Neurodiversity-Affirming Approach: What is it and How Can it Support Your Child(ren)?

Nicholas Sidwell, OTR/L

At Ability Innovations, we strive to be Neurodiversity Affirming or Neurodivergent Affirming because we believe that PEOPLE matter.

A lot of the terminology used in therapy clinics like ours, talk about autistic people, sensory processing, or people with neurological conditions in the ableism mindset and biased perspective of Neurotypical occurrence being the ‘gold standard’ to which we have to judge all people by. We do not agree with this and we strive for a higher purpose.

What Is Neurodiversity?

Recently, the neurodiversity movement, Coined in the 1990s by Australian sociologist Judy Singer, has increasingly become a hot topic in the therapy world. A trend that I have noticed is the same idea, but they call it Neurodivergence or Neurodivergent Affirming. The concept of neurodiversity acknowledges and emphasizes neurological differences (i.e., variations in the way in which individuals interpret, process, and learn information). Neurodiversity can be broken down into many different levels and subgroups or neurotypes. One person’s neurological experience can be different, even vastly different than a neurotypical person’s experience without it meaning it is something to be fixed.

Two basic neurotypes can encompass most people:

Neurotypical describes individuals who think and process information in ways “typical” for their culture.

Neurodiverse or neurodivergent refers to individuals whose brain functioning is simply different from what is considered “typical”. This encompasses people with a range of conditions including:

● Autism Spectrum Disorder

● Attention/Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder

● Dyslexia

● Tourette’s

● Dyspraxia

● Other neurological conditions

In reality, the neurological systems of all persons are vast and varied. Being neurodiversity affirming means to accept the beautiful differences between all humans and how their brains work.

For example, it is not that autistic people or persons with ADHD, Tourette’s, etc. have too much or too little of a reaction to sensory input, but that their responsivity to the sensory stimuli is different than neurotypicals. Because the neurodivergent have different brains and different perceptual mechanisms, they are going to have different behaviors and different experiences. It is not a problem that they do, just a different context. Yes, it can be a problem because of how the mainstream society and the neurotypical environment is designed, but internal to the neurodiverse person, they don’t see themselves as broken or that they have a deficit or some kind of malfunction; they just have a different sensory system and a different experience.

We are working hard to shrug off our internalized ableism tendencies. We have a superhero theme because we see super abilities unique to each little superhero. We are committed to seeing people as people and encourage others to do the same. We recognize that some of the people of our day that are changing the world, are neurodiverse- including Elon Musk, Temple Grandin, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, David Neeleman, and Steve Jobs. We want your little heroes to be able to position themselves at the forefront and change the world… because they see and experience the world differently.

Overall, we are striving to do better with our therapeutic use of self, meaning, at Ability Innovations, we want to be strength-based and meet kids and families where they are and expand from there. We don’t try to fix kids or cure them.

However, it doesn’t mean that all the work that has to be done in therapy is dysfunctional and ableistic. We make mistakes like everyone else but we have a value system. We are simply positioning ourselves through each experience, to incorporate the best parts of our previous ways of thinking, as we develop our aim for what’s next with the little heroes we serve.

Thanks for making us part of your heroic journey!