Therapist
Neurodiversity
Collective

Therapist
Neurodiversity
Collective

Inc.         

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.

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Therapist Neurodiversity Collective

Therapist Neurodiversity Collective

A therapy, education, & advocacy collaborative run by an Autistic SLP.
https://therapistndc.org/

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This quote speaks volumes about the misunderstandings and misconceptions surrounding neurodivergent behaviors. ✨✨✨ "If a person's behavior doesn't make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context. It's that simple." - Devon Price. ✨✨✨ Too often, neurotypicals view our actions 😮 through their own lens of “normal behavior,” missing the broader context that gives meaning to our actions. Look deeper: 🔎Perhaps it's pain or other illness, the sensory environment, or what the people around us are doing 😫. Perhaps you are misunderstanding our spoken and unspoken social communication (the double empathy problem) - you think we are angry or rude or not paying attention when our intention is anything but, or our facial expressions 😐 don't match neurotypical expectations for displaying a particular emotion, or we may need to move our bodies or stim to self-regulate.
✴✴✴ Without understanding the full picture, judgments are made, often unfairly, resulting in 🚫🚫🚫Behavior Intervention Plans, discipline, punishment, stigmatization, exclusion, and isolation. Consider…
➡️Did you consider any other possibilities other than “maladaptive behavior?”
➡️Does your therapy or behavior “intervention plan” focus on increasing the comfort of neurotypicals?
➡️How exactly does the plan benefit the neurodivergent person?
➡️What might be the resulting mental health outcomes?
➡️What potential trauma might it induce for that person?

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This quote speaks volumes about the misunderstandings and misconceptions surrounding neurodivergent behaviors. ✨✨✨ If a persons behavior doesnt make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context. Its that simple. - Devon Price. ✨✨✨ Too often, neurotypicals view our actions 😮 through their own lens of “normal behavior,” missing the broader context that gives meaning to our actions. Look deeper: 🔎Perhaps its pain or other illness, the sensory environment, or what the people around us are doing 😫. Perhaps you are misunderstanding our spoken and unspoken social communication (the double empathy problem) - you think we are angry or rude or not paying attention when our intention is anything but, or our facial expressions 😐 dont match neurotypical expectations for displaying a particular emotion, or we may need to move our bodies or stim to self-regulate.
✴✴✴ Without understanding the full picture, judgments are made, often unfairly, resulting in 🚫🚫🚫Behavior Intervention Plans, discipline, punishment, stigmatization, exclusion, and isolation. Consider… 
➡️Did you consider any other possibilities other than “maladaptive behavior?” 
➡️Does your therapy or behavior “intervention plan” focus on increasing the comfort of neurotypicals?
➡️How exactly does the plan benefit the neurodivergent person? 
➡️What might be the resulting mental health outcomes? 
➡️What potential trauma might it induce for that person?
Image description and text in alt text.

5 CommentsComment on Facebook

That is interesting outlook

My classroom was always: first therapeutic not compliance.

Well...in cases of abusive, harmful, illegal behavior (to name a few), I don't care WHAT the other person's context is. There's a limit to this.

Oh, using behavior ideology on anyone is a context adults are pre-determined to plan to miss because they expect to be able to use the behavior concept and apply it on whatever we do. When you find out you are using behavior ideology on people with your brain activity, it is no longer missing. Your brain activities about any people,any person, and behavior isn’t what we are doing, that’s what you are doing.

I asked for neuro-affirming assessment. I got neuronormative based judgment.

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Love! ❤️ Love! ❤️ Love!❤️ ... See MoreSee Less

Love! ❤️ Love! ❤️ Love!❤️Image attachmentImage attachment+1Image attachment

1 CommentComment on Facebook

Tor Mac, Sharron Lapham, Ingrid Quick These are excellent 😅

📧 📧 📧 I’ve just gotten another email… 🙄 “Hello again, I wanted to follow up with you to share a new neurodiversity program we offer. Will you please share our program on your socials as well as on your blog and resource page?”
The above email is from a for-profit company with nearly 💲300 MILLION💲in venture capital that wants free promotion from Therapist Neurodiversity Collective. 🤔 🤨 Their ableist webpage says it all… ➡️ ➡️ ➡️ “Neurodiversity is a business superpower.” ⬅️ ⬅️ ⬅️ Ugh. 🤢 Performative neurodiversity at its finest, folks! ♾️
NEWS FLASH: The Neurodiversity Movement is a human rights and social justice movement, not a revenue $tream for Corporate America.

For further info about "neurodiversity lite," see this article:
Performative Neurodiversity – the appropriation and watering down of a Human Rights Movement for profit
therapistndc.org/performative-neurodiversity-the-appropriation-and-watering-down-of-a-human-right...
... See MoreSee Less

📧 📧 📧 I’ve just gotten another email… 🙄 “Hello again, I wanted to follow up with you to share a new neurodiversity program we offer. Will you please share our program on your socials as well as on your blog and resource page?” 
The above email is from a for-profit company with nearly 💲300 MILLION💲in venture capital that wants free promotion from Therapist Neurodiversity Collective. 🤔 🤨  Their ableist webpage says it all…  ➡️ ➡️ ➡️ “Neurodiversity is a business superpower.” ⬅️ ⬅️ ⬅️ Ugh. 🤢 Performative neurodiversity at its finest, folks! ♾️
NEWS FLASH: The Neurodiversity Movement is a human rights and social justice movement, not a revenue $tream for Corporate America.
For further info about neurodiversity lite, see this article: 
Performative Neurodiversity – the appropriation and watering down of a Human Rights Movement for profit
https://therapistndc.org/performative-neurodiversity-the-appropriation-and-watering-down-of-a-human-rights-movement-for-profit/

5 CommentsComment on Facebook

Yikes!!!

Thank you for being you and not them.

I agree! It’s so gross 🤢!

I'd not heard this term 'performative neurodiversity' before and it is a perfect description, thank you

Have you watched Love Letters, A True-ly Short Epistolary Romance? It has a banger musical number about fortunes and careers being made on the backs of kids like us. I think you’d be into it on lots of fronts. (Love Letters is a play written by a nonspeaking autistic Iranian-American young woman playwright and poet, with music also written by other autistic nonspeakers — I saw it in person, and it the performance then was recorded, and it just premiered yesterday on YouTube. Can’t recommend enough.)

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