You Want People to Understand You, But How Much Do You Understand Yourself?
Not being understood by others and / or not fully understanding yourself can make your work environment very difficult. Perhaps you feel like you are judged by the way you communicate or respond, or perhaps you misunderstand people without even realising it, which causes confusing conflict. Perhaps you feel discriminated against by the way you are treated, or when applying for a promotion, or during the performance appraisal processes.
Imagine if your employers were equipped to support you in a way that works for you. Removing your barriers to success and helping you to become much more productive.
We take the time to understand how you tick. Whether it is Autism, ADHD or dyspraxia, etc, causing issues at work, we can help with your situation.
Note that Aspiedent is an impartial service and we do not take sides. Instead, we analyse what is causing the problems and recommend solutions. It is likely that you have a part to play in implementing the solutions.
Our Integrative Cognitive Profiling framework is key to this process. The first stage is always to start with a workplace assessment and then to see if any of our other services would help you. There is no need for you to have a diagnosis for this and we don't have to talk about any possible diagnoses if you don't want us to.
Our Services
click anywhere to toggle expand.
Workplace Assessment
Go beyond symptoms to grasp the real causes of workplace challenges.
Map strengths and weaknesses to give a clear picture of how you work.
Tailored recommendations that explain why they will work for you.
Investment: £2 500
Our Workplace Assessments are designed to help managers and staff in the workplace understand each other better and resolve their differences. A workplace assessment makes it much more likely that an employee will keep their job.
Key Differences in our Approach
The key differences in our approach are:
We are able to analyse beyond the symptoms and identify the underlying issues that cause them.
We analyse the interactions between the various underlying issues.
We are just as interested in strengths as we are in weaknesses because we build a complete picture of the cognitive make up of an individual.
Similar symptoms can be caused by different underlying issues and this often leads to ineffective recommended reasonable adjustments.
An in depth analysis of your cognitive make up is required to get to the bottom of the issues, that you are experiencing. Aspiedent’s reasonable adjustments are tailored to your specific difficulties and not to symptoms nor to any diagnosis, if there is one.
A workplace assessment is often life changing because you understand yourself better and how you tick differently from those around you. This can be further explored via 1-1 training and mentoring sessions.
Aims of a Workplace Assessment
During a workplace assessment the aim will be to develop a deep understanding of the following:
Any sensory issues
How you think and learn
How you process information
Interests along with focus and attention
How you tick emotionally
Executive functioning
We don’t just describe each of these categories, we also work out what is causing what and how they interact with each other. Sometimes the interactions create excellence and sometimes they create problems. Like everyone else, you have strengths and weaknesses and the combination makes you the unique person you are.
By taking this in depth approach, Aspiedent provides a report that will not only explain what is happening and recommend reasonable adjustments but will also tell you ‘WHY’ issues are occurring and ‘WHY’ the reasonable adjustments will work.
click anywhere to toggle expand.
Training and Mentoring
1-2-1 coaching for communication, confidence, and career growth.
Understand why you face challenges without relying on autism/ADHD labels.
Use strengths and targeted adjustments to overcome barriers.
Investment: £1 250 for 7 hours
Employment can be extremely challenging for individuals with autism, ADHD and other related conditions and it is very difficult to find people within the business who fully understand your challenges and how to help you succeed in your employment.
The Integrative Cognitive Diversity Framework is designed to understand the unique cognitive makeup of the individual, this explains WHY you are struggling without needing to reference any diagnosis. Although if you would like us to describe the underlying issues behind your particular condition, we can do.
Through identifying WHY an individual’s difficulties occur, it enables us to be much more precise in understanding how to overcome challenges using both targeted adjustments and your own individual strengths that may not be recognised or being used in the best possible way.
This means Aspiedent can tailor training and coaching around you. Areas in which we can support you include:
Understanding social interaction and communication
Leadership
Identifying strengths and overcoming weaknesses
Managing sensory issues
Assertiveness
Career development and interviewing skills
Accessing Continued Professional Development (CPD)
Note normally a workplace assessment is required before mentoring can take place.
click anywhere to toggle expand.
Social Skills Workshops (Online)
8 online workshops for autistic staff to better understand themselves.
Practical tools for communication, sensory, and workplace success.
Learn from lived experience with Dr Elizabeth Guest, autistic herself.
Investment: £200 per person
A series of eight workshops designed to help autistic individuals to better understand themselves, their autism and the world around them. The aim is to enable participants to problem solve their own strategies from understanding their specific version of autism. This will enable participants to form coping strategies that lead to better outcomes and less anxiety.
Created and delivered by Dr Elizabeth Guest (BSc, PhD, PGCHE) who is autistic herself, the course consists of 8 x 1.5 hour online sessions in a group of up to 8 people covering the following topics:
What social chit chat is all about and why people enjoy it
Sensory issues
Processing issues
Different ways of thinking and learning
Executive Functioning
Using strengths to overcome weaknesses
Intelligence and autism (spoiler: IQ tests are often unreliable for autism)
Barriers to social interaction and strategies
Exposure Anxiety
The Uncanny Valley and the World Reject Hole
Reasonable adjustments
Constructive criticism
Networking made possible
Feedback from previous participants has included the following:
Better understanding of themselves
Insight into how non-autistic people communicate
Insight into “Social Chit Chat” and why most people enjoy it.
Understanding their own strengths and difficulties
Understanding strengths and difficulties in employment
Learn how to use strengths to compensate for weaknesses
Enable independent problem solving
If you are interested in any of these services or if any of these services are not quite what you are looking for, contact us to discuss your requirements.
A more detailed understanding of how you tick and why you are finding your working environment difficult, so you can ask for the right support. If you have one or more diagnoses, we explain these to you in more depth.
Strengths and Weaknesses
An understanding of both your strengths and weaknesses and how everything interacts to create the unique person that is you, will help you better understand what you bring to the workplace. This can help you plan your career.
Employed!
The right working environment and an understanding of what specific support you need will help you to thrive at work, and ultimately ensure you keep your job! If it turns out you are not a good fit for your current role, it will help you understand what will suit you.
Social Chit Chat
A grasp of the purpose (and pleasures) of social chit chat can reduce misinterpretations and misunderstandings, improve understanding of others and help you develop friendships.
Coping Strategies
Recognising your underlying issues means we can help you develop effective coping strategies to help you to be successful or even excel at what you do.
Job Role
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses supports recognition of what you are good at. This can improve job satisfaction and provide opportunity for more varied content in your job role.
Understood
You will be better understood by your managers and colleagues and therefore better able to build good working relationships.
Other People
You will gain a better understanding of other people as your understanding of cognitive diversity, and how this impacts on communication, increases.
Communication
A better understanding of cognitive diversity and how this impacts on communication will result in improved interactions with managers, colleagues.
Why Choose Us?
Traditional workplace social skills training often falls short, because it is designed by people who have never personally struggled with social interaction. It’s like learning to swim from someone who has never feared the water.
At Aspiedent, we do things differently. Dr Elizabeth Guest brings both lived experience and academic expertise to the table. She understands the challenges employees with autism or ADHD face because she has faced them herself, and she knows how to break them down into achievable steps that benefit both the individual and the business.
What sets us apart?
Our lived experience and expertise. Dr Guest combines firsthand understanding with academic knowledge in mathematics, artificial intelligence, and linguistics, offering an approach that traditional training cannot compete with.
Our systems-based approach. We don’t just teach surface-level skills. We analyse cognitive differences as a system, improving workplace communication and collaboration in a structured, sustainable way.
The tangible benefits we bring to businesses. Our training helps employees and their teams:
Improve workplace interactions and teamwork
Deal with negotiations and meetings with confidence
Increase productivity by providing clear, structured guidance
Reduce misunderstandings that can lead to conflict or HR issues
Testimonials
Aspiedent came at a time when I really needed somebody in my corner who had expert, lived experience of autism spectrum disorder in the workplace (and beyond). Previous workplace assessments had failed to properly understand the unique aspects of my condition as a neurodivergent person, and were unable to provide reasonable and helpful suggestions for both myself and my employer - something Aspiedent fortunately excelled at. Thanks to Aspiedent, my employer learned to give me feedback in a way that worked for my particular brain, and I felt my support sessions with Elizabeth went above and beyond in helping me with the specifics of - and surrounding - my role. I trusted Elizabeth to have my best interests at heart throughout the process, and will gladly return to Aspiedent in future should I need any further training or support.
An autistic client who received a Work Place Assessment and some mentoring
The course is fantastic because I have only attended one session so far but have already learned to understand the behaviour of those who are not on the spectrum in a whole new way. I wish someone had told me the purpose of small talk years ago. I have learned to do it a little in all the years we didn’t know I was autistic, but not really understood its purpose and often told people a lot more than they wanted or expected in some inappropriate places because I didn’t understand the purpose of the conversation. I was only diagnosed in November, and I’m 34 and doing a masters! The next session is about sensory issues, and I have many, so finally spending some time talking and learning about them promices to be enlightening.
An autistic client who attended the social skills and communication workshops
I knew about Aspiedent’s social skills sessions, which ran once or twice a week at the autism hub. When the sessions were announced in the format of a social skills training course I became more interested, especially because it centred on helping autistic people adapt to and succeed in the world more easily by increasing opportunities. As an individual diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, I have been seeking freelance work opportunities and the course appealed to me. From the first session of the course, I was intrigued, having been given insights into how non-autistic people think and have conversations. Suddenly, several situations flashed before my eyes of having been in groups when I was younger and being confused, laughed at, or feeling odd. And now it made sense! All it took was a brief explanation, and a few diagrams, and I saw the situation from another perspective. There was a reason why I had felt odd all those times in groups. I had been focusing on one priority of communication, while most had focused on another. Fascinating! The next sessions helped identify strengths, with simple well-presented assessment sheets involving ticking or crossing out categories. Many of the following sessions were about theory, which I enjoyed discussing. The tutors Director Dr. Elizabeth Guest and Communications Manager Jen Blacow would suggest solutions for using strengths to compensate for weaknesses. Elizabeth and Jen answered questions directly and were quite happy to explain themselves if there was any confusion, and I learnt a lot from Elizabeth’s experiences, not just from new concepts. Elizabeth’s experiences adapting by using her pattern abilities were used to help illustrate how people with different abilities could adapt and succeed at things they aren’t usually good at. I identified a lot with her experiences and worldview. As a result, Elizabeth was well suited to the role of teaching autistic people. Elizabeth was determined to do her best to make sure that her message was getting through to us in a way we could understand. She would listen and leave pauses to allow us to speak in case we had any questions or similar experiences to share. Elizabeth was assisted by Jen, who was kind, helpful, understanding, and able to offer a unique perspective in a room of autistic people. Elizabeth and Jen were willing to consider adapting or incorporating feedback to improve. They left time of an hour before the session just in case a student didn’t understand or wanted to ask any questions, which I thought was a good idea. The course has made a significant and positive life-changing effect on my happiness for the past three months, and I suspect the effect will be long-term. The advice given was clear, and I now see many scenarios where I was not engaging with people or being forthcoming when I could have been. The course has provided awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses and specifically an insight into my condition’s many elements. In this way it enabled me to diagnose my own problems and solve them myself. I have no regrets taking the course whatsoever.
An autistic client who attended the social skills and communication workshops
What does it mean to be human and how do you define the difference between 'complex' and 'complicated'? Elizabeth and James led us through a fascinating and highly enjoyable series of exercises that helped us explore the myriad of different ways that we each receive, process, and communicate information. With 50 identifiable variables, that's 3 x 10 to the 64 (30 Vigintillion) variations on what it means to be human. And it's in the honesty of that complexity that its simplicity lies. Nothing complicated needed. We're now taking practical steps to create working environments that work for everyone and adaptations to the way that we interact with our customers. It was a fantastic day that made us all smile at the concept of being human and opened our eyes as to how we can work better together.
Andrew Curwen, CEO XL Vets
We undertook a follow up Cognitive Diversity training session with Elizabeth and James, in part a refresher for some and first encounter for others. We visually explored how we all experienced the world very differently, followed by a session considering reasonable adjustments and how they could support colleagues in the workplace. As a result of this training we are reviewing our software solutions within the business to adjust our ways of working to accommodate different ways of thinking.
Kerrie Hedley, COO of XL Vets
Frequently Asked Questions
General Information
Once you contact us, we will normally respond within 48 hours. This is usually via email to schedule a convenient time that we can arrange a call to obtain further information from you about how we can help you.
Our services are available worldwide. We offer training and assessments via video call for clients, regardless of their location.
We use the term ‘Cognitive Diversity’ rather than ‘Neurodiversity’ throughout our work. The term ‘Neurodiversity’ was originally coined by Australian Sociologist Judy Singer to cover all ‘neurotypes’ within humanity. Her aim was to create a political movement. However, the term has evolved to primarily reference disability, causing confusion as there is no agreement regarding which conditions it covers. Our term ‘Cognitive Diversity’ is not political in any way. It more precisely describes the variations in thinking, learning, and processing styles among others without the identity politics and misinterpretations associated with neurodiversity.
Understanding Cognitive Diversity leads to numerous benefits, including:
Improved team dynamics and communication
Enhanced problem-solving through diverse thinking styles
Reduced workplace conflicts and misunderstandings
More effective recruitment strategies that identify complementary cognitive skills
Higher retention rates through appropriate support and accommodations
Creation of an inclusive culture that values diverse contributions
We work with individuals across the spectrum of cognitive profiles, including those associated with autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, and dyslexia. Our Integrative Cognitive Profiling Framework encompasses these conditions and helps understand how they relate to each other. We focus on each person’s unique combination of cognitive strengths and challenges rather than diagnostic labels.
About Integrative Cognitive Profiles
An Integrative Cognitive Profile identifies and explores interactions between various cognitive factors that are unique to each individual. Unlike personality tests or other cognitive assessments, our approach examines how someone thinks, processes information, and perceives the world while considering the interactions between different cognitive factors. We focus on uncovering WHY difficulties and strengths occur rather than just identifying symptoms, allowing for more precise and effective recommendations.
No diagnosis is required for our workplace assessments because of the involvement of the employer. Our approach focuses on understanding cognitive profiles regardless of diagnostic status. If appropriate, we may suggest potential conditions to explore further, but we do not provide formal diagnoses.
Unlike personality profiles or other assessments that place people into categories or labels, our Integrative Cognitive Profile describes your cognitive makeup holistically, accounting for both strengths and challenges. We examine how various cognitive factors interact, including thinking styles, information processing, attention patterns, sensory differences, emotional processing, and executive functioning.
This approach recognises the complexity of human cognition, resulting in a uniquely personalised profile, rather than placing individuals into predefined categories or labels.
About Training
For workshops, we limit participation to 12 people to ensure meaningful interaction and engagement. Larger groups tend to have reduced participation and knowledge retention. We can tailor our approach for larger groups, but interactive elements work best with smaller numbers.
Most of our training can be adapted for virtual delivery. Our Interactive Cognitive Diversity training is best conducted in person due to its interactive nature, but we can discuss options based on your needs and location.
Yes, we work closely with you to align our training with your specific objectives and requirements. We tailor our approach to address particular needs and desired outcomes for your organisation.
Recording options are available at an additional cost with appropriate license and confidentiality agreements. Recordings should only be shared internally unless previously agreed with Aspiedent.
About Workplace Assessments
A Workplace Assessment centres on creating an Integrative Cognitive Profile within the context of the workplace. We identify why workplace difficulties occur by exploring how an individual’s cognitive profile interacts with their job requirements and environment.
By understanding the underlying causes rather than just symptoms, we provide targeted recommendations that work effectively when implemented, benefiting both employer and employee.
The process involves structured conversations with both the employee and their manager(s). Dr. Elizabeth Guest conducts these conversations separately to gain different perspectives on the situation. Typically, we speak with managers first, then the employee (who may bring a trusted support person), and finally with managers again to share initial recommendations.
The assessment explores both strengths and challenges to identify core underlying issues. After the assessment, both employer and employee receive a report with specific, practical recommendations.
While both parties need to see the final report for effective implementation, we respect privacy concerns throughout the process. However, the employee can request that certain personal details are omitted. If requested, the employee has the option to review the draft report before it is shared with the employer. But ultimately both the employer and the employee will get the opportunity to provide comments and feedback.
A typical Workplace Assessment process spans approximately 3-4 weeks from initial consultation to the delivery of the final report. The process involves 1 hour with the manager, 2 hours with the employee, and another half hour with the manager. The time can vary depending on the complexity of the case. We aim to provide the draft report within 2 weeks, hence completing the entire process within 3-4 weeks from the initial assessment.
The cost of our Workplace Assessment service is £2,500. Complex cases may range up to £3,500 depending on specific needs. The value of this assessment far outweighs the cost, as it often provides life-changing insights for the employee and actionable solutions for the employer.
Next steps are determined through discussion between the employee and employer. Sometimes the report provides sufficient guidance, while in other cases, additional support may be beneficial. We can provide further assistance through team training, manager coaching, or one-to-one sessions with the employee. If we believe additional support would be valuable, we include this in our recommendations.
For employers: Present the assessment as a supportive tool to help your employee perform at their best. Frame it as an opportunity to understand how to better support them rather than as part of performance management or potential dismissal.
For employees: We can help you find the best approach to raise this with your employer, highlighting the benefits for both you and the organisation. We’re happy to engage directly with your employer to explain the value of the process.
No. The assessment focuses on identifying why difficulties are occurring and providing practical, effective adjustments that benefit everyone involved. It offers an opportunity to move forward with better understanding and mutual respect, rather than assigning blame.
