This is Day 16 in my 30-day blogging journey.
If you’d like to know why I’m doing this, read Day 1.
I never considered how amazing it was that certain businesses would hire individuals with developmental disabilities (DD) until I had a child on the spectrum.
Nowadays, I can walk into my local grocer (shout out to Giant Eagle) or large chain retailer like Target or Wal-Mart and see someone with disabilities working there.
It always make me smile.
Of course, those are more visible examples.
I work with clients who have DD and one helps package products for a local essential oil supplier while another does janitorial work at a nearby university.
In many cases, it helps when the job has a great deal of structure and routine to it. What might be considered boring and mundane for someone who is neuro-typical, can be great for someone who has DD because there is consistency to the job.
There’s even been some conversation in our family about getting my oldest, Jackson (15), to start working this summer. My mother owns a flower shop and I have my personal training studio.
We can find work for him to do that gives him some responsibility, interaction with the public and the ability to learn new skills for a paycheck.
I can’t put into words what that might feel like to have him help me at my studio so that my clients can engage with him on his shifts.
It’s a reminder that, when many people are searching for good help, maybe they need to think outside of the box for ways that someone who has DD can be of service.
It can help that individual, it may be of tremendous help to their family and, I think it makes the company look good as well.
As we hear in the autism community: Different, Not Less.
To all the companies proudly hiring those with DD, thank you.
Stay “special”.
Featured below, one of our aforementioned clients, Butch, making his deadlift “debut” with a 225×1 lift.
