What does neurodiversity-affirming mean?

School psychologist Breea Rosas explains, “Neurodiversity-affirming really means that we accept a child for who they are, that their brain is valid, even though it's different, that's completely acceptable. And we value their unique strengths, and their unique support needs, and we're not trying to change them to make them fit into the neurotypical world. We just accept them for who they are. And so through that lens, we can conduct assessments that really speak to who the individual is, their strengths, the beautiful things about their brains, and also the things that we can do best to support them.”

Note that this isn’t exactly the same as a strength-based assessment. “The strengths based approach is lovely,” Rosas says, “And I absolutely think it's super important. But the neurodiversity-affirming approach also recognizes a little bit more that people have disabilities that are very disabling for them and it really focuses not on a disability being a strength, but a neutral, normal part of the human variation.”

For more information, see our full article Neurodiversity-Affirming Assessments 101.