Featured Articles
- What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.
- 💬 Identity First Language: Thinking differently requires speaking differently.
- 🔥 Autistic Burnout: The Cost of Masking and Passing
- The Five Neurodivergent Love Languages
- ⌨️ Written Communication Is the Great Social Equalizer
- 🌈🌈 Neurodiversity and Gender: You Hit So Hard With All the Colors That There Are
- The Gift: Learning Disabilities Reframed
- Eye Contact and Neurodiversity
- Classroom UX: Designing for Pluralism
- Choosing the Margin: Design is Tested at the Edges
Collections
Required Reading
To understand us, read this.
Our Most Popular
The Accommodations for Natural Human Variation Should Be Mutual

Enable Dignity
Real inclusive organizing should at a minimum include: Incorporating disability into your 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... or action statements; having disabledThe label "disabled" means so much to me. It means I have community. It means I have rights. It means I can be proud. It means I can affirm myself... 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 communityWhat 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/... 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
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... and access with our learners.
Let’s organize our lives around love and care.

Mission
We exist for the direct support and mutual aidPut simply, mutual aid is a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions by building relationships, networks of reciprocity,... of neurodivergent
Neurodivergent, 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... and disabled people.
We serve our loved people so we can keep on living through the onslaught.

Creed
I center the 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... and the 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.... I center edge casesCompassion Isn't CoddlingPeople often mistake compassion for “being nice,” but it’s not.The point of compassion isn’t to soften bad news or stressful situations with niceties. It’s to come from a..., because edgeFor 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... cases are stress casesCompassion Isn't CoddlingPeople often mistake compassion for “being nice,” but it’s not.The point of compassion isn’t to soften bad news or stressful situations with niceties. It’s to come from a... and design is tested at 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.... I center neurodivergent and disabled experience in service to all bodymindsBodymind: A term used to challenge the idea the body and mind are experienced separately (Descartes). Written in various ways, Bodymind or Body-mind, this usage foregrounds the understanding that experiences....

Covenant
We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.

Philosophy
We steer by these acquired phrases. They are compasses and stars that align us on our mission.

Interdependence
It is time to celebrate our interdependenceInterdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. If this pandemic has done nothing else, it has illuminated how.... Interdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. Interdependence is the only way out of most of the most pressing issues we face today.

Edges
Our designs, our societies, and the boundaries of our compassionCompassion Isn't CoddlingPeople often mistake compassion for “being nice,” but it’s not.The point of compassion isn’t to soften bad news or stressful situations with niceties. It’s to come from a... are tested at the edges, where the truths told are of bias, inequalityEquityA 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..., injustice, and thoughtlessness.
Let's organize our lives around love and care Let's write each other letters and call it prayer Let's congregate in the place that isn't anywhere At the temple of broken dreams
Pillars

Mutual Aid
Real help against the onslaught. Staying alive is a lot of work for a disabled person in an ableistable·ism /ˈābəˌlizəm/ nounA system of assigning value to people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply... society.

Learning Space
The place where we belong does not exist. We will build it. Anti-ableist space for passion-based, human-centered learningA human-centered education: • Cultivates Purpose-Driven Classrooms • Ends Dehumanizing Practices • Demands Social Justice • Builds a Human-Centered World https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPO66Kan9fQ001u6s30EvXqNTpV-Mkdjp https://youtu.be/h9gQXG9T1RM Build human-centered classrooms around four values: • Learning... compatible with neurodiversityNeurodiversity 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... and the social model of disabilityIn the broadest sense, the social model of disability is about nothing more complicated than a clear focus on the economic, environmental and cultural barriers encountered by people who are....

Open Research
Digital sociologyBut, there is something sociology must do. It is our disciplinary imperative to understand societies. Just as communication studies understands forms of communication, sociology must understand the social. If we..., neurodiversity studies, disability studies, and syncretism, in the open. Improving science by restoring the humanities.

Services
Stay relevant in a constantly changing world. Dismantle ableismable·ism /ˈābəˌlizəm/ nounA system of assigning value to people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply... in your spaces. Enable dignity through access.