A Mistake, or a Misunderstanding? Rethinking Apologies from Autistic Employees

Dr. Scott Frasard is an autistic autism advocate who is a published author and an outspoken critic of operant conditioning approaches to change natural autistic behaviors to meet neuronormative social expectations.

---

Introduction

Picture this: an autistic employee receives feedback that their completed work task was incorrect. Confused, they open the original instructions and reread them, only to confirm they had followed them exactly as written. Despite this, they apologize for getting it wrong. What does it mean to be held accountable for someone else’s ambiguity? What does it mean to say "I’m sorry" not for a failure of effort, but for faithfully executing unclear guidance?

This moment is not about social awkwardness. It is about the complexity of following directions in a workplace where clarity is assumed but not always delivered. Autistic employees often process language literally and act with integrity, trusting that what is asked of them is what is meant. But when vague or inconsistent communication leads to unintended outcomes, the blame is often placed squarely on their shoulders.

Apologies in these scenarios become rituals of compliance. They mask the asymmetry of responsibility in communication and reinforce the idea that misunderstanding is a failure of the listener, not the speaker. But what if we viewed these moments differently? What if we asked not, "Why did you do it wrong?" but "Where did our process break down?"

The Emotional Labor of Misunderstandings

When autistic employees follow instructions as given and are later told they executed the task incorrectly, the expectation to apologize becomes a disorienting experience. It undermines trust in language itself. The emotional labor begins with the internal audit: Did I miss something that was never actually said? Was I supposed to know what was implied but not articulated? Often, there is no mistake to be found, only a collision between literal interpretation and vague direction. The result is not a failure in performance, but a failure in the communication environment that surrounds it.

This dissonance creates emotional strain. Apologizing in this context does not feel like accountability; it feels like self-erasure. The autistic employee is not just apologizing for a supposed error. They are apologizing for interpreting instructions as they were given, for not intuiting invisible subtext, for honoring the literal meaning of the language they were told to trust. In doing so, they are asked to deny the legitimacy of their processing style and the care they bring to the task. They are left with the message that precision and fidelity are somehow insufficient in a workplace that demands both yet punishes the form they naturally take.

These apologies often come with additional unspoken demands: soften your language, show more emotional nuance, express regret in a way that aligns with others' expectations of remorse. These expectations are not neutral. They are steeped in cultural assumptions about what accountability should look like and how it must be performed. These are not apologies meant to foster mutual understanding; they are apologies that reinforce behavioral conformity and protect the status quo. The autistic employee is asked to absorb the emotional weight of the situation and smooth over someone else’s discomfort rather than address the actual communication breakdown that led to the misalignment in the first place.

In the absence of clear feedback or mutual inquiry, this emotional labor accumulates over time and begins to reshape the employee's relationship to their work. The employee is left wondering whether they can trust their own interpretation of tasks, leading to hesitation, second-guessing, and an overall sense of precariousness in their role. Every new assignment may feel like a test of intuition rather than an opportunity to contribute. It becomes exhausting to navigate not only the concrete tasks but also the invisible expectations, the interpretive guesswork, and the unspoken politics of how one is expected to read between the lines without ever being told that the lines exist.

Double Empathy in the Workplace

The double empathy problem (Milton, 2012) highlights that misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people are reciprocal, rooted not in individual deficits but in differing worldviews and communication styles. In the context of work performance, this means that when an autistic employee completes a task based on instructions that were ambiguous, imprecise, or containing contradictions, and the outcome is deemed incorrect, the issue may not lie in the employee's interpretation. Instead, the disconnect may stem from an assumption of shared understanding that was never confirmed. What appears to be a mistake is often the result of a mismatch in how meaning is constructed, conveyed, and received.

Managers often assume that their instructions are clear because they make sense within their own communication style, which may rely heavily on inference, context, or shared assumptions. But clarity is not universal. What feels obvious to one person may be ambiguous to another, especially when expectations are communicated through suggestion rather than specification. An autistic employee may seek precision, expecting that words mean what they say and instructions are literal. When vague or abstract directives are given, and no space is created to ask questions without judgment or negative consequences, the result is a predictable disconnect. This disconnect stems not from incompetence, but from incompatible assumptions about how communication works.

All too often, only the autistic employee is held responsible for this disconnect. They are expected to read between the lines, infer the unsaid, and correct for ambiguity they did not create, all while being discouraged from asking clarifying questions that could prevent these misunderstandings. This asymmetry reinforces the false belief that autistic people lack insight or adaptability, when in fact, they may be working much harder than others to navigate shifting expectations, fill in communication gaps, and maintain alignment with unclear or contradictory guidance. Their insight is not absent; it is often overlooked or mischaracterized because it does not follow conventional cues or assumptions.

The double empathy problem is best understood as a lens for viewing why these misalignments happen, not as a prescription for what managers should do. It highlights that instructions are not simply delivered but interpreted, and those interpretations vary depending on communication style and worldview. In the workplace, this means that an instruction that seems complete to one person may appear vague or contradictory to another. Using this framework helps us see that misunderstandings around tasks are less about incompetence and more about differences in how information is received and acted upon. It shifts the focus from blaming the autistic employee to recognizing that clarity was assumed rather than confirmed.

Mistake or Miscommunication?

At what point does following instructions become a mistake? For many autistic employees, the answer hinges less on the actions taken and more on how those actions are interpreted through a lens of assumed shared understanding. When tasks go awry, the default assumption is often that the employee failed to grasp something that was never clearly stated. But what if the real issue lies not in the employee's comprehension but in the ambiguity of the instruction itself? What if expectations were never fully articulated, or if the task relied on unwritten norms or implicit context that was never made explicit?

Workplaces often fail to distinguish between performance errors and communication breakdowns. Instead of evaluating whether the guidance was clear or whether the instructions were followed as given, attention focuses on the outcome alone. As a result, autistic employees find themselves apologizing for faithfully doing what was asked, judged not on their accuracy but on their failure to interpret what was implied but never stated. They are reprimanded not for lack of competence, but for not intuiting shifting expectations or unspoken revisions that were never part of the original task. The gap lies not in their performance, but in the lack of communicative transparency and shared accountability.

This dynamic is compounded when clarifying questions are discouraged or even penalized. In many environments, asking for more detail is viewed as a lack of initiative, a sign of overdependence, or even a challenge to authority. But for an autistic employee, asking questions is not about defiance or avoidance. It is a deliberate strategy for achieving accuracy, ensuring alignment, and delivering thoughtful, high-quality work. It reflects a commitment to clarity and a respect for doing the job well. When that impulse is shut down, the risk of unintended misalignment increases, and the employee is left to navigate uncertainty with little support or recourse.

If managers want to avoid these miscommunications, they must reflect on how instructions are given, how much room they leave for interpretation, and whether the expectations embedded in them are accessible to all communication styles. This requires not only refining how tasks are explained, but also making space for dialogue and mutual understanding about what success looks like. Instead of blaming the recipient for misinterpreting a message, the focus should shift toward building communication practices that are explicit, inclusive, and co-created through shared inquiry rather than one-sided assumptions.

The Weight of Being Misread

To be told you did something wrong when you followed the instructions exactly is not just frustrating. It is destabilizing because it calls into question the reliability of the very system the employee relied on to do their job well. Over time, autistic employees begin to internalize the message that their way of thinking, interpreting, and executing is inherently flawed or incompatible with workplace norms. The trust they place in language begins to erode, replaced by a growing sense that success depends less on accuracy and more on guessing what others want but do not say.

This erosion can have profound consequences. Second-guessing becomes habitual, not only about how tasks are executed but about whether the instructions received were understood correctly in the first place. Confidence in one’s ability to complete even routine tasks diminishes as each assignment feels like a potential trap. The employee may begin to hesitate before starting a task, anticipating not just the work but the judgment that may follow. And when every mistake, or perceived mistake, results in an apology, the employee may begin to anticipate blame even before it arrives, shaping their work through a lens of fear rather than focus.

These repeated misreadings do not just affect performance. They shape identity and diminish the sense of professional legitimacy that autistic employees carry with them. Too often, they are forced to mask not only who they are socially, but also how they think, reason, and engage with tasks. They are pressured to suppress the logical, structured approaches they naturally bring, and instead attempt to mirror more intuitive or implicit forms of communication. The value they place on precision, clarity, and consistency is treated not as a strength, but as a liability. Over time, they may begin to question not only how they work, but whether the way they think is acceptable at all.

When apologies are expected in these contexts, they do not function as repair. They become compulsory acknowledgments of power imbalance, issued not because harm was intended or effort was lacking, but because misalignment was interpreted as incompetence. The autistic employee learns that their best efforts to follow instructions, even when done with care and fidelity, are not always seen as valid unless they conform to invisible norms. Over time, they begin to perform contrition not as an honest response to wrongdoing, but as a survival tactic in a workplace that fails to take ownership of its own communicative shortcomings.

A Different Kind of Listening

Imagine a workplace where clarification is expected, not penalized. Where asking, “Can you walk me through what you mean by that?” is recognized as a proactive effort to ensure accuracy, not a signal of confusion or resistance. Where clarifying questions are treated as a sign of engagement, rather than inefficiency or defiance. Where both parties see themselves as accountable for ensuring shared understanding before tasks are assigned, and where the act of confirming expectations is seen as a core part of the work itself, not as a detour from it.

This kind of workplace does not treat ambiguity as a test of loyalty, intuition, or initiative. It treats communication as a co-constructed process that values mutual understanding as an ongoing responsibility. It recognizes that the bottom half of the communication loop, where listeners ask clarifying questions, confirm understanding, and reflect meaning back, is just as vital as the top half where instructions are delivered. It acknowledges that true clarity is not achieved by saying something once, but by creating space for it to be heard, questioned, and affirmed.

For autistic employees, this shift can be transformative. Trust can begin to grow when questions are welcomed and when clarity is valued over assumption. That trust develops not just in others, but in one's own interpretation and instincts. Misunderstandings become moments of inquiry rather than grounds for discipline. The pressure to mask or apologize for doing exactly what was asked starts to ease. Apologies become rare, not because errors never occur, but because the shared responsibility for communication means they are no longer used as tools to manage discomfort or reassert control.

Managers must create space for this kind of listening. That means slowing down long enough to ensure that instructions are not only delivered but received in the way they were intended. It means checking for understanding without making the employee feel like asking questions is an inconvenience or a sign of incompetence. It means resisting the urge to assume bad faith or carelessness when someone seeks clarification. Most importantly, it means recognizing that many so-called mistakes are not failures of logic or attention but are symptoms of uneven communication environments where clarity is presumed but not practiced.

Conclusion

The next time an autistic employee (or even colleague) apologizes for doing something “wrong,” consider the path that brought them there. Did they genuinely misunderstand the task, or were they interpreting unclear or incomplete instructions exactly as given? Were they truly at fault, or were they navigating a communication environment where literal comprehension is penalized and clarification is discouraged? Were they trying to fulfill expectations that were never clearly stated? It is worth asking whether they made a mistake, or whether the system itself made it impossible for them to succeed without guessing at what no one ever said aloud.

Apologies have their place. But in a just workplace, apologies should not be expected as a remedy for systemic vagueness. They should not be used to absolve those in power of their responsibility to communicate clearly and check for understanding. When apologies are required solely because literal interpretations conflict with ambiguous expectations, they shift the burden of clarity onto those least equipped to enforce it, rather than addressing the root cause of the misalignment.

Sometimes, doing exactly what was asked and being told it was wrong is not a sign of failure. It is a signal that something deeper is broken in how expectations are communicated and interpreted. It is not the employee who has failed, but the system that has not accounted for different ways of understanding, executing, and trusting language. Rather than correcting the individual, we must ask whether we are truly hearing the perspectives of those who have long been asked to adapt without being asked what they need in return.

Reference

Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008

---

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you enjoyed it, please do click LIKE and click SHARE to share it with your network. Be sure to check out my book, "A Reflective Question to Ponder: 1,200+ Questions on Autism to Foster Dialogue" available in paperback and eBook. My newest book, "Autism Advocacy Unleashed: A Socratic Journey to Social Justice" is also available in paperback and eBook.

Thank you!