and Lie:

Note: I am writing about myself, but some autistic persons are very much focused on one task at a time or use some personal, idiosyncratic work style; not every autistic person is the same, but is a unique person, individual and autistic persons come in many forms, kinds, and types of human beings. There is no "one size fits all" for an autistic neurodivergent person.

There exist many lies and falsehoods—misinformation about autistic or neurodivergent persons. The first falsehood is the lie that an autistic person is "slow" or "lazy." These words are often used synonymously and interchangeably, although other terms, words, and slurs are frequently employed in their place.

Introduction

My focus in this essay is more on "lazy," as that word connotes not working at all, whereas "slow" implies working but at a rate less than some expectation or ad hoc, idiosyncratic measure set by a supervisor, team lead, or manager. This is a falsehood that will be discussed and examined, and I will use personal experience to provide background, context, and information to challenge and hopefully refute the misconception that an autistic person is "lazy" at work.

One difficulty is that what is considered lazy or slow can differ greatly from one person to another. The externals of "working hard" vary and can appear as "hardly working" depending on the kind of work, work style, and other factors related to the tasks performed by an autistic person. The old cliché maxim that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" applies similarly to work. But what is laziness?

Definition of What Is Lazy

Finding an objective definition of "lazy" that is less based on perception or opinion involves consulting a dictionary or dictionaries [Cambr 2025], [Dicti 2025], [Merri 2025]. This means seeking a core meaning and applicable definitions. Some definitions of "What is lazy?" using a dictionary definition are:

• unwilling to work or use energy: he was too lazy to cook | I'm very lazy by nature.
• characterized by a lack of effort or activity: lazy summer days.
• showing a lack of effort or care: lazy writing.
• disinclined to activity or exertion: not energetic or vigorous.

The consistent definition of "lazy" is a lack of effort, activity, work, and care; it indicates a deficiency in activity or exertion—the "lack of" doing. By this definition, cold is a lack of heat or kinetic energy of atoms and molecules in matter.

The False Statement

Thus, the false statement reads:

"An autistic person is lazy."

Rewriting the false statement becomes:

"An autistic person lacks effort, activity, and exertion."

However, the "lack" is not due to a deficiency in effort, activity, or exertion by an autistic person. An autistic individual is building a mental model of concepts, identifying consistent patterns in effort, activity, or exertion, and processing, arranging, and comprehending the data points to create a coherent mental model for the work required to accomplish the tasks.

Forming a Mental Model

Working is not simply about doing or being active; the essential point of work is to complete a task or achieve a goal. A dishwasher in a restaurant must wash the dishes so that they are clean and reusable to serve food and drink to customers and patrons dining.

The task is the same, but doing it requires finding the patterns to clean each dish, organizing them in some way while prioritizing which dishes are washed, how they are washed, and so on. These are just a few of the data points in the work.

For an autistic person, wrapping their mind around these data points and having a pattern to work with is the challenging part. Once the pattern and process for a task are formulated and understood, then the work is done. The autistic person is trying to organize the data points into a pattern for work that is consistent and efficient, but they must understand all the facets of the work, all the nuances and variations, to form a pattern in their mind—a mental model.

The "lazy" autistic person is processing the data points, which can make them seem lazy as nothing is done, but that is the facade, the outer veneer of work. Often, an autistic person who works to show they are working appears "slow," not from laziness, but because they are doing the work and formulating a mental model for that work while engaged in it.

Having a Mental Model

Once there is a tangible mental model for the autistic person, work will be done very effectively and efficiently. The challenge is to work while creating the pattern or coordinating all the data points in the mind of the autistic person.

That is one reason why once an autistic person has formed a mental map of a specific task or desired goal, they can perform the task or impressively reach the goal. Working "all over the place" involves multiple things in short bursts.

Often, work is not a single task or a simple goal to be reached; it involves different responsibilities and duties to perform a job role effectively. Sometimes, other tasks or goals compete with one another, and sometimes the tasks or goals are mutually exclusive.

Working Styles

Much has been written about working styles [Goodr 2025] and the danger of confusing a person's work style with intent. Therefore, I will not repeat or rehash this information, except to mention significant points. As a boy, teenager, college student, graduate student, and then in the working world, I was often told that I was "all over the place," working on things in short bursts before moving to other tasks.

The common advice I received was to "work on one thing until it is complete." That's great, but inapplicable to my style. I realize my work style is "all over the place," involving considerable effort across multiple tasks. As task priorities change and focus or interest wane, I move on to another task.

For example, while refining and further developing the tool, I would often mentally hit a brick wall while writing another test case, so I would switch to another test, the test set, or work on the documentation, and so forth. Then, while working on another task, an insight or revelation would often hit me about the task I had set aside. That’s my work style: chaotic and idiosyncratic.

Work Style Processing Data Points

I have come to realize that achieving a goal requires processing the data points, the myriad of minutiae, and the data points that arise while working. Sometimes, I have to switch to another task or begin yet another task to process, order, and systematize the patterns within the data points. Thus, constant focus on one task until it is completed is impractical.

My work style is to process the information and formulate the sub-tasks to complete a sub-goal, which in turn leads to the overall goal. This process is not a straight line from point A to point B, as other points arise and must be handled. Often, a technical task will require another task or sub-task, as one technology, such as a framework or tool, will utilize another technology. This creates the aforementioned data points that need to be handled, and so on.

Unfortunately, some confuse style with intent. The work style of many tasks and subtasks is considered lacking focus, being directionless, and not taking the task seriously. Thus, I have been called lazy, slow, unfocused, etc., because my work style was confused with my intentions. There is meaning and order in the chaos of the work style of “all over the place.”

Work Example Failure

One reason an autistic person is considered lazy is that there is often an expectation for how the work is done by someone else. This expectation of how often leads to the when, the timeframe for the work to be completed. When this expectation and the implied timeframe are not met, the person is labeled lazy or slow.

An example from my past work experience was when a manager wanted me to refactor some existing legacy source code. The code was a large, massive set of files that were complex and convoluted. However, what was not communicated was the expectation of how I was to refactor this massive set of source code and, thus, the timeframe for completion.

Since the source code was massive, I opted to try and write a quick-and-dirty tool that would process the source code and make the changes. The old version of the source code would not be modified; a new version would be used for updates. The problem was that the manager was looking at the source code, checking for changes, but not seeing anything done.

Manager Unstated Expectation

During a tense, cold video call, the manager then demonstrated his expectation that I would manually search, update, refactor, and then save my changes. Thus, I would change the source code file by file and line by line. That was another approach, but it was error-prone, tedious, and required modifying the source code directly. I started to do this as the manager wanted, but then the team got a new member, and he helpfully took over, sidelining me as the village idiot.

The problem was that as he modified the source code, I was to verify it. He would suddenly realize an interdependence with other source code, which had to change, and it was another team’s source code. It was rather like changing the spelling of a word or the definition, only to realize it was being used in another book or document. So then, we had to un-refactor many lines of source code.

My Expectation

My idea for the tool was to safely refactor the source code, creating a new version that could then be used if there were no dependencies. If there were, then the other team could use the same tool to refactor their source code. The tool would make it simple, easy, and expedient—yet the manager never asked me how, and more importantly, the “why” behind my approach. There was only one way, the simple manual way, which was his expectation.

I felt more like the manager's lackey, doing things his way, and never minding how, as his way was the only way. Then there was the time factor—one day or two at most. When I did not meet this uncommunicated, implied expectation, I was sidelined for someone who would "get it done," making rewrites and changes to source code interdependent with other teams' source code.

I often hear uncommunicated expectations in the phrase "You should know this..." but besides placing a heavy burden on me, if not stated or communicated, it remains unknown. I wanted to ask (in sardonic, antic humor) if telepathy was a requirement for the job role. 🤪 Then I thought about telling my manager, "I heard that!" or "So's your old man!" during the moments of silence—but I bit my tongue.

Work Example Success

An example of work success was with a manager at a company where I developed new tests for a tool. The manager made it clear he did not understand technology at all, except in a general sense. During our weekly check-ins, I might digress into a technical discussion, but he held a non-technical doctorate. Smart and educated, but not in the area of technology.

Written Expectations OKRs and KPIs

Ultimately, it came down to what he could do to help facilitate my work and what obstacles existed. More simply, I had a list of OKRs (corporate jargon meaning objectives and key results) and the KPIs (more corporate jargon meaning key performance indicators) that I had to complete. My manager left the technical details to me, and I provided him with a summary of things.

I also sent a weekly email report to give a synopsis of work done, things started, my progress on certain tasks, and problems encountered. The one-on-one was a way for my manager to bring focus and clarity. Sometimes, asking a simple question to clarify brought a difficult aspect or challenge into focus. Occasionally, he would help me re-prioritize my tasks, as there was always the unexpected.

My Perception

My perception was less about how and why and more about the details of what. It was like a writing class, where the instructor provides guidance on your writing and story, asking questions to help you see things differently. But the instructor does not micromanage the how (the story itself) or even the why (though details of context can be very helpful), but rather the what in the writing process.

As a software development engineer, writing source code is like writing, more akin to writing poetry. You are explaining how to do something with data to achieve results such as opening a file, checking if a file exists, and so on.

The work style was still chaotic, "all over the place," yet my manager left the technical details to me. But how does it relate to the measures defined by OKRs and KPIs? Those are the ultimate goals to complete and measure progress.

Final Summary

An autistic person works, but their work style often lacks the facade or veneer of typical work. This depends on the kind of work being done, but more importantly, on the goals to achieve. Using OKRs and KPIs presents those goals in a crystal-clear, black-and-white format. From those goals, the “why” is established, followed by the “how” and the “what.”

Often, work style is mistaken for intentions or actions related to work. My own chaotic "all over the place" style tends to be seen as a lack of coordination, lack of interest, or not taking work seriously, whereas it reflects a different work style.

Expectations

For a worker and their manager, there is a framework of expectations, often a timeline to complete a task, and sometimes the uncommunicated "how" of a task—the implied expectations on how to perform the task at hand. This is frequently an unspoken rule that both sides face in the workplace.

This miscommunication often creates problems, leading some managers to conclude that the autistic person is lazy or slow in completing their tasks and work overall.

This is a false perception, but the important thing is to communicate, communicate, communicate. Start with work goals, what is to be achieved, and then the tasks needed to reach that goal, the “how.” From the “how,” then specify the “what,” the minutiae and details of the work.

My own AuHD work style of chaotic "all over the place" represents bursts of activity across different sub-tasks that each contribute to completing the work task and eventually reaching the goal. Any kind of work must be reframed in the context of a neurodivergent, autistic person, so that the work style is understood by both the autistic person and their manager.

Work Style Is Not Intent

Yet, first, do not confuse work style with intent, and do not hold expectations that are not communicated between the autistic person and the manager. The failure of communication leads to a misunderstanding of work style and intent, resulting in the perception that an autistic person is lazy or, as I have been called, "slow" (which I find offensive, as I am "smart," but do not demonstrate higher intelligence in the stereotypical norms of the neurotypical world).

Effective communication of expectations, both in writing and verbally, regarding the goals, the tasks to reach those goals, and then understanding how an autistic person works without confusing work style with intent, is crucial. What is not measured is not ascertained, and then the work unmeasured is "unsatisfactory" so the autistic person is either lazy or slow by default.

Communicate Amongst Yourselves

Again, it comes back to: communicate, communicate, and communicate.

An autistic individual is like a domestic house cat—I would be a Siamese: intense, all over the place, vocal, but clever. Autistic individuals are like cats in that they come in many kinds and forms, and all have their own work style regarding how they work and perform tasks and sub-tasks to achieve a goal. Autistic individuals work, and work hard, only it does not show in an unstated, implied false expectation from a manager or others.

References

• [Cambr 2025] Cambridge University Dictionary, "lazy," 2025, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/lazy, Accessed June 13, 2025.
• [Dicti 2025] Dictionary.com, "lazy," 2025, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lazy, Accessed June 13, 2025.
• [Goodr 2025] Goodreads, Inc. "Work Style Books," 2025, https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/work-style, Accessed June 13, 2025.
• [Merri 2025] Merriam-Webster, "lazy," 2025, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lazy, Accessed June 13, 2025.
• [Popov 2025] Popov, Andrey. “Lazy Man Using Phone At Work Desk Instead Of Working”, https://www.dreamstime.com/lazy-man-using-phone-work-desk-working-image181837320, Accessed June 12, 2025.