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It essentially boils down to whether one chooses to do damage to the system or to the student.
The way that a teacher teaches can be traced directly back to the way that the teacher has been taught. The time will always come when teachers must ask themselves if they will follow the mold or blaze a new trail. There are serious risks that come with this decision. It essentially boils down to whether one chooses to do damage to the system or to the student.
Beacon Press: For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too
The “Fix Injustice, Not Kids” Principle: Educational outcome disparities are not the result of deficiencies in marginalizedFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at... communities’ cultures, mindsetsThe marketing of mindsets was everywhere this year: “How to Develop Mindsets for Compassion and Caring in Students.” “Building A Tinkering Mindset In Young Students Through Making.” “6 Must-Haves for..., or grittiness, but rather of inequities
Basic Principles for Equity LiteracyEquityA commitment to action: the process of redistributing access and opportunity to be fair and just.A way of being: the state of being free of bias, discrimination, and identity-predictable outcomes.... Equity
EquityA commitment to action: the process of redistributing access and opportunity to be fair and just.A way of being: the state of being free of bias, discrimination, and identity-predictable outcomes... initiatives focus, not on “fixing” students and families who are marginalized, but on transforming the conditions that marginalize students and families.
Fix injustice, not kids. “It essentially boils down to whether one chooses to do damage to the system or to the student.”
So many of us in this system want to do better. Students and teachers find themselves in spaces guaranteed to result in feedback loops and meltdownsMeltdowns are alarm systems to protect our brains.Without meltdowns, we autistics would have nothing to protect our neurology from the very real damage that it can accumulate.I don’t melt down... and the eventual burnoutAutistic burnout is a state of physical and mental fatigue, heightened stress, and diminished capacity to manage life skills, sensory input, and/or social interactions, which comes from years of being... of everyone involved. Responding to fires and stresses caused by overloaded sensory spaces and deficit ideology consumes more time, people, and passion than available and starves a better future of oxygen.
A better future requires time and will to get structural, get social, get equity literate, connect with communitiesWhat I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/..., and build classroom user experiences compatible with neurodiversity and disability. SpEdThe word “special” is used to sugar-coat segregation and societal exclusion – and its continued use in our language, education systems, media etc serves to maintain those increasingly antiquated “special”... and self-advocates should be working together, designing for real life and fixing injustice, not kids.
There is no path toward educational justice that contains convenient detours around direct confrontations with injustice. The desperate search for these detours, often in the form of models or frameworks or concepts that were not developed as paths to justice, is the greatest evidence of the collective desire among those who count on injustice to give them an advantage to retain that advantage. If a direct confrontation of injustice is missing from our strategies or initiatives or movements, that means we are recreating the conditions we’re pretending to want to destroy.
Paul C. Gorski – Grit. Growth mindset. Emotional intelligence….
A better future requires a justice mindsetThe marketing of mindsets was everywhere this year: “How to Develop Mindsets for Compassion and Caring in Students.” “Building A Tinkering Mindset In Young Students Through Making.” “6 Must-Haves for....
A better future requires an acceptance mindset.
A better future is a future made together. Respecting neurodiversity improves interactions between neurodivergent people and public services.
Two-way communication forms the bedrock of the provision of most public services and must be effective in order for all individuals to receive appropriate access to care
Respecting neurodiversity: Interactions between autistic people and public services | IPR blogThe activities that constitute care are crucial for human life. We defined care in this way: Care is "a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue,..., services, employment, and justice; services should be accessible and delivered in a way that respects the differing needs of the individual. However, society is shaped for neurotypicalThe existence of the word neurotypical makes it possible to have conversations about topics like neurotypical privilege. Neurotypical is a word that allows us to talk about members of the... people and largely excludes those who think differentlyOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals..., despite the fact that neurologically diverse people – from those with autism
Autistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline. If... to ADHD
ADHD or what I prefer to call Kinetic Cognitive Style (KCS) is another good example. (Nick Walker coined this alternative term.) The name ADHD implies that Kinetics like me have... to dyslexiaDyslexia is a genetic, brain-based characteristic that results in difficulty connecting the sounds of spoken language to written words. It can result in errors in reading or spelling as well... – constitute a significant proportion of the population. In this blog we present autism as a case study for how the critical points of interaction between individuals and public services could be better designed to respect neurodiversity
Neurodiversity is the diversity of human minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a..., taking the criminal justice system, healthcare, and employment interviews as exemplar contexts.
To that end, here are some ways to respect neurodiveristy and disability in your school.
- Learn About Neurodiversity at School
- Build a Community of Practice
- Presume Competence
- Foster Neurological Pluralism
- Teach Autonomy and Self-Determination
- Ditch “Special”
- Use Our Language
- Understand Monotropism and the Double Empathy Problem
- Understand Exposure Anxiety, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and Situational Mutism
- Appreciate our Spiky Profiles
- Reframe ADHD as Kinetic Cognitive Style
- Provide Opportunity but not Pressure
- Understand Equity and Needs-based Fairness
- Affirm Our Bodyminds
- The Accommodations for Natural Human Variation Should Be Mutual
Learn About Neurodiversity at School
Neurodiversity means that we are all differentOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals... in how we think, feel, and learn, because our brains process information differently. Neurodiversity includes everyone, because everyone has a brain!
Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS) | The University of Edinburgh
Delivering the LEANS resources is a way for primary school teachers of children 8-11 to introduce the concept of neurodiversity to their class, and explore how it affects people’s everyday experiences. Schools currently may teach about the diversity of people’s cultures or beliefs, but usually do not teach about neurodiversity. This resource aims to help change that. It was developed especially for primary schools by a neurodiverse team of researchers and educators, led by the University of Edinburgh.
Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS) | The University of Edinburgh
So, what is neurodiversity? In LEANS, the definition that pupils will hear is:
Neurodiversity means that we are all different in how we think, feel, and learn, because our brains process information differently.
Your whole class is diverse, not just in the way you look or what you enjoy doing, but also in the way your brains work and how you think, feel, and learn.1
Teaching about neurodiversity is more akin to topics like citizenship or health than it is to teaching about photosynthesis or adjectives. It’s a topic that doesn’t neatly “finish”, because its implications are all around us in daily life. Our understandings of it will mature as we have new experiences and make further connections. LEANS is intended to be an introduction to this complex and sensitive topic, and the start of a longer conversation in your class. Even when the LEANS curriculum is over, pupils will still be making sense of things, and perhaps reconsidering others— or themselves.
Neurodiversity: Neurodiversity is the fact that all human beings vary in the way our brains work. We take in information in different ways, we process it in different ways, and thus we behave in different ways. Like other types of diversity, neurodiversity is about the presence of variation (in this case, information processing) within a group or population of people; it’s not a property of individuals.
Neurodiversity doesn’t just explain how each individual person is different from the next in terms of their information processing. We can also use neurodiversity to understand bigger differences between types of people, that may be labelled by a diagnosis
Self diagnosis is not just “valid” — it is liberatory. When we define our community ourselves and wrest our right to self-definition back from the systems that painted us as.... Such categorical differences in brain processes, and therefore in experience and behavior, underpin diagnostic labels such as autism, ADHD, developmental language disorder, dyslexia or dyspraxia.
Let’s consider trees as a metaphor for brains (Figure 2). Every single tree in a woodland has its own pattern of growth and is different and unique from its neighbours. However, it’s also possible to categorise trees—pines, oaks, willows, apples—and these categories indicate consistent, larger differences. Sometimes differences are really obvious, like when we compare a palm tree and an oak tree. Sometimes they are subtle, and easy to miss. These differences are not only about their appearance, but the types of environmental conditions that they need to thrive.
Learning About Neurodiversity at School (LEANS) | The University of Edinburgh
Build a Community of Practice
We know that there is a gulf between the autism research that gets done and the research that people in the autism community
What I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/... want.
So, how do we go about building the community of practice we need to deliver these participatory methods? Some basics are already well known – for example, the importance of using respectful language to talk about autism and the need to create an enabling environment in which autistic people can contribute. Our series went beyond these basics, and identified five topics which are essential parts of developing a more participatory and collaborative research model in which autistic academics and autistic people in the community lead and / or partner in research projects.
Shaping Autism Research in the UK
Do as these researchers are finally doing. They are in the space connecting with autistic people. They are using and spreading our language. They are building, with us, a community of practice around participatory research that reflects our priorities. We see them and welcome others, particularly K-12.
Scientists are increasingly recognizing a moral imperative to collaborate with the communities they study, and the practical benefits that result. Autism researchers are joining this movement, partnering with people on the spectrum and their families to better address their priorities.
Autism research needs a dose of social science | Spectrum | Autism Research News

Image credit: Autism. 2019 May; 23(4): 943–953. Published online 2018 Aug 10. doi: 10.1177/1362361318786721 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Figure
This article reports on the outcomes from the series, identifying five topics relevant to building a community of practice in participatory research: Respect, Authenticity, Assumptions, Infrastructure and Empathy
The ‘double empathy problem’ refers to the mutual incomprehension that occurs between people of different dispositional outlooks and personal conceptual understandings when attempts are made to communicate meaning.From finding a....
By participatory research, we mean incorporating the views of autistic people and their allies about what research gets done, how it is done and how it is implemented (Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995). A key principle of participatory research is the recognition, and undermining, of the traditional powerThe 20th Century political scientist Karl Deutsch said, “Power is the ability not to have to learn.”I quote this statement often, because I think it’s one of the most important... imbalance between researcher and participant (Nelson and Wright, 1995).
Another key feature of participatory research is inclusiveness including adapting the research environment, methodology and dissemination routes to permit the widest and most accessible engagement, or engagement from specific groups (e.g. non-speaking autis- tic people and people with additional intellectual disabili- ties – see Long and Clarkson, 2017). Participatory research is ethically informed by the valuesRemind yourself that shared values, rather than shared beliefs, are what matter when it comes to interacting with others, and that there is no replacement for doing the hard work... of the community, for example, in the selection of research questions and study objectives. Moreover, input from this community can improve the quality of research methods, contextualise findings within real-world settings and thereby enhance the translation of findings into practice (Carrington et al., 2016; Grinker et al., 2012; Parr, 2016; Parsons and Cobb, 2013).
Making the future together: Shaping autism research through meaningful participation – Sue Fletcher-Watson, Jon Adams, Kabie Brook, Tony Charman, Laura Crane, James Cusack, Susan Leekam, Damian Milton, Jeremy R Parr, Elizabeth Pellicano, 2019
- Respect – how to respectfully represent lived experience
- Authenticity – how autism communities can shape a research agenda
- Assumptions – best practice in autistic leadership and community advocacy
- Infrastructure – how to support and encourage autistic academics and activists
- Empathy – how to build effective working partnerships
Meaningful participation in autism research can help us make a better future for autis- tic people, together.
Making the future together: Shaping autism research through meaningful participation – Sue Fletcher-Watson, Jon Adams, Kabie Brook, Tony Charman, Laura Crane, James Cusack, Susan Leekam, Damian Milton, Jeremy R Parr, Elizabeth Pellicano, 2019
Presume Competence
Presuming competence is nothing less than a Hippocratic oath for educators.
A Q&A about autism with Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes
“To not presume competence is to assume that some individuals cannot learn, develop, or participate in the world. Presuming competence is nothing less than a Hippocratic oath for educators.”
Never assume that the ability to speak equals intelligence. There are plenty of autistic people who have trouble speaking but who have glorious creative worlds inside them seeking avenues of expression. Never assume that an autistic person who can’t speak isn’t listening closely to every word you say, or isn’t feeling the emotional impact of your words. I’ve interviewed many autistic people who said they could hear and understand everything around them while people called them “idiots” or described them as “out of it” to their faces. Ultimately, presuming competence is the ability to imagine that the person in front of you is just as human as you are, even if they seem to be very impaired. If you understand that the autistic students in your class are just as complex and nuanced and intensely emotional and hopeful as you are, you’ll do everything in your power to help them lead happier and more engaged lives.
A Q&A about autism with Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes
Presuming competence is not an act of kindness.
Presuming competence is not something we do because we are a “good” person.
We do not get to pat ourselves on the back because we have presumed competence. If we believe we deserve a pat on the back and/or acknowledgement, then we are not presuming competence, we are more likely being condescending.
“Presume Competence” – What Does That Mean Exactly? | Emma’s Hope Book
Foster Neurological Pluralism
Teach Autonomy and Self-Determination
We’re Autistic. Here’s what we’d like you to know.
My choice is my own My body, my own Opinion is my own I own it, I own it I don't want unsolicited advice I might succeed, I might get in strife But my choice is my own My voice, my own My life is my own I own it, I own it I can make my own choices I ignore all the voices Life has layers, it's lawless Ah, stuff ya --Choices by Amyl and the Sniffers
Ditch “Special”
The logic of the connection between “special needsThe word “special” is used to sugar-coat segregation and societal exclusion – and its continued use in our language, education systems, media etc serves to maintain those increasingly antiquated “special”...” and “special [segregated] places” is very strong – it doesn’t need reinforcement – it needs to be broken.
There is another insidious but serious consequence of being labelled (as having or being) “special needs”. The label carries with it the implication that a person with “special needs” can only have their needs met by “special” help or “specially-trained” people – by “specialists”. That implication is particularly powerful and damaging in our mainstream schooling systems – it is a barrier to mainstream schools, administrators and teachers feeling responsible, empowered or skilled to embrace and practice inclusive education in regular classrooms, and accordingly perpetuates attitudinal resistance to realising the human right to inclusive education under Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
In other words, the language of “special needs” leads to, and serves to excuse, a “can’t do” attitude as the default position of many general educators – it effectively deprives inclusive education of its necessary oxygen – a conducive “can do” classroom culture.
Learn more about the problems with “special” on our glossary page.
Use Our Language
Understand Monotropism and the Double Empathy Problem
Monotropism
Welcome – MonotropismMonotropism is a theory of autism developed by autistic people, initially by Dinah Murray and Wenn Lawson.Monotropic minds tend to have their attention pulled more strongly towards a smaller number of interests at... is a theory of autism developed by autistic people, initially by Dinah Murray and Wenn Lawson.
MonotropicMonotropism is a theory of autism developed by autistic people, initially by Dinah Murray and Wenn Lawson.Monotropic minds tend to have their attention pulled more strongly towards a smaller number of interests at... minds tend to have their attention pulled more strongly towards a smaller number of interests at any given time, leaving fewer resources for other processes. We argue that this can explain nearly all of the features commonly associated with autism, directly or indirectly. However, you do not need to accept it as a general theory of autism in order for it to be a useful description of common autistic experiences and how to work with them.
Monotropism and the Double EmpathyThe ‘double empathy problem’ refers to the mutual incomprehension that occurs between people of different dispositional outlooks and personal conceptual understandings when attempts are made to communicate meaning.From finding a... Problem are two of the biggest and most important things to happen to autism research. These two videos, totaling 9 minutes, are well worth an educator’s time.
Learn more on our glossary pages.
Understand Exposure Anxiety, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and Situational Mutism
Exposure AnxietyExposure anxiety (EA) is a condition identified by Donna Williams in which the child or adult feels acutely self-conscious; it leads to a persistent and overwhelming fear of interaction.Exposure anxiety..., Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also..., and Situational Mutism
I am situationally mute. For anyone that isn’t aware of what that is, it simply means that in certain situations, places or around certain people I don’t want to and... marked the childhoods of many us here at Stimpunks
Stimpunk combines “stimming” + “punk” to evoke open and proud stimming, resistance to neurotypicalization, and the DIY culture of punk, disabled, and neurodivergent communities. Instead of hiding our stims, we.... The intense sensory and social environment of schools feeds all of these.
Appreciate our Spiky Profiles
An education that is designed to the edgesFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at... and takes into account the jagged learning profile of all students can help unlock the potential in every child.
Source: From Hostility to Community – Teachers Going Gradeless
Reframe ADHD as Kinetic Cognitive Style
Provide Opportunity but not Pressure
The conference began with an orientation session in the main lodge led by Sinclair, who explained the guidelines that had been established to maintain and preserve the environment as autistic space. Photographs and videos could only be taken after asking for permission, and only outdoors, so that the flash didn’t trigger seizures. Cigarette smoking and perfumes were banned. Respect for each person’s solitude and personal space was essential, and the interaction badges allowed everyone to know at a glance who was open to talking. All of the conference events were optional, including the orientation itself; the overriding principle was “opportunity but not pressure.”
Silberman, Steve. NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity (p. 448, 449). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Freedom from pressures and expectations
History of ANI via Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking
Karla Fisher has a great visual she uses for IEP advocacy called “Our breaks are not like NT breaks.” She points out that, for an autistic person, lunch and recess can be the most stressful times of the day.
The autistic community has a solution for this, for autistic events. They are Color Communication Badges. With green displayed, the message is to approach. With yellow, only known people are welcomed. With red displayed, the wearer is to be left aloneAloneness is a characteristic that many creatives embrace and yearn for. Being alone is anything but lonely. Reading, writing, and creating art all demand a personal space where one can... except in direst emergency. This makes it easy at autistic events, to know if a person sitting alone would relish or loathe company.
Why don’t we have something like that at schools? Color badges or seat markers or perhaps a choice chart the child can use in class before recess
I (,) Object – Nightengale of Samarkand — LiveJournal
Understand Equity and Needs-based Fairness
Affirm Our Bodyminds
The Accommodations for Natural Human Variation Should Be Mutual

Enable Dignity
Real inclusive organizing should at a minimum include: Incorporating disability into your values or action statements; having disabled people on the organizing committee or board; making accessibility a priority from day one; and listening to feedback from disabled people.

Education Access
We have turned classrooms into hell for neurodivergenceNeurodivergent, sometimes abbreviated as ND, means having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of “normal.”NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodivergent is quite.... Students with conflicting sensory needs and accommodationsAccommodation is fundamentally about not changing the person but changing the environment around the person.Normal Sucks: Author Jonathan Mooney on How Schools Fail Kids with Learning Differences Yet on a programmatic... are squished together with no access to cave, campfire, or watering hole zones. This sensory environment feeds the overwhelm -> meltdown -> burnout cycle. Feedback loops cascade.

Healthcare Access
They don’t take disability studies classes.
They don’t listen to us.
Wanted: hospitals and doctors’ offices that…
They don’t socialize with us.
They don’t listen to us.

Interaction Access
Interaction badges are useful tools. Their red, yellow, green communication indicators map to our cave, campfire, and watering hole moods. The cave, campfire, watering hole and red, yellow, green reductions are a useful starting place when designing for neurological pluralismANI launched its online list, ANI-L, in 1994. Like a specialized ecological niche, ANI-L had acted as an incubator for Autistic culture, accelerating its evolution. In 1996, a computer programmer....

Technology Access
Our multi-age learning community sets up and runs our organization. We don’t use learning management software. Instead, our learners use the professional tools of a modern, neurodiverse organization, without all the ed-tech surveillance baked in. We use technology to co-create paths to equity and access with our learners.