Therapist
Neurodiversity
Collective

Name: ABA for Autistic Children: A Neurodiversity-Affirming Model of Care? – The Live Course
Start: 2024-03-21T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2024-03-21T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Therapist Neurodiversity Collective

Inc.

• Therapy • Advocacy • Education •

Established January 2018

Neurodiversity is “…the diversity of human brains and minds – the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.” “Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a belief, a political position, or a paradigm.”
– Dr. Nick Walker

The Neurodiversity Movement is a Human Rights Movement. “The Neurodiversity Movement says that people with brain-based disabilities (like autism, intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, or mental health disabilities) should be accepted and included in society just like neurotypical people (people without brain-based disabilities).” – Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Therapist Neurodiversity Collective, Inc.™ is an international neurodiversity-affirming therapy, education, and advocacy organization

that was founded on January 11, 2018.

What we do:

✦ Champion a transformative vision of acceptance and equitable inclusion for autistic, other-neurodivergent, and other-disabled people.

✦ Offer unparalleled, free and affordable public education that upholds the value of neurodiversity, highlighting contemporary autism research, trauma-informed practices, and methodologies built on presuming competence and upholding dignity and human rights.

✦ Foster partnerships and professional growth for our therapist members aligned with the neurodiversity paradigm.

An Autistic-led organization, the Collective’s work is focused on aligning therapy and education practices within a neurodiversity-affirming paradigm rooted in the Neurodiversity Movement’s goal to protect the rights and welfare of autistic and other neurodivergent people. We champion self-determination and promote self-esteem. We honor personal agency, body autonomy, sensory system needs, social communication authenticity, and an autistic/neurodivergent person’s right to say “No”.

Therapist Neurodiversity Collective is unapologetically ABA-free and we don’t train social skills. Dehumanizing, compliance-based practices have been linked to poor mental health outcomes and increased suicidality in autistic adults.

Therapists who are aligned with Therapist Neurodiversity Collective are credentialed and licensed pro-neurodiversity-focused, trauma-informed providers, wholly allied with the Neurodiversity Movement as a Human Rights Movement. We believe that therapists and educators shouldn’t try to “normalize” autistic and other-neurodivergent people at the expense of their emotional, physical, and psychological well-being.

We are activists centered on flipping the autism narrative, impacting radical changes in therapy and education practices, and championing autistic and other neurodivergent human rights.