AI for Neurodivergent Employees: Cognitive Scaffolding Guide

At Silk Helix we believe neurodiversity should be at the heart of everything you do in HR. It matters because between 15% and 20% of the UK workforce is neurodivergent. Creating inclusive workplaces isn’t just the right thing to do - it’s smart business.

Most workplaces are still designed for a narrow range of thinking styles, however AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude and Google Gemini are changing the game. They’re offering a new way to support neurodivergent employees that we call “Cognitive Scaffolding”.

The “CEO of the Brain”: Executive Function Explained

Let’s start with a quick brain science lesson. Executive function is like having a CEO running your brain. It’s the set of mental processes that help you plan, focus and manage multiple tasks at once.

Think about turning a vague instruction into a finished report. That’s your executive function at work. For many neurodivergent people these systems work differently, which can create challenges with:

• Getting started: that difficult gap between having an idea and taking the first step
• Working memory: holding and using information in your head
• Staying focused: filtering out distractions like notifications or office noise

What is Cognitive Scaffolding?

Here’s a helpful way to think about AI: it’s like an external support system for your brain.

Just staying organised or reading dense documents can be exhausting for employees with ADHD, autism, dyslexia or dyspraxia. AI reduces that struggle, freeing up energy for the work that matters most.

The Shift from Niche Tools to Everyday Co-Pilots

In the past, supporting neurodivergent staff meant buying lots of specialist (and expensive) assistive technology. Now we’re seeing a shift toward integrated AI co-pilots that do multiple jobs at once.

Practical Ways Your Team Can Use AI

Let’s get specific. Here’s how AI can help with everyday workplace challenges:

1. Getting Started When You’re Stuck

Starting a task is often the hardest part, especially for people with ADHD. AI is brilliant at breaking things down into tiny steps.

Instead of staring at “Write weekly report” and feeling overwhelmed, you can ask the AI: “Break this into 15 small steps that take less than 10 minutes each”. Suddenly, getting started feels much easier.

2. Making Sense of Your Thoughts

Many neurodivergent thinkers see all the details but struggle to organise them into a clear structure.

You can use voice-to-text or just type out all your thoughts in a “brain dump”. Then ask the AI: “I’ve given you a mess of thoughts. Please pull out three main goals and create a clear project outline”.

3. Translating Workplace Communication

Workplace emails often have hidden meaning that can be exhausting to decode, especially for autistic professionals.

AI can act as a neutral translator. It can help you understand the tone of a vague email or rewrite your direct draft to sound more diplomatic and collaborative.

4. Taking the Pressure Off in Meetings

Meetings require you to listen, read body language and take notes all at once. That’s a lot to handle if you process information differently.

AI transcription tools let you be fully present in the meeting. Later, you can simply ask: “What were the three action items assigned to me?”

5. Making Dense Information Digestible

Long policy documents or email chains can be a real barrier for people with dyslexia or auditory processing differences.

AI can quickly turn these into bullet-point summaries or explain them in simpler language.

6. Taking the Anxiety Out of Communication

For people with ADHD or autism, writing emails can be stressful. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) can make you spend hours analysing a single sentence, worried about causing conflict.

AI acts as a buffer. You can write a rough, emotional draft and ask: “Rewrite this to be professional and friendly. Does the tone work?” No more spiralling.

7. Making Spreadsheets Less Scary

Managing complex spreadsheets can be overwhelming if you have dyscalculia or dyspraxia.

AI can help by understanding plain language requests like: “I need a formula that adds up the hours in Column B but only if the date in Column C is after June 1st”.

It can also clean up messy data, turning a chaotic list of names and emails into a neat, organised table.

Your Legal Duty: Reasonable Adjustments

Under the UK Equality Act 2010, employers must make “reasonable adjustments” so neurodivergent workers aren’t at a disadvantage.

Organisations often focus on physical changes like different lighting or quiet spaces. But providing access to enterprise AI tools is a low-cost adjustment that can have a huge impact. It helps by:

• Reducing burnout: when executive function is supported, people are less likely to burn out
• Keeping good staff: employees who feel supported are more likely to stay
• Helping everyone: tools like meeting summaries benefit your whole workforce, not just neurodivergent employees

A Word of Caution: Avoid “Super-Masking”

As HR professionals and managers we need to be careful. AI should reduce internal struggle, not just help people hide their differences to appear “normal”.

The goal is to create genuine support and fairness, not just a polished appearance.

To get this right, your leadership and HR teams need neurodiversity awareness training to understand when tools are truly helping versus when people are simply hiding their struggles.

Protecting Your Data

Data privacy matters. Using personal AI accounts for work creates privacy risks.

Push for enterprise versions of AI tools. These offer strong data protection and ensure sensitive company information isn’t used to train the public AI model.

How to Actually Implement This: A Simple Guide

Making AI a regular habit rather than a one-off tool takes some planning. Managers will benefit from training on supporting neurodivergent employees to understand why these adjustments matter.

Step 1: Find the Friction Points

Ask the employee to spend a week noting when they feel stuck or overwhelmed. For example: “I get stuck every morning when I open my inbox.”

Step 2: Create Specific Prompts

Once you’ve identified a problem, create a specific prompt to solve it.

For inbox overwhelm, try:

You are my prioritisation assistant. Here are my email subject lines. Which one is most urgent for a Project Manager?

Step 3: Keep Improving

These AI interactions aren’t a one-and-done thing. If a summary is too long, give feedback:

This is still too much. Give it to me in exactly three sentences.

Final Thoughts: Helping People Thrive

AI as a cognitive scaffold is a genuine shift in workplace accessibility. For the first time, neurodivergent professionals have tools that adapt to their unique thinking styles in real-time.

This technology doesn’t “fix” neurodivergent brains. Instead, it makes rigid work environments more flexible. By taking on the heavy lifting of executive function, AI frees up mental energy for what people do best.

Whether it’s the creative problem-solving of a dyslexic designer or the deep focus of an autistic analyst, these strengths no longer need to be held back by administrative tasks.

HR professionals looking to understand neurodiversity better can explore our specialised training for HR professionals to build confidence in supporting diverse thinking styles.

At Silk Helix we don’t just see AI as a productivity tool but as a way to create genuine fairness, autonomy and professional success for everyone.

Article last updated: 12 February 2026