Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly important and ubiquitous part of the modern world. Although a relatively new tool, it is used in everything from ad recommendations to market predictions to discovery of astronomical anomalies. AI is not just innovating the professional world, but it is also creating new opportunities for the neurodivergent community.
Teaching with AI
Neurodivergence describes the natural variability in how people’s brains are wired. Conditions, such as autism and ADHD, encompassed in neurodivergence often manifest in childhood but frequently go undiagnosed or poorly treated. This makes it difficult for neurodivergent children to keep up with their neurotypical peers in school and adjust to their environment. However, AI is leveling the playing field, making it easier for neurodivergent children to participate in the classroom and access the tools they need to excel.
For example, InnerVoice by iTherapy is revolutionizing the way neurodivergent children learn. InnerVoice is an app that utilizes AI to help users better form connections between objects and language. Users can use their phone camera to show an object, and the software will explain or label the object for them in real time. However, the AI does not just explain what objects are, but it can also explain concepts and movements via the use of gifs. This feature furthers the development of students’ connection between speech and reality. The app also features an AI-powered 3D avatar feature that allows the user to create a replica of themselves and then have the avatar talk using a text-to-speech feature. This is especially useful for nonverbal children or others with speech deficits or difficulties because it allows them to visualize themselves speaking and create a realistic avatar to emulate. InnerVoice also has a prompting feature, which allows educators to send a prompt from their device to the student’s device, guiding the student to the correct answer and helping avoid classroom frustration while still involving them in classroom activities.
Image to speech technology like InnerVoice focuses on developing kids’ speech skills and is especially helpful for young neurodivergent students.
Artificial Intelligence Works with Neurodiversity
AI-powered tools help adults as well as youth. Salesforce recently created an AI that uses abstraction to summarize long bodies of text. Everyday we encounter large volumes of new information and have to quickly absorb and process it to use in our daily lives. For many neurodivergent people, this can be a cognitive overload. This is where Salesforce’s summarization technology comes in: by summarizing large bodies of text into smaller, more digestible paragraphs, neurodiverse employees are less overwhelmed by the volume of information. Abstraction is important to this technology as it allows the software to use words not in the text to form a summary. A perfected abstract method will allow the AI to form much more descriptive and accurate summarizations than with an extraction method. While this is still a relatively new technology, it is already producing promising results in the form of coherent paragraphs that effectively summarize different texts.
These tools are not simply improving accessibility in the field of education, but they are also improving neurodivergent individuals’ accessibility to jobs. With the increasing popularity of AI, many companies have begun to develop algorithms to complete tasks like pattern-recognition. Building these algorithms requires software developers with specialized skills in technology, science, data analysis, pattern recognition, etc. However, the pool of individuals with these skills is shrinking, so companies need to maximize the talents of workers they do have and employ new talents. This is where many neurodivergent people excel: in fields that require technologically-inclined and detail-oriented workers with strong skills in analytics, mathematics, pattern recognition, and information processing. In recent years, companies have found that neurodivergent employees outperform their neurotypical counterparts in these fields and are the more efficient hire. Companies also appreciate neurodivergent employees’ affinity for repetitive tasks, which can cause burnout in many neurotypical workers, and their loyalty to the company as they are less likely to leave for other opportunities.
This new incentive to hire neurodivergent workers has driven positive change in the workplace, fostering a more inclusive environment for those who are neurodivergent and opening new opportunities.
More companies are offering accommodations, such as private offices for their neurodivergent employees to reduce the amount of external distractions. EY, a company making an effort to hire neurodivergent talent, is taking extra steps to help their new hires better adapt. Managers have changed their speech to explain concepts and instructions more effectively by removing idioms and other abstract speech. This has not only helped neurodivergent workers adapt to the work environment, but EY says it has also helped their managers become more effective leaders by pushing them to use more precise language, as to not confuse employees. It is small changes like these that are helping normalize neurodiversity in the workplace.
A Promising Future for Accessibility
Despite the need and want for neurodivergence in the workplace, traditional hiring methods often discount neurodivergent individuals. Thus, many companies have created programs specifically focused on hiring neurodiverse talent. One example is EY’s neurodiversity Center of Excellence (CoE) in Philadelphia, which places a focus on hiring neurodivergent talent, training that talent, and understanding how neurodiversity fits into the workplace. As neurodivergent workers were observed in the workplace, it was noted that they excelled in innovation, notably creating improvements in training and automated processes that the neurotypical workers had not considered. The neurodivergent employees then created training videos to teach other workers at the company how to use the more efficient automated processes. This success prompted EY to open another CoE in Dallas to gather and train more neurodiverse talent in Texas.
The “Autism as a Skill” Business Resource Group is another promising program focused on hiring neurodivergent talent. This group, sponsored by IBM, noticed that neurodivergent workers often fall through the cracks during regular interview and hiring processes. Thus, Autism as a Skill was founded to help recruit neurodivergent workers that are more precise and detail-oriented for technical jobs.
The growing popularity of AI has opened new doors for the neurodivergent community. AI-driven apps can assist the neurodiverse in learning endeavors by helping them better form relationships between language and reality and absorb large amounts of information without experiencing cognitive overload. In the professional world, AI has created new job opportunities for neurodivergent employees as their unique skill set, including data analytics, pattern recognition, repetition, and precision, is a coveted and necessary tool for tech companies. These trends toward greater inclusion of the neurodivergent community in both the classroom and professional world foreshadow a brighter future for the neurodivergent community.
by Malini Boorgu
Sources
- Boudreau, Denis. “Five Ways in Which Artificial Intelligence Changes the Face of Web Accessibility.” StackPath, 2018, www.deque.com/blog/ways-artificial-intelligence-face-web-accessibility
- “InnerVoice Is the Simplest and Most Engaging Way to Learn Communication Skills.” InnerVoice App, innervoiceapp.com
- Liptak, Andrew. “Salesforce Created an Algorithm That Automatically Summarizes Text Using MachineLearning.” The Verge, The Verge, 14 May 2017, www.theverge.com/2017/5/14/15637588/salesforce-algorithm-automatically-summarizes-text-machine-learning-ai
- Marchant, Natalie. “Education Technologies Are Making Learning More Accessible.” World Economic Forum, 19 Jan. 2021, www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/education-technology-accessibility-learning
- “Neurodiversity.” IBM, 2021, www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/passion-projects/neurodiversity
- Twaronite, Karyn. “How Neurodiversity Is Driving Innovation from Unexpected Places.” EY, EY, 10 May 2019, www.ey.com/en_us/diversity-inclusiveness/how-neurodiversity-is-driving-innovation-from-unexpected-places
- Wiggers, Kyle. “How Microsoft Is Using AI to Improve Accessibility.” VentureBeat, VentureBeat, 29 Jan. 2020, venturebeat.com/2019/05/06/how-microsoft-is-using-ai-to-improve-accessibility
- Wu, Jun. “Neurodiversity in Artificial Intelligence.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 28 Dec. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/12/27/neurodiversity-in-artificial-intelligence
