Stimpunks Foundation

Mutual Aid and Human-Centered Learning for Neurodivergent and Disabled People

The Original Legend of Zelda Map

🗺 Site Map

We’ve collated some of our most referenced resources.

Mind Maps

Here’s a mind map of our pillars and philosophy.
Stimpunks-Pillars-7Download
Here’s a mind map of the themes on our website.
  • Sustainability
  • Culture and Identity
  • Place and Space
  • Continuity and Change
  • Citizenship and Social Responsibility
  • Design and Technologies
  • Social Organization
  • Creative Expression
  • Health and Wellbeing
Re-Humanizing Education: Exploring Thematic Design | SLIDE DECK (1), Exploring Thematic Design | Planning Pathway Learning Map – Google Docs
Stimpunks-Themes-6Download

Collections

Table of Contents

Required Reading

To understand us, read “Choosing the Margin: Design is Tested at the Edges“.

Stimpunks Guide to the NeurodiVerse

Our Guide to the NeurodiVerse publishes an accessible summary of neurodiversity and disability related research every week.

Stimpunks Guide to the NeurodiVerse Issue #5: Redefining Autism Science with Monotropism and the Double Empathy Problem

If we are right, then monotropism is one of the key ideas required for making sense of autism, along with the double empathy problem and neurodiversity. Monotropism makes sense of many autistic experiences at the individual level. The double empathy problem explains the misunderstandings that occur between people who process the world differently, often mistaken for a lack of empathy…

Stimpunks Guide to the NeurodiVerse Issue #4: From an Ivory Tower Built on Sand to Open, Participatory, Emancipatory, Activist Research

Autism research is out-of-touch with the “real” world Frontiers | From ivory tower to inclusion: Stakeholders’ experiences of community engagement in Australian autism research Our “Stimpunks Guide to the NeurodiVerse” series surveys recent neurodiversity and disability related research. In this issue, we highlight how the vast majority of autism research is divorced from the lived…

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Podcast

Our podcast is published bi-weekly on Mondays.

Stimpunks Podcast Episode 3: On Jordan Neely and Support Systems – Stimpunks Foundation

In this episode, Inna reflects on what happens when a neurodivergent person’s support system goes away and society fails them. Transcript Our Loved Ones are Jordan Neely  So, I’m sitting here by the lake, and it’s so peaceful and beautiful. The water is really clear and I could see the fish and the turtles, and […] The post Stimpunks Podcast Episode 3: On Jordan Neely and Support Systems appeared first on Stimpunks Foundation.
  1. Stimpunks Podcast Episode 3: On Jordan Neely and Support Systems
  2. Stimpunks Podcast Episode 2: Learning from Rockets
  3. Stimpunks Podcast Episode 1: The Logistics of Inclusion

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 neurodivergence. Students with conflicting sensory needs and accommodations 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.

Wheelchair in a maze

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…

Green, yellow, and red folders with the words GREEN, YELLOW, and RED on them. The green folder has a circle on it. The yellow folder has a triangle. The read folder has an octagon.

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 pluralism.

Close-up of a keyboard with the Russian alphabet for the blind. Braille.

Communication Access

“Written communication is the great social equalizer.” It allows us to participate and be a part of things bigger than ourselves.

Young Asian Cute girl studying with laptop at home during pandemic stock photo

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.

Let’s organize our lives around love and care.

Mission

We exist for the direct support and mutual aid of neurodivergent and disabled people.

We serve our loved people so we can keep on living through the onslaught.

Creed

I center the marginalized and the different. I center edge cases, because edge cases are stress cases and design is tested at the edges. I center neurodivergent and disabled experience in service to all bodyminds.

A disembodied arm with blue skin and a self-care tattoo flashes the sign of the horns

Covenant

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

Two human side silhouette positioned Face to face overlaid with various semi-transparent line connected circular (network node) shapes.

Philosophy

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

Rainbow woven cloth evoking our diversity and interdependence

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. Interdependence is the only way out of most of the most pressing issues we face today.

The many forms of difference. Adaptive Behavior Assessment (ABAS-3), Adult ADHD Self-report Scale (ASRS-v1.1), and Behavior Rating Inventory Executive Function (BRIEF 2) forms spread across a wooden table

Edges

Our designs, our societies, and the boundaries of our compassion are tested at the edges, where the truths told are of bias, inequality, 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

A young woman looks up toward images flowing from an open book with pages riffling

Learning Space

The place where we belong does not exist. We will build it. Anti-ableist space for passion-based, human-centered learning compatible with neurodiversity and the social model of disability.

A green-skinned humanoid with 10 arms and a tree sprouting out of its open heads holds 10 objects: paintbrush, magnifying glass, book, stopwatch, smoking herbs, broom, smartphone, mortar

Open Research

Digital sociology, 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.

A group of disabled queer Black folks talk and laugh at a sleepover, relaxing across two large beds. Everyone is dressed in colorful t-shirts and wearing a variety of sleep scarves, bonnets, and durags. On the left, two friends sit on one bed and paint each other’s nails. On the right, four people lounge on a bed: one person braids another’s hair while the third friend wearing a C-PAP mask laughs, and the fourth person looks up from their book. In the center, a bedside lamp illuminates the room in warm light while pill bottles adorn an end table.

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.

Stimpunks Creator Badge An umbrella inside a circle surrounded by the text "Stimpunks Creator" with rainbow stripes in between

Creator Grants

We pay creators to create. We fund art, advocacy, research, and more. We buy space to breathe and create.

Learning Space

Lit up tree
Learning Space
stream of data

Online: Bringing Safety to the Serendipity

Online, we bring safety to the serendipity 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.

A Black non-binary hiker stands on a wooden deck with their cane, looking out into the surrounding forest. They have a shaved head and wear glasses, a peplum shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes.

Offline: Fresh Air, Daylight, and Large Muscle Movement

Offline, our learners enjoy fresh air, daylight, large muscle movement, and the freedom to stim and play. Ensure there is quiet space and outdoor space that people can access at any time.

Man sitting in the mouth of a cave with open sky and mountain showing beyond the cave

Cavendish Space: Caves, Campfires, and Watering Holes for Dandelions, Tulips, and Orchids

We provide psychologically and sensory safe spaces suited to zone work, intermittent collaboration, and collaborative niche construction.

Hands overlapping with a heart painted in the middle

We Believe: Human-Centered, Trauma-Informed, Self-Determined, Equity Literate, Interdisciplinary, Open Technology

Learning is rooted in purpose 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

  1. 🌈♿️ Mutual Aid and Human-Centered Learning for Neurodivergent and Disabled People (9 minutes)
  2. Reframe Disability and Difference: We’re Going to Rewrite the Narratives (14 minutes)
  3. Happy Flappy (7 minutes)
  4. Pillars (3 minutes)

Reframe Aid

  1. ⛑ Mutual Aid: Real Help Against the Onslaught (13 minutes)
  2. ☂️ Community Care (10 minutes)

Reframe Learning

  1. ♿️📚The Need: Anti-Ableist Space for Human-Centered Learning (16 minutes)
  2. ❤️ The Answer: Reframing, Respectful Connection, and the Presumption of Competence (33 minutes)
  3. ⚡️🦅🌈 The Feeling: Electric Belonging and Soaring Inclusion (4 minutes)
  4. 📚 The Learning: Passion-Based, Human-Centered Learning Compatible With Neurodiversity and the Social Model of Disability (10 minutes)
  5. The Gift: Learning Disabilities Reframed (18 minutes)

Reframe Research

  1. 🗂 Facts, Fire, and Feels: Research-Storytelling from the Edges (38 minutes)
  2. Questions for an Industry: Are You Disregarding Harm and Profiting From Our Misery? ( 17 minutes)
  3. Participatory, Emancipatory, Activist Research (29 minutes)
  4. Useful Autism Research: Welcome to This Very Important Update (31 minutes)

Reframe Services

  1. 🧰✊ 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, Segregation, or Ableism

The Answer

Reframing and Respectful Connection

The Feeling

Electric Belonging and Soaring Inclusion

The Learning

Passion-Based, Human-Centered Learning Compatible With Neurodiversity and the Social Model of Disability

Young girl in headphones plugged into a paper book, evoking ear reading and multi-modality learning.

The Gift

We have created a system that has you submit yourself, or your child, to patient hood to access the right to learn differently. The right to learn differently should be a universal human right that’s not mediated by a diagnosis.

This post is also available in: Deutsch (German) Español (Spanish)

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

→ Index