Spotlight on: Richard Pimentel

Richard Pimentel, who lost his hearing while serving in the Vietnam War, specializes in developing workplace accommodations for people with disabilities. Among his many accomplishments is Windmills: Overcoming Fear and Misperception, a groundbreaking treatise on attitudinal training in the workplace. What can employers do to de-stigmatize mental health and learning disabilities?

Educate away the stereotypes. “If I come to you and tell you I have a cognitive disability, to most people that means nothing in particular. We don’t know enough about it. There are lots of myths and stereotypes.”

Focus on attitudes. “I think we’ve made some pretty good progress with attitudes toward [physical] disability, but attitudes toward mental health and toward learning disabilities is different. The bottom line is, we need to expand employers’ comfort zones.”

Be flexible. Pimentel says the No. 1 needed accommodation for people with mental health and learning disabilities is a simple change of schedule. The traditional eight-hour workday, nine to five, might not be optimal. Or if a person is easily distracted, he or she might function best wearing noise-blocking earphones at work. “It’s just a commonsense kind of approach so people feel more comfortable.”