I decided what to focus on in my Unit 2 body of material, by researching something that hit home to me. There are a lot of sub topics one could explore that fall under organizational culture. However, studying neurological diversity in the work place caught my attention more than any other potential sub topic I had. I chose neurological diversity in the work place, because neurological disorders is something I can relate to. My little brother was a slow developer as a baby and a toddler, and at one point we were worried that he may be on the spectrum. Thankfully he was just a slow developer and eventually began to progress into the wonderful young man he is today, but at first we had this scare. This is why I feel closely connected to my sub topic, hence why I chose it. I decided what would make it into the project by selecting research that was straight to the point and closely related to my topic.
I learned a lot and got a lot out of this project, that I put together throughout the course of our class. Primarily, I learned a ton about people with neurological disorders and how they can benefit a company. Before I started collecting my research on this sub topic of organizational culture, I had the opinion that people with neurological disorders were not fit for the workplace. That perspective definitely changed as I gathered research for my project. I learned that people with neurological disorders definitely have their limitations, but they also have unique abilities that outweigh their limitations. They have the ability to hyper focus on a task more than someone who does not have a neurological disorder. I learned a lot about how to take information, digest it, and then write about it. Some of the writing I learned during this course, was writing to help explain my research to my audience or more so, introduce my gathered research to my audience, so it would be easier for them to absorb all the information that I would be throwing at them in my research project. I learned that giving and receiving feedback is a crucial element of developing a research project. The feedback I received on my work definitely benefited what made it into my final portfolio. I learned how to engage a target audience. My targeted audience is professional with the responsibilities of hiring new employees and people with neurological disorders. I learned to engage them, but cutting out the excess writing of the research I gathered, and presenting my audience with the straight forward writing that would bet educate them on my sub topic.
This assignment had a lot of value for me. The most important bit of value I got from the course, is more than just how to conduct research. The value I received is how to conduct research tailored for a specific targeted audience. My targeted audience is professionals in the workplace who are responsible for hiring new employees, and people with neurological disorders. I learned how to present information in an organized way to people that need to see it. That’s the value I gained, gathering research and organizing it in a way that best suits the audience that it is intended for.
Taking it public, Final Draft, Benjamin Fisch
Statement
My research project is intended to be viewed and absorbed by people with neurological disabilities, and professionals who are responsible for hiring individuals in a company. The reason why my findings are directed towards professionals responsible for hiring, is I want them to learn more about the skillets and positive abilities of people with neurological disabilities, so that these professionals will be more inclined to hire them. I would like my research to be discovered by people through a company’s human resources department, because I think this method of contraction will be most sensitive to the needs of people with neurological disorders.
Outline of Rhetorical Situation
The audience of my work is people with neurological disorders and professionals in the work place who are responsible for hiring employees. The purpose of my research is to educate companies on the misconceptions of people with neurological disorders, and how intact, they can actually benefit a business, because of their different ways of thinking. The delivery of my research should be a book format, where anyone can read and make further decisions of their own.
Project Proposal
The tone that most of the authors use in the research writings I identified and examined for my research proposal, is a direct and straight to the point tone. Some of the texts that I reviewed in my research portfolio are extremely long. Some are even hard to read in their entirety. Also, one are very short and quick to read. The ones that were quick reads and the ones that were slow reads, both succeed in communicating an argument or delivering more research to me on neurodiversity in the work place. The authors in the research I collected are mostly very formal. Some of texts I read if not most of the texts I read, include vivid detail to help explain the points that the authors are trying to make. In the research I conducted graphics do not really play a role at all. Some of the texts that I examined on neurodiversity in the workplace included subtle images embedded in the text, but I did not feel like they were needed to illustrate a point or provide detail on the subject. The images in the text kind of just blended in with every thing else. The vocabulary of the authors texts also stood out to me as something to recognize. The writers use advanced choices of vocabulary in their texts.
! rounding out the conversation
Unit 3 Draft, Benjamin Fisch
Statement
My research project is intended to be viewed and absorbed by people with neurological disabilities, and professionals who are responsible for hiring individuals in a company. The reason why my findings are directed towards professionals responsible for hiring, is I want them to learn more about the skillets and positive abilities of people with neurological disabilities, so that these professionals will be more inclined to hire them. I would like my research to be discovered by people through a company’s human resources department, because I think this method of contraction will be most sensitive to the needs of people with neurological disorders.
Project Proposal
The tone that most of the authors use in the research writings I identified and examined for my research proposal, is a direct and straight to the point tone. Some of the texts that I reviewed in my research portfolio are extremely long. Some are even hard to read in their entirety. Also, one are very short and quick to read. The ones that were quick reads and the ones that were slow reads, both succeed in communicating an argument or delivering more research to me on neurodiversity in the work place. The authors in the research I collected are mostly very formal. Some of texts I read if not most of the texts I read, include vivid detail to help explain the points that the authors are trying to make. In the research I conducted graphics do not really play a role at all. Some of the texts that I examined on neurodiversity in the workplace included subtle images embedded in the text, but I did not feel like they were needed to illustrate a point or provide detail on the subject. The images in the text kind of just blended in with every thing else. The vocabulary of the authors texts also stood out to me as something to recognize. The writers use advanced choices of vocabulary in their texts
.! rounding out the conversation
Project Proposal, Benjamin Fisch
The tone that most of the authors use in the research writings I identified and examined for my research proposal, is a direct and straight to the point tone. Some of the texts that I reviewed in my research portfolio are extremely long. Some are even hard to read in their entirety. Also, one are very short and quick to read. The ones that were quick reads and the ones that were slow reads, both succeed in communicating an argument or delivering more research to me on neurodiversity in the work place. The authors in the research I collected are mostly very formal. Some of texts I read if not most of the texts I read, include vivid detail to help explain the points that the authors are trying to make. In the research I conducted graphics do not really play a role at all. Some of the texts that I examined on neurodiversity in the workplace included subtle images embedded in the text, but I did not feel like they were needed to illustrate a point or provide detail on the subject. The images in the text kind of just blended in with every thing else. The vocabulary of the authors texts also stood out to me as something to recognize. The writers use advanced choices of vocabulary in their texts.
Research Portfolio, Benjamin Fisch
Benjamin Fisch
7/15/20
Research Portfolio
Unit 2 Reflection
My topic for this portfolio is neurodiversity in the workplace. I definitely learned a lot about the topic and felt passionate about the research I was reading. I have a passionate connection to this research, because my little brother was showing signs of autism when he was young. he turned out to just be developmentally slow, and he’s a high functioning healthy young man now, but that scare of him being autistic has allows remained with me for some reason. This is why I picked the topic of neurodiversity in the work place. My choice in sources depended on which publications I found that focused on autism in the work place, rather than the other neurological disorders, such as dyslexia and ADHD. I used the tool of the SU Library summons to locate these sources that I have used. At first I was experimenting with finding material via google searches, but the sources I found through this medium were lacking in information. The sources I found through our library were much more through and well written. My research plan was to use google search and the SU library to gather research sources. Yet, only one of these options proved to be productive, the library. The plan has began to evolve, because some sources I find actually relate to one another in topic or content. This will allow me to easily use these sources to write my own thesis driven essay, because the topics I found are so related. The contrary is also true. I found sources that clash in topic and content, because they are different. However, I can still use them together by doing comparing and contrasting between the two different sources. I would like to find research sources that explore specific examples of individuals with neurological disorders in the work place. I want to find a study of individuals with autism for example, and see first hand how they benefit companies.
Annotations
1.) Creighton, K. (2019). Understanding neurodiversity in the workplace. Singer Island: Newstex. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/docview/2293972585?accountid=14214
Kelly Creighton’s, “Understanding Neurodiversity in the Work Place” addresses how autistic individuals and other people who suffer from different neurological issues, find it extremely difficult to find employment post their college graduation. “85% of college grads who fall on the autism spectrum are still unemployed.” This statistic proves that companies are not willing to hire people with neurological disorders for the most part.
Why is this though? Do companies have something to fear at the thought of hiring people with autism for example? What do they fear? They might fear that these individuals are not competent enough to get work done, and be a part of work place community. However, rather than fearing the thought of hiring an autistic employe, they should be excited to, because autistic people for example, have rare capabilities that could benefit a work place.
2.) Cassidy, M. K. (2018). Neurodiversity in the workplace: Architecture for autism (Order No. 10991788). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2124411834). Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/docview/2124411834?accountid=14214
Mary Kate Cassidy’s, “Neurodiversity in the Workplace: Architecture for Autism,”shares in interesting perspective on the topic of neurodiversity and how it applies to the work place environment. “In the workplace, architecture ideally serves as a tool to achieve the highest level of productivity, efficiency, creativity, and safety.” The objective of Mary Kate’s research is to introduce architectural solutions for high functioning adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the workplace.
If individuals with neurological issues, like autism, struggle to fit into a work place and contribute to the company’s objective, then what can be done to fix this? Questions like these are addressed in Mary Kate’s research, and she conducts many studies and experiments to find a solution that would allow autistic employees to be able to express their contributions to a compony’s goals.
3.) Burnett, K. (2019). EMBRACING NEURODIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE. Training Journal, , 28-29. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/docview/2304074885?accountid=14214
kate Burnett’s, “EMBRACING NEURODIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE,” addresses how individuals with neurological disorders struggle to find employment by major companies. She states that only 16% of adults with autism are employed fully. This statistics proves that there is a huge issue in our country. Corporations do not want to hire individuals on the spectrum. This perspective by companies is one of ignorance. Companies are currently blind to the intellectual advantages that autistic people have. Kate Burnett addresses how hiring people with neurological issues could benefit a company.
To increase employment rates within the neurodiverse community, the Neurodiversity Initiative is helping organizations learn how to become more neurodiverse friendly, ensuring they are able to choose from a wider talent pool and seek out the most capable individuals for their roles.
4.) “Neurodiversity in the Workplace Program Named a Mutual of America 2017 Community Partnership Award Winner.” Investment Weekly News 2 Dec. 2017: 513. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 15 July 2020.
Sparc Philadelphia, a family of organizations that advocates with and for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, forged a partnership with software-giant SAP in 2013 to help employ 1% of its total workforce (roughly 650 people) with adults that have an Autism Spectrum Disorder. The program, which works holistically to place individuals with Autism into high-level technology-based jobs, begins with a month-long hiring process that includes a series of opportunities for applicants to showcase their talents. Successful candidates then participate in a training program aimed at strengthening interpersonal and other skills that may have been a barrier to achieving employment.
New hires are then paired with a mentor to ensure a smooth transition to full time work. “We have placed 26 individuals with Autism in the Philadelphia area, and 100% of them continue to be employed in those positions,” said Laura Princiotta, CEO of Sparc Philadelphia. Our collaboration with SAP has served as a springboard, allowing us to expand our reach to other companies.”
5.) Johanna Hamilton, How Neurodiversity is Changing Work, ITNOW, Volume 62, Issue 1, March 2020, Pages 56–57, https://doi-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1093/itnow/bwaa026
Nancy Doyle PhD has been working with social exclusion and disabilities since she was 18 years old. She discusses why neurodiversity is a boon in the workplace and why mental health isn’t necessarily a work-issue.
We’re focusing so much on neurodiversity and people with neurological disorders, but lets rewind a bit. What is neurodiversity? Neurodiversity is a broad concept referring to the diversity in thinking styles and neurological profiles that exist between all humans. In the same way that we have bio-diversity or personality diversity, we also have diversity in thought.
What neurotypical people have in common is that when we look at their intellectual capacity, their skills tend to be pitched at the same level. Their verbal skills are around the same level as their memory skills, as their processing skills, and their visual skills, whereas people with neurodiverse conditions tend to have areas of thinking in which they excel and areas of thinking in which they struggle. We call this a spiky profile because if you plot their abilities on a graph it will be a big spiky line going up and down. This tells us that neurotypical people are largely generalist thinkers and neurodiverse people are specialist thinkers.
6.) Ortega, F. (2009). The cerebral subject and the challenge of neurodiversity. BioSocieties, 4(4), 425-445. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1017/S1745855209990287
The neurodiversity movement has so far been dominated by autistic people who believe their condition is not a disease to be treated and, if possible, cured, but rather a human specificity (like sex or race) that must be equally respected. Autistic self-advocates largely oppose groups of parents of autistic children and professionals searching for a cure for autism.
The article discusses the positions of the pro-cure and anti-cure groups. It also addresses the emergence of autistic cultures and various issues concerning autistic identities. It shows how identity issues are frequently linked to a ‘neurological self-awareness’ and a rejection of psychological interpretations. It argues that the preference for cerebral explanations cannot be reduced to an aversion to psychoanalysis or psychological culture.
Discussion, 7/6 Benjamin Fisch
1.) Curt, B. More and a couple of others conducted an experiment to see how neurodiversity is related to entrepreneurial cognition. Their study draws on prior research from entrepreneurship and neuroscience to empirically examine the relationship between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and the entrepreneurial mindset. They examine differences between
entrepreneurs with and without ADHD in cognitive style, entrepreneurial alertness, metacognition, and resource induced coping heuristic. Their results suggest neurodiversity from ADHD is meaningfully related to aspects of an entrepreneurial mindset. The results suggest entrepreneurs with ADHD employ a more intuitive cognitive style and demonstrate higher levels
of entrepreneurial alertness and RICH, while no significant differences in metacognition were found.
This source I am using has tremendous value to my topic and my overall portfolio. When I first started doing preliminary research, I was looking through the lends of only one perspective on neurodiversity, and that was neurodiversity in the work place. Then I stumbled across this source, which was an experiment conducted and written by Curt, B. More and a couple others, that focused on neurodiversity and its relationship to entrepreneurship. This made for a totally new perspective on my topic and that is why its highly valued. This source connects to other sources I’ve gathered thus far, because its focus is on neurodiversity, yet, their is a different perspective that both have on neurodiversity.
Source: https://journals-sagepub-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/doi/full/10.1177/1042258719890986
3.) I think open space offices would be extremely unproductive for a few reasons, but mostly it would be distractive. In my opinion, it would so hard to get any work done when you can see directly into co-workers areas. I think these types of offices would cause fear for some workers, because it makes you feel like your always being watched, and that might actually be the case. Also, sexual harassment in the work place could grow, because men would have more exposure to their female co0workers.
Research Portfolio, plan, Benjamin Fisch
1.) I want to use my research to understand 2 things. The first thing I want to understand is why employees with neurological conditions are so under represented in the work place. The second thing I want to understand, is how companies will benefit from hiring employees with neurological disorders, because it is clear from research that these types of employees can have a lot of beneficial qualities for an organization.
2.) I am interested in these two questions, because the potential answers for both connect with a personal experience of mine. My little brother, when he was born to the age of about 3, was showing signs of developmental slowness, and as a family we were worried that he may be autistic, which is a type of neurological disorder. It turns out, thankfully, that he grew out of these developmental issues, but still to this day, the scare of them still holds close to my heart.
3.) I believe there will be connections with the research I am doing on this topic, and my later life experiences. The one main connection that I for see, is having to interact with co employees that have neurological disorders. Rather than viewing these hypothetical co workers as limited, I will respect and admire their rare contributions to the organization, rather than focusing in on areas where they may struggle in.
4.) The fields that are going to matter most for my search inquiry, are fields that are heavily dependent on math and numbers. This is so, because neurotypicals are known to be very advanced with math and numbers. Researching fields like finance and technology organizations will definitely benefit my intentions.
prompts Benjamin Fisch
1.) Wong makes many points that add to this larger conversation about diversity and inclusion. One of the points that really stood out to me, is somewhat counterintuitive when thinking about it. The following quote sums up what is trying to be said. “Notions of equality are gen-erally associated with assumptions of sameness; when everyone is treated the same and gets the same things, this is assumed to ensure that everyone is treated fairly. However, treating everyone the same is a surefire way to exacerbate and reproduce inequal-ities, precisely because it actively obscures and denies relevant differences, including how different groups have historically been treated, which must be acknowledged to be fairly addressed at present.” The point of all of this is treating everyone the same in the workplace or in society actually would not work. It actually would back fire and lead to even more inequality.
week of 6/22 discussion, Benjamin Fisch
I have tried mostly 2 different search tools for gathering my research. These are google search and the digital SU library. Google search works easily for me. I just come up with a keyword that I think will produce relevant results to the topic I am intending to research. Then I enter it into the search bar and press enter. The process for the SU library, is very similar to Google Search. I just come up with a keyword and enter it into the search bar. When I search Google, I mostly come up with relevant articles about my subject, and sometimes I few blog posts on the matter. When I search the SU library, I come up with encyclopedia research, and scholarly articles.
I am hoping to find texts from encyclopedias or scholarly articles, written by well respected authors in their respected fields. The field I am researching in a general sense is diversity. I would like to find scholarly articles written by university professors that are well respected. I will work to find these fields and voices, by thoroughly searching through the results that come up on the SU library and through Google Search. Once I find a relevant course for my needs, I won’t just stop there. I will continue to find and collect new sources on top of that, that are relevant, so I can make sure I have all the research I need.
Discussion prompts, Benjamin Fisch
1.) “Providing a more concrete understanding of what a perceived stereotype threat could be allows the intended audience to reflect and comprehend these said threats whether the individual reading experiences them or not.” This quote from a classmates expanding the canon post really caught my attention. Its interesting to me, because it proves that individuals who haven’t experienced any type of discrimination, can still learn about that type of discrimination. This is important, because if more people are educated on a type of discrimination, the more people will take action, and try to do something about it.
“If a single company sponsors or promotes one specific kind of religion, this is questionable.” I really like this quote from a classmate’s expanding the cannon post, because it made me aware of a new type of discrimination that is being seen in the work place. This type of discrimination is religious discrimination. The author of this quote explores ways in which a religion, like christianity, could become the typical religion of a work place. If this is so, it creates a hierarchy of religions in the work place. If Christians were at the type of this pyramid structure, lets say that Jews are in the middle, and muslims and hindus are at the bottom. The religions below the popular and typical religion in the work place, may face discrimination for not being the typical religion.
The following Ted Talk video really stood out to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7365IO9l-tw
The speaker identified an example of a law suit between a muslim women and Abercrombie and Fitch. In this example, the women had been denied a position at the clothing shop, because of something as simple as her head scarf. This is outrageous and a clear example of discrimination in the work place, especially religious discrimination within the work place.
3.) The following is the closing line of a paragraph written by Bogost. “That makes diversity a necessary but insufficient solution to social equity in computing systems.” The following is the beginning of the next paragraph. “For years, companies and educators in the tech sector have framed diversity as a “pipeline” problem.” The transition seen in this example by Bogost is smooth. A reason why this is a great transition, is because Bogost ends the paragraph expressing how diversity in the tech industry is a problem. Then, the next paragraph is related to the end of the prior paragraph, because Bogost writes a sentence that will lead into explaining a potential solution for this issue. So, Bogost ends one paragraph by identifying the issue of diversity in the tech industry, and starts the next paragraph by offering a solution for the problem. This makes for a smooth and effective transition.