Our Most Popular
- The Five Neurodivergent Love Languages
- Autigender and Neuroqueer: Two Words on the Relationship Between Autism and Gender That Fit Me
- 🔥 Autistic Burnout: The Cost of Masking and Passing
- Neurodivergent
- Eye Contact and Neurodiversity
Featured Articles
- Choosing the Margin: Design is Tested at the Edges
- Classroom UX: Designing for Pluralism
- What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.
- 💬 Identity First Language: Thinking differently requires speaking differently.
- ⌨️ 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
Collections
Required Reading
To understand us, read “Choosing the Margin: Design is Tested at the Edges“.
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… More 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… More 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 neurodivergence
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… More. 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… More 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 socialize with us.
They don’t listen to us.
Wanted: hospitals and doctors’ offices that…
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… More.
Communication Access
“Written communication is the great social equalizer.” It allows us to participate and be a part of things bigger than ourselves.
Technology Access
Our multi-age learning 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/… More 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.
Let’s organize our lives around love and care.
Mission
We exist for the direct support and mutual aid
Put 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,… More of neurodivergent 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… More and the different. I center edge cases, because edge 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… More and design is tested at the edges. I center neurodivergent and disabled experience in service to all bodyminds
Bodymind: 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… More.
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 interdependence
Interdependence 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… More. 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 compassion are tested at the edges, where the truths told are of bias, inequality
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… More, 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
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://youtu.be/JsrsgM6LqiI https://youtu.be/h9gQXG9T1RM Build human-centered classrooms around four values: • Learning… More compatible with 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… More 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… More.
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… More, neurodiversity studies, disability studies, and syncretism, in the open. Improving science by restoring the humanities. We bring voice into empirical constructs and translate voice into academic comprehension.
Mutual Aid
Staying alive is a lot of work for a disabled person in an ableist society. We provide real help against the onslaught through mutual aid. We believe that direct support to individuals is the most effective approach to alleviating the barriers and challenges that prevent neurodivergent and disabled people from thriving.
Creator Grants
We pay creators to create. We fund art
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly,… More, advocacy, research, and more. We buy space to breathe and create.
Learning Space
Online: Bringing Safety to the Serendipity
Online, we bring safety to the serendipitycreated serendipity: the more connected you are, the more ideas seem to find you, not the other way around.3 Obvious Ways Twitter Promotes Literacy – The Principal of Change Yet… More with our distributed community and communication stack. Chance favors the connected mind. Our learners connect using 1:1 laptops and indie ed-tech. We give our learners real laptops with real capabilities, and we fill those laptops with assistive tech and tools of the trades.
Offline: Fresh Air, Daylight, and Large Muscle Movement
Offline, our learners enjoy fresh air, daylight, large muscle movement, and the freedom to stim
Self-stimulatory behavior, also known as stimming and self-stimulation, is the repetition of physical movements, sounds, or words, or the repetitive movement of objects Stimming – Wikipedia Autistic adults highlighted the importance of stimming as… More and play
There is nothing more human than play. Humans were designed to learn in play. In fact, nearly all mammals evolved this way.Play’s Power At our learning space, we provide learners fresh… More. Ensure there is quiet space and outdoor space that people can access at any time.
Cavendish Space: Caves, Campfires, and Watering Holes for Dandelions, Tulips, and Orchids
We provide psychologically and sensory safe spaces suited to zone work, intermittent collaborationThe best solutions come from “intermittent collaboration” — group work punctuated by breaks to think & work by ourselves.Daniel Pink Our cave, campfire, and watering hole moods map to the red, yellow,… More, and collaborative niche construction
Positive Niche Construction–practice of differentiating instruction for the neurodiverse brainNeurodiversity in the Classroom Positive niche construction is a strengths-based approach to educating students with disabilities. Reimagining Inclusion with Positive Niche… More.
We Believe: Human-Centered, Trauma-Informed, Self-Determined, Equity Literate, Interdisciplinary, Open Technology
Learning is rooted in purpose
Self-determination Theory (SDT) is… — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and… More finding and community relevance.
Social justice is the cornerstone to educational success.
Dehumanizing practices do not belong in schools.
Learners are respectful toward each other’s innate human worth.
Why We Reframe
- 🌈♿️ Mutual Aid and Human-Centered Learning for Neurodivergent and Disabled People (9 minutes)
- Reframe Disability and Difference: We’re Going to Rewrite the Narratives (14 minutes)
- Happy Flappy (7 minutes)
- Pillars (3 minutes)
Reframe Aid
- ⛑ Mutual Aid: Real Help Against the Onslaught (13 minutes)
- ☂️ Community Care (10 minutes)
Reframe Learning
- ♿️📚The Need: Anti-Ableist Space for Human-Centered Learning (16 minutes)
- ❤️ The Answer: Reframing, Respectful Connection, and the Presumption of Competence (33 minutes)
- ⚡️🦅🌈 The Feeling: Electric Belonging and Soaring Inclusion (4 minutes)
- 📚 The Learning: Passion-Based, Human-Centered Learning Compatible With Neurodiversity and the Social Model of Disability (10 minutes)
- The Gift: Learning Disabilities Reframed (18 minutes)
Reframe Research
- 🗂 Facts, Fire, and Feels: Research-Storytelling from the Edges (38 minutes)
- Questions for an Industry: Are You Disregarding Harm and Profiting From Our Misery? ( 17 minutes)
- Participatory, Emancipatory, Activist Research (29 minutes)
- Useful Autism Research: Welcome to This Very Important Update (31 minutes)
Reframe Services
- 🧰✊ Services: Know Our Rights, These Are Our Rights (12 minutes)
Take the Reframer’s Journey
Anti-Ableist Space for Human-Centered Learning
The Need
Space without Behaviorism
Ultimately behaviorism provides a simplistic lens that can’t see beyond itself.Why is the doctrine of behaviorism still being used, at all?How can ABA be the gold-standard for autism when it… More, Segregation, or Ableism
able·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… More
The Feeling
Electric Belonging and Soaring Inclusion
The Learning
Passion-Based, Human-Centered Learning Compatible With Neurodiversity and the Social Model of Disability
The Gift
We have created a system that has you submit yourself, or your child, to patient hood to access the right to learn 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… More. The right to learn differently should be a universal human right that’s not mediated 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… More.
