What does neurodiversity have to do with translating? You may well ask:

The world of freelance translating can be a lonely place, and it certainly isn’t for everyone. If you’re the sort of person who needs the incentive of having to ‘clock in’ every morning to even motivate you to get out of bed, and who wants the security of a regular salary regardless of how many sick days you’ve had in the month, then it’s not for you.

Also, if you enjoy office banter and find it helps you get through what you think of as mundane tasks, then, again, it’s not for you.

However, if, like me, you find nothing more irritating than the person at the next desk rabbitting on about last night’s Eastenders plot or the latest office affair whilst trying to focus on the task on the screen in front of you, and if you translate because you really enjoy decoding and playing with language and find it so absorbing that sometimes you forget what time of day it is or even to eat, then yes, maybe it’s for you.

Luckily, I’m helped by the neuroatypical brain chemistry that I was born with. My official autism diagnosis came quite late in life, and although autism has historically been associated with quite a negative stereotype, it also brings some benefits.

If this thought is new to you, I recommend reading Tony Attwood’s 1999 paper where he explores the positive aspects of an Autism diagnosis .

In fact, more and more companies are actively recruiting autistic people into certain technical roles that demand a unique ability to focus for a long time on the details of technically demanding tasks.

The benefits of hiring people with neurodiversity include: high attention to detail, high work ethic and quality of work. If I tell you I can hit a deadline I won’t change my mind halfway through and I will have put a lot of careful thought into my estimate to make sure it is realistic. The hyperfocus ability mentioned above —Working on tasks that require high levels of concentration for a long time—is definitely one of my strengths.

Unsurprisingly, I am not unique amongst translators and in 2021 I got together with a couple of other autistic translators to form the ITI’s Neurodiversity Network in an attempt to change the narrative around neurodivergence.