Neurodiversity and National Security: How to Tackle National Security Challenges with a Wider Range of Cognitive Talents

National security organizations need highly skilled and intellectually creative individuals who are eager to apply their talents to address the nation's most pressing challenges. Government officials and industry representatives describe the high stakes of the national security threats facing the United States; the demand for a STEM-skilled¹ and technology-savvy workforce; and the need to fill jobs that require enormous attention to detail, precision, and a low tolerance for errors.² In public and private discussions, officials and experts addressed the need for neurodiversity in the national security community. They described missions that are too important and too difficult to be left to those who use their brains only in typical ways.³

Neurodivergent is an umbrella term that covers a variety of cognitive diagnoses, including (but not exclusive to) autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, dyscalculia, and Tourette's syndrome. Neurodivergent individuals are already part of the national security workforce. They are serving as intelligence officers, engineers, security clearance investigators, military service members, and more. Some are senior managers, and it is likely that some are high-ranking executives. However, many of these individuals do not openly acknowledge their neurodivergence for fear of discrimination and bias, and some actively attempt to hide their neurodivergence, sacrificing energy that could be directed at their mission while relying on the talents their differences provide.⁴

U.S. national security organizations, including the military services, intelligence organizations, and the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security, face an ongoing recruitment and retention challenge. These organizations need more people in general, and they need candidates with specific skills or who can work at specific locations (Ogrysko, 2021). The purpose of this study was to understand the benefits that people with neurodivergence bring to national security; the challenges in recruiting, working with, and managing a neurodiverse workforce; and the barriers in national security workplaces that prevent agencies from realizing the full benefits of neurodiversity.

To carry out this research, we conducted a review of primary, secondary, and commercial literature; we conducted semistructured interviews and held discussions with government officials, researchers and advocates for the interests of neurodivergent populations, and representatives from large organizations that have neurodiversity employment programs; and we synthesized findings from across these tasks to describe the complex landscape for neurodiversity in large organizations in general and in national security specifically.

Key Findings

Neurodiversity, like other forms of diversity, can strengthen a national security organization. Fundamental strengths that are common among the neurodivergent population can include pattern recognition, analysis, visualization, problem-solving, memory, and achieving a state of hyperfocus to complete a project—skills that can be beneficial in many fields of interest to national security.

Within the U.S. government, neurodivergent diagnoses are treated as a disability. This policy position ignores that the processes and procedures that neurodivergent employees need to have adapted were designed for a neurotypical workforce, a paradigm that we call the Accommodations Dilemma. Requiring employees to identify as disabled benefits those with severe needs while stigmatizing employees who have spent decades overcoming the challenges of workplaces designed for neurotypical workers. Employees who hide—or mask—their neurodivergence at work to avoid the professional and social costs attached to being considered “disabled” forgo accommodations at the expense of their own stress, mental exhaustion, and job performance.

The current size of the neurodivergent population in the U.S. national security community is unknown. Within government disability data, government reporting does not distinguish different causes of disability, resulting in all disabilities being lumped together, such that employees with cognitive diagnoses are reported with amputees, deaf and vision-impaired employees, employees with psychological accommodations, and so on. As a result of this practice, along with the tendency for some employees to choose not to be categorized as disabled, the true size of the neurodivergent population employed in the national security community is unknowable using the data and reporting methods in existence as of this writing. The resulting lack of data leads to two barriers to change: (1) Government officials described to us their assumption that neurodivergence is not prevalent in the national security workforce and (2) officials described their assumption that this lack of visible prevalence is not due to any systemic discrimination. Without understanding the size of the affected population, neither of these assumptions can be objectively examined.

Several aspects of the recruitment and hiring process can pose barriers to a neurodiverse workforce, including unclear or confusing job descriptions, complex application processes, job interviews that focus more on social and behavioral norms than on technical knowledge and skills, and lack of awareness by security clearance investigators. Within the military, barriers to entry include (1) unclear and unevenly applied requirements for recruits to prove that their diagnosis will not interfere with their service and (2) prohibitions on the use of prescribed medications, such as for ADD or ADHD.

Once on board, neurodivergent employees can face challenges navigating careers in workplaces that were not designed with them in mind. These challenges include sensory overload, rigid and tightly packed schedules, unspoken social mores, unclear career progression paths, and lack of clarity in instruction. Creating a supportive workplace will likely require some changes to workplace practices, such as onboarding, mentoring, and communications, along with an increase in awareness about what neurodiversity is and how it affects the workplace.

Recommendations

Government organizations that choose to embrace neurodiversity have many options. There are countless programmatic styles and philosophies from which to draw their organizational strategy. Some organizations have chosen to create pilot programs, others have developed enduring programs for neurodivergent workers, and still others have focused on embracing inclusivity and pivoting the entire organization to celebrate and embrace neurodiversity. We recommend the latter option, and we provide recommendations that include low-cost or no-cost solutions that could be implemented immediately, along with longer-term solutions that could lead to systemic change across the national security enterprise:

• Provide all employees equally with accommodations that mitigate the effects of sensory stimulation. These accommodations might include (1) the ability to select one's desk location or to change or remove light bulbs to reduce brightness, (2) access to noise-canceling headphones, and (3) periods of minimal or no interruptions.
• Modify job vacancies and hiring practices to attract neurodivergent candidates. Changes to hiring practices could include using concrete, jargon-free language in job descriptions, eliminating unnecessary “requirements,” and updating the interview process to align with practices from other organizations that recruit neurodivergent candidates.
• Help all employees understand neurodiversity. Opportunities to build understanding include inviting experts to present on the topic of neurodiversity, requiring empathy and psychological safety training for managers, and supporting agency affinity groups that are not tied to disability.
• Support systemic change across the organization. Organizations can also pursue broader systemic change. This might include incorporating neurodivergent people into major policy decisions, making changes to the security clearance process, examining military recruitment processes that can exclude qualified candidates, and revising policies that limit deployment and overseas travel for neurodivergent individuals.

This study provides research and analysis for national security leaders, managers, and employees who seek to better understand neurodivergence and neurodiversity and who desire simple and implementable steps to achieve neurodiverse inclusivity for their workplaces.