Most autistic people I know have a mental list of things that would make work survivable, and a second list of things they'd never ask for because they sound ridiculous. The second list is usually the more useful one. It's where you find the requests that would actually change your week, filed under "they'd think I'm difficult" and left there for years.
I'm autistic. I've asked for some of these and lost sleep over asking. I've also spent a lot of my career on the other side of the table, watching people who needed something obvious never say a word about it. So here's the longer list, including the parts that feel too small or too strange to bring up.
Agile ceremonies can feel like navigating a social minefield when you're neurodivergent. The constant context switching, sensory overload, and unstructured discussions that energize neurotypical teammates might drain your focus and leave you feeling disconnected from the process.
But here's what I've learned from years of facilitating scrum events and working with brilliant neurodivergent developers: your brain isn't broken, and Agile ceremonies aren't fundamentally incompatible with how you think. You just need the right playbook.
I was reviewing a pull request last week when I noticed something that made me pause. The developer had carefully implemented proper semantic HTML, added ARIA labels where needed, and ensured keyboard navigation worked perfectly. But every alt text attribute ended abruptly without punctuation, like a conversation that just stops mid-sentence.
It's a tiny detail that most developers miss, and it reveals something important about how we approach accessibility. We often focus on the technical compliance checkboxes while overlooking the human experience details that actually matter to the people using assistive technology.
Here's the thing: accessibility isn't just about meeting WCAG guidelines. It's about creating digital experiences that feel natural and respectful for everyone, including the estimated 285 million people worldwide who rely on screen readers.