OCD and Dyspraxia: Challenging Stereotypes and Building Neuroinclusive Workplaces
October marks both OCD Awareness Week and Dyspraxia Awareness Week, two opportunities to challenge misconceptions about neurological differences, disability, and mental health.
Although Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and dyspraxia are different conditions, they share something important: both are frequently misunderstood, stereotyped, and overlooked.
These misconceptions have consequences, particularly in workplaces where behaviour is often interpreted as evidence of someone's competence, motivation, or professionalism.
Understanding OCD and dyspraxia isn't just about increasing awareness. It's about questioning the assumptions we make about how people think, behave, and perform.
What Is OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition characterized by obsessions, compulsions, or both.
Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images, or urges that can cause significant distress.
Compulsions are repetitive behaviours or mental rituals that someone feels driven to perform, often to reduce anxiety or prevent a feared outcome.
Despite common stereotypes, OCD isn't simply about cleanliness, organization, or perfectionism.
OCD can involve:
Repeatedly checking things, such as locks, appliances, or completed tasks.
Seeking reassurance about decisions, relationships, or potential mistakes.
Experiencing distressing intrusive thoughts that conflict with personal values.
Performing mental rituals, such as reviewing conversations or silently repeating phrases.
Avoiding situations that trigger obsessions or compulsions.
Some compulsions are visible. Others happen entirely internally.
This means a person can experience significant OCD symptoms without anyone around them recognizing what's happening.
Common Misconceptions About OCD
One of the most persistent misconceptions is that OCD is a personality trait.
People casually say they're "so OCD" when describing their preference for neatness or organization. But enjoying a tidy workspace isn't the same as experiencing intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours that interfere with daily life.
OCD can be debilitating, and effective evidence based treatments, including exposure and response prevention (ERP), can make a meaningful difference.
OCD is not a preference for things being done a certain way. It's a condition that can significantly affect someone's wellbeing and daily functioning.
What Is Dyspraxia (Developmental Coordination Disorder)?
Dyspraxia, commonly associated with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects motor coordination and the ability to learn and perform motor skills.
People with dyspraxia may experience challenges with:
Fine motor skills, such as handwriting, typing, or using tools.
Gross motor skills, such as balance, coordination, and movement.
Learning new physical tasks or sequences.
Navigating physical environments.
Completing everyday activities that require coordinated movement.
The experience varies significantly between individuals.
For some, dyspraxia may create relatively minor inconveniences. For others, it can substantially affect daily living, education, employment, and participation in activities.
Dyspraxia Is Not a Lack of Intelligence or Effort
Someone with dyspraxia might need more time to learn a physical task or use a different method to complete it.
That doesn't mean they lack intelligence, motivation, or competence.
Consider how many everyday activities rely on automatic motor coordination. When those processes require greater conscious attention, seemingly simple tasks can demand additional energy and effort.
Unfortunately, these differences are often interpreted as carelessness, laziness, or incompetence.
The problem isn't necessarily the person's ability to contribute. Sometimes it's the expectation that everyone should complete a task in exactly the same way.
How OCD and Dyspraxia Can Affect People at Work
OCD and dyspraxia can create different workplace challenges, and neither diagnosis tells us everything about an individual's needs.
An employee experiencing OCD might struggle with persistent doubt, intrusive thoughts, checking behaviours, or time consuming mental rituals.
An employee with dyspraxia might experience barriers involving physical coordination, equipment, workspace accessibility, or tasks requiring precise motor skills.
But one of the biggest workplace challenges can be how others interpret these experiences.
Consider these examples:
What others might observe | What might be happening |
An employee repeatedly checks their work | They may be experiencing OCD related doubt or compulsions |
Someone takes longer to learn a physical task | They may have motor coordination differences associated with dyspraxia |
An employee avoids particular situations | They may be navigating anxiety, sensory demands, physical barriers, or other challenges |
Someone uses an unconventional method to complete a task | They've developed an approach that works better for their abilities |
These examples aren't diagnostic clues. The same behaviours can have many explanations.
That's precisely the point.
We observe behaviour, invent an explanation, and respond as though our interpretation is fact.
In workplaces, those assumptions can influence performance evaluations, access to opportunities, relationships, and decisions about accommodations.
Why Neurodiversity Awareness Matters in the Workplace
Neurodiversity refers to the natural variation in how human brains function.
The neurodiversity paradigm challenges the assumption that there is one ideal or universally correct way for people to think, learn, communicate, and function.
OCD is a mental health condition, while dyspraxia is neurodevelopmental. Their relationship to neurodivergent identity is not identical, and individuals may understand their own experiences differently.
What connects them in conversations about neuroinclusion is the importance of recognizing that human differences are real, and that social expectations and environments can influence how disabling those differences become.
A neuroinclusive workplace doesn't require everyone to think, communicate, move, or work identically.
Instead, it recognizes that people may need different conditions, tools, or approaches to participate effectively.
This doesn't mean denying that some conditions create significant challenges or require clinical treatment.
It means recognizing that individual support and environmental accessibility can coexist.
Five Ways to Create a More Neuroinclusive Workplace
Awareness is valuable, but meaningful inclusion requires practical changes.
1. Challenge Assumptions About Behaviour
Before interpreting someone's actions as laziness, incompetence, disengagement, or resistance, consider what you might not know.
Ask questions rather than making assumptions.
2. Focus on Outcomes Rather Than Methods
Where possible, give employees flexibility in how they complete tasks.
If someone can achieve the required outcome using a different process, consider whether the conventional method is actually necessary.
3. Make Workplace Accommodations Accessible
Workplace accommodations should respond to individual barriers rather than assumptions about diagnoses.
Depending on the person's needs and job requirements, accommodations might include adapted equipment, accessible tools, modified procedures, or flexibility in how certain tasks are performed.
For employees with OCD, accommodations should be individualized and, where appropriate, coordinated with clinical treatment so they don't unintentionally reinforce compulsive cycles.
4. Create Space for Conversations About Support
Employees shouldn't have to disclose every detail of a diagnosis to have a meaningful conversation about workplace barriers.
Managers can focus on what an employee needs to perform their role effectively, while respecting privacy and applicable accommodation obligations.
5. Recognize That Effort Isn't Always Visible
Two people can produce the same result while expending very different amounts of energy.
Performance doesn't tell us everything about the effort required to achieve it.
Building more inclusive workplaces means recognizing that efficiency, competence, and contribution don't always look the same.
Moving Beyond OCD and Dyspraxia Awareness Week
Awareness campaigns can introduce us to conditions we might know little about.
But awareness alone doesn't guarantee understanding, accessibility, or inclusion.
We can know the definition of OCD and still trivialize someone's intrusive thoughts.
We can recognize dyspraxia as a disability and still interpret coordination challenges as carelessness.
Real progress requires us to question the expectations we place on others and the stories we tell ourselves about their behaviour.
Perhaps the most useful question we can ask is:
What am I assuming about this person that I don't actually know?
Not every difference needs to be corrected. Not every challenge can be resolved through environmental changes alone. And not every person with the same diagnosis will need the same support.
We don't need to fully understand someone else's experience to respect it.
And we don't need everyone to function the same way to create environments where more people can participate, contribute, and thrive.
That's a much more meaningful goal than awareness alone.
Building a More Neuroinclusive Workplace
At The Low Achiever, we help individuals and organizations rethink assumptions about people, performance, and potential.
Through neurodiversity coaching, workplace training, and consulting, we support more accessible, adaptable, and inclusive ways of working.
If your organization wants to move beyond awareness campaigns and create meaningful changes in how people are supported at work, explore our services.
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