UK 
United States
It’s a shocking fact that 80% of women are not diagnosed as being autistic or as having ADHD until they are adults. Often, it’s because women and young girls simply do not display the traditional signs that boys/men do. Current diagnosis tools also tend not to recognise female symptoms, but more worryingly, feelings of anxiety or depression that women who are neurodiverse feel are brushed aside as being ‘female’ issues that they will grow out of.
Sophia Newman, people and development coordinator at VML Enterprise Solutions – part of the Wunderman Thompson group – is one of these 80%.
Sophia Newman
People and Development Coordinator
Despite always knowing that she “felt different” it wasn’t until last June (after being on a waiting for fours years), that she was finally told what she largely already knew – that she was autistic [she is now undertaking tests to see if she also has ADHD].
“Diagnosis was something of a blessing,” she says. “It was through this that I encountered the phrase ‘socially blind’ and I knew this applied to me. I found that I would try to mirror other people’s behaviours and I became a master at masking my autism, but it wasn’t a happy place for me to be.”
According to Newman being neurodivergent and working in HR is actually a wonderful combination. “Now that I embrace it, I feel like I understand different people, and different teams,” she says. “I know how different people work much better,” she adds, and it was through embracing her own neurodiversity that Newman said she decided that the rest of the business needed to be more aware of it too.
