Voicing Autistic People’s Experiences with the Built (Work) Environment: Early Insights from a Participatory Research Project

Successful employment remains one of the key real-life challenges of people on the autism spectrum, often despite their skills and willingness to work. Besides identifying the organizational and social barriers, and ways to address these, the existing scholarship has highlighted the potential of physical workplace accommodations for autistic employees. Yet, a systematic understanding of how different spatial aspects (e.g., workplace location, spatial layout, indoor environment and its sensory qualities) support or hinder autistic people at work is lacking. Our research project ‘Making room for autism at work’ addresses this gap by investigating the role of the built work environment in how autistic people experience and manage their working conditions. With the neurodiversity paradigm as a starting point, the project takes a participatory research approach through collaboration with the autism community at all research phases—from research design to quality assurance. The goal of this contribution is to showcase different ways of voicing autistic people’s experiences with the built (work) environment and the resulting early research insights. First, we present our exploration of secondary sources as a means of gaining insights into autistic people’s spatial experiences. Written reports by master’s student based on visits to university and public buildings, conducted together with autistic user/experts as part of a master course on Inclusive Design at KU Leuven (Belgium), serve as the base for this study. By analyzing these, we highlight the value that autistic students attribute to sensory and mental accessibility in the built environment. We both look at which spatial aspects of the built environment are important to adult autistic individuals, and how they deal with (un)supportive spatial aspects, i.e., resourcefully use, appropriate, and adapt environments. Additionally, we discuss the possibilities and limitations of existing materials as secondary sources for investigating the voices of autistic individuals. Second, we present lessons learned from designing an experience sampling study and a semi-structured interview guide aimed at understanding autistic people’s experiences of the indoor environment and its sensory qualities in an office setting. The pilot study indicates noise, light, temperature, and humidity as environmental qualities that may pose challenges for autistic people. Furthermore, the study underscores the importance of conciseness and specificity when engaging autistic individuals as research participants in a study. Factors such as a number of questions, and timing critically influence participants’ experience and perception of the applied research method. Attention to these attributes can mitigate response bias or survey fatigue. The pilot further emphasized the instrumental role of engaging autistic voices through participatory research in developing/refining methodological setups. Third, a qualitative study of the experiences of two autistic individuals with voluntary jobs brings to light the variety of spatial aspects that act as environmental resources (e.g., spacious areas, quiet ventilation systems) and demands (e.g., small and crowded meeting rooms) in the workplace. The research methods include interviewing autistic participants and their allies at work, doing participatory activities and co-analyzing with the autistic participants. The results indicate that certain spatial aspects, such as an open-plan layout, may serve as environmental resources for one autistic individual while posing environmental demands for another. This study highlights the complexity and individuality involved in designing workplaces for autistic individuals, showing that spatial aspects can be both resources and demands depending on the individual’s needs and the time of day. This reinforces the importance of user-directed environmental adaptation in supporting autistic people in the workplace. Through these diverse ways of voicing autistic people’s experiences—exploring secondary sources and participatory research—we aim to deepen the understanding of how the built work environment can support autistic people, ultimately fostering more inclusive workplaces.