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Accommodations and Self-Advocacy within the Neurodivergent Community

Updated: Jul 12, 2023

Authors: Sariah Burdett and Joe Albrecht

Editor: Aleister Jones Introduction For members of the neurodivergent community, which includes a wide range of people with conditions such as ADHD, Autism, Tourettes, Dyslexia, and more, self-advocacy and accommodations are some of the most important things to consider in order to improve the quality of life of this group. As a diverse community consisting of individuals with a variety of conditions, each person has individual needs to be addressed within their own lives. This is commonly approached through accommodations, which are alterations of a situation, place, event, etc. to provide a disabled individual with equal access or ability to complete a certain task. This is most commonly seen through wheelchair ramps and motorized doors, which provide access to buildings for individuals with mobility impairments or to those who use mobility aids. For neurodivergent individuals, examples of accommodations could be extra time to complete an assignment, providing subtitles for those with an audio processing disorder, or providing written instructions for a task. All of these are examples of actions that make materials, work, or institutions more accessible to neurodivergent people. Self-advocacy, within the context of the neurodivergent community, involves an individual or community advocating for themselves to improve their quality of life, receive accommodations, or promote disability justice. Seeking accommodations is one way a neurodivergent person can advocate for themselves - disclosing what tasks they have the most difficulty with and requesting assistance or alterations to make the tasks more accessible for them. Another example of neurodivergent self-advocacy is seen through networks such as the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), which is a group of Autistic individuals that work to bring awareness to Autism, educate the general public about Autism, and provide a community for Autistic people to seek aid and comfort. Organizations, groups, and other collectives tend to represent the neurodivergent community on a larger scale, working to provide information to the general public and provide resources for individuals having difficulty obtaining accommodations or advocating for themselves. Neurodivergent people, within all stages of their lives, have self-advocate for diverse needs as expectations and tasks change throughout one’s life. Within this article, implementations of accommodations and self-advocacy throughout various stages of life, such as becoming community members, students in higher education, and employees within the workplace will be examined. Additionally, there will be specific attention brought to the process of self-advocacy and obtaining accommodations at the University of Washington, showing a case of how accommodations and self-advocacy can be implemented at the university level and what can be improved. Self-Advocacy Goals and Implementation of Accommodations for Neurodivergent Individual Our world is made up of individuals with unique talents, perspectives, and abilities. However, the structure of society has enabled a small subset of individuals to set the boundaries and accommodations for those with various conditions other than their own. In particular, those within the neurodivergent community have often been left out of conversations that discuss what is best for them. This exclusion has resulted in policies and general knowledge that do not represent the needs of neurodivergent people and fail to recognize or respect the ways in which neurodivergence shapes a person's identity in affirming ways. Self-advocacy for neurodivergent conditions within policy discussions, activist movements, autism awareness campaigns, and everyday conversations work to ensure that interventions address the needs of the recipients and that practices respect and accept individuals with varying neurotypes. In recent years, the Autism self-advocacy movement has been gaining momentum in its push for greater representation in policies that affect Autistic people. This movement, along with other disability rights organizations, have spearheaded their efforts with the motto “Nothing about us without us!” They have been especially successful using digital platforms to fight their exclusion in public discussion. There are six overarching goals that these movements hope to achieve. These goals include: 1. Make meeting spaces and group communication accessible 2. Presume competence by treating each individual with respect and as an intelligent individual 3. Listen to neurodivergent people 4. Acknowledge and include intersectional perspectives 5. Reach out to underrepresented members of the neurodivergent community, especially those with intellectual disabilities 6. Acknowledge and question “common sense” expectations These organizations believe that achieving these six targets will be fantastic steps in the fight towards greater representation and acceptance within the community at large. As an example, in 2014, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network facilitated the use of the hashtag #StopCombatingMe among the autistic community to press Congress into amending the Combating Autism Act. As a result of this small effort, the bill was renamed the “Autism CARES (collaboration, accountability, research, education, and support) Act.” This led to increased representation of austistic adults in programs that were funded by the act. This example is only one of many that have occurred in the previous few years to highlight the voices of neurodivergent individuals in our local and greater communities. Recently, with increased exposure of the neurodivergent community within our society, there has been a growing need for accommodations within the workforce. As fully-functioning individuals with lots to offer, neurodivergent people have a right to an environment that supports them. This has been accomplished by creating job descriptions that use inclusive language making it clear that organizations embrace neurodiversity. Examples include general skill requirements such as “‘strong communication skills’ or ‘ability to work in a team environment.’” Additionally, many companies are considering the environment that they conduct their interviews in, avoiding noisy and distracting spaces for those with conditions such as ADHD. This has enabled the neurodivergent community to feel welcome in many different positions and be employed by those who respect them for who they are. Within their respective roles, many accommodations are available such as flexible work days/hours, image-based task lists, backup plans, and training programs in place to prepare employees in advance for certain changes. In no way do these accommodations lower the performance standards of the individual; however, they are examples of modifications to the work environment that helps an individual perform their duties to the best of their ability. One of the most important environments for individuals to have a voice is in higher education. This is because of the role that this institution has in creating societal norms and building the foundation for one’s future. However, narrative studies on neurodivergent students have found it common for these individuals to be bullied and rejected while feeling anxious about their studies. To ameliorate this issue, universities must provide support groups, counseling services, and academic support for all of their students. At the same time, this must occur in an environment that is conducive to student disclosure. Students must feel comfortable enough to disclose their disabilities in order to access the resources available to them. In this way, there must be clear communication between the two parties to ensure ease of access to helpful accommodations and positive outcomes for all. Accommodations and Self-Advocacy Examined at the University of Washington For students at the University of Washington (UW), multiple organizations and student groups exist for neurodivergent students to seek accommodations and advocate for themselves. The first stop for many neurodivergent and disabled students is Disability Resources for Students (DRS). DRS is a university run office in control of accommodations and advocacy for disabled students at UW. For students to get official accommodations for classes, seek a partner in advocacy, or to get a long term accommodation such as a scribe, they must file an application with DRS and work with a DRS employee to find and execute appropriate accommodations. The application is run of the mill for the most part, asking for identifying information and what accommodations the student would like to request. However, the application also asks for documentation of a student’s disability or condition. This requires students to have a diagnosed disability, mental illness, or neurodivergent condition, which leaves a gap in service for students who are seeking diagnosis or are self-diagnosed but still need aid. After completing the application for accommodations, the DRS staff read through the application to determine which accommodations are plausible and most effective for the student. Unfortunately, DRS can deny any accommodations on essentially any basis; if the course structure is too hard to alter, if there aren’t enough resources available to fulfill the accommodation, if the student cannot provide proper documentation, etc. If accommodations are approved, it falls on the student to communicate them to professors, TAs, and other staff at the university. If there are any issues getting these accommodations, it also falls on the student to report the problem to DRS within “a timely manner” to resolve the issue. DRS, while an absolutely necessary entity on campus for securing accommodations and being an authoritative voice to aid students in their self-advocacy, has many issues with their process. The first major problem is DRS has little to no aid available for students who do not have a diagnosis. If you suspect a problem, or have self-diagnosed a condition, DRS will not approve accommodations until after official diagnosis. For adult students seeking diagnosis for a neurodivergent condition, it can take upwards of two to three years depending on availability of resources in the area and the insurance or financial situation the student has. This means that a suspected neurodivergent student would have to go through multiple quarters of classes without the accommodations they need for their conditions simply because they have not been officially diagnosed. Additionally, the DRS application and the implementation of the accommodations is self-motivated work. One has to research DRS information, fill out the application by a certain time every quarter, have a meeting with a DRS staff member, notify every professor or TA for every class you take by a “timely manner”, and report any issues one may have to DRS in a “timely manner”. For students with certain neurodivergent conditions, work that is so self-guided is incredibly difficult. Whether it is because of issues concerning executive functioning, stress induced by the process, or problems focusing on the process for a long period of time, many symptoms of common neurodivergent conditions can lead to problems with this self-guided process. Furthermore, the lack of definition for their requirements, such as reporting accommodations within a “timely manner”, can be difficult to understand for Autistic students, who may not have an understanding of what a timely manner means to DRS and interpret that timeline differently. Fortunately, there are many student-led organizations on campus that aid in the process for accommodations and self-advocacy. Within the Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW), there is the Student Disability Commission (SDC), a committee dedicated to addressing common issues on campus and advocating for disabled students to ASUW and to the broader university community. For students having issues that can not be addressed by individual accommodations, the SDC is one of the best routes for resolving the problem as they have a direct audience with student and university leadership. There are also many student clubs or organizations dedicated to cultivating a community for individuals with disabilities or being a social justice group for disabled students. One of these groups is the Disability Advocacy Student Alliance (DASA), which aims to address the needs and concerns of the disabled community at UW. This group works directly with university institutions and off campus community resources, offering a broader range of services for disabled students. Universal design is not a rigid set of design specifications, but an ongoing process of communication and collaboration between designers and users, and between people with different access needs. Incorporating disabled people into design teams is a key element of developing universal design. The color communication badge system was developed by and for autistic people who need social support, and is now used by a wide range of people with many different needs. This kind of collaborative and inclusive work is happening right here at UW’s DO-IT program, which provides resources on universal design for educators and employers and runs programs to support disabled students in both K-12 and higher education. For more information on the topic of universal design, DO-IT’s Center for Universal Design in Education is a fantastic resource. Advantages of the Internet for Disabled People The internet has many issues with accessibility, but it also has the potential to increase the accessibility of various activities/spaces by providing more options for how people engage with them. The internet can give people access to various tools for managing everyday tasks, from interactive maps to online shopping to work tools, often increasing accessibility. If going to a physical grocery store is inaccessible for someone, for instance, the internet gives them the option to shop from home and get groceries delivered to their door. The internet can also give people easy, fast access to information (Tsatsou, 2020). Community is also a significant upside of the internet. Through the internet, disabled people have more options for how they interact with other people. They can talk to people with similar disabilities/experiences, building community and finding support. They can also interact with the broader community. Online, disabled people have control over when/whether to disclose that they are disabled. Unfortunately, the stigma surrounding disability can have a significant impact on the in-person social lives of disabled people, and the internet can give disabled people an opportunity to socialize without this barrier. Internet activities can provide ways to interact with all sorts of communities that might be more accessible to some people (disabled people, but also people who may find in-person communities difficult to access for other reasons, like people who live in rural areas or have young children), so the internet also gives disabled people more ways to engage in hobbies and interests, make friends, and generally express themselves and become more confident (Tsatsou, 2020). The internet is also a platform for disability advocacy, especially self-advocacy. The online neurodivergent community is a good example of this. The internet has given the neurodivergent people to which it is accessible an easy way to share resources and experiences, both with each other and with those outside of the community. Parents of neurodivergent kids can get advice from neurodivergent adults, when before they had to rely entirely on doctors. Some people first realize that they’re neurodivergent from information shared online. Issues of accessibility are still very present, though. The voices of neurodivergent people who cannot easily access the internet are rarely present in these spaces, which leads to oversights in activism. Lack of accessibility also limits who gets access to all of the upsides of the internet, from flexible ways to manage everyday tasks to community and socialization. The internet has the potential to be both helpful and enjoyable for disabled people, to provide everyone with flexible, accessible options for engaging with all sorts of communities and activities, but for that to be possible, the web would have to be much more accessible than it currently is. Online Learning During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the country, including the University of Washington (UW), shifted to online learning. This shift came with a wide variety of changes to the accessibility of education, both positive and negative. Staying at home meant students were learning in a familiar environment. Students who might find a traditional school setting overwhelming or distracting, like autistic people, people with ADHD, or people with sensory processing differences, gained more control over their learning environment. Classrooms can come with all sorts of sensory distractions, from fluorescent lighting to temperature to the sounds of other students. Reducing these distractions made it easier for some neurodivergent people to focus on their schoolwork (Ingram, 2021). Online learning also makes it easier to implement some strategies for accessibility. Video lectures can be captioned, making them more accessible to Deaf students and students with auditory processing difficulties. Slides and ‘whiteboards’ from lectures can be shared for easy reference, so students don’t have to rely on notes. Digital course materials (if uploaded with the proper file types) can be transferred into different fonts or read aloud by a screen reader, making them more accessible to students with dyslexia or other disabilities that impact reading. It also gives students more control over how they use/schedule their time (Peng, 2020). In each of these cases, the digital format increases the flexibility of the course materials, so students can access the materials in ways that work well for them. Although online learning increased accessibility in some aspects, it also came with new accessibility problems. While some neurodivergent students found their home environment less distracting than the classroom, for instance, others found it much more so, and had difficulty focusing online. Without the shift in the physical environment that signals that it’s time to switch tasks/start class, it can be difficult to move from ‘home mode’ to ‘school mode’, and working from home comes with its own set of distractions, like computers and other people. Remote learning also changed the social aspect of school, and for students with social difficulties like autism, reading social cues can be more difficult on zoom than in person (Peng, 2020). Using computers in general can also be difficult, as they are not generally designed with disabled people in mind. Computers are physically inaccessible to many people with motor difficulties, like those with apraxia, as using a computer relies on fine motor skills. Sitting at a computer for long periods of time can be difficult, both for people with physical disabilities that make doing so painful and for people who need to move around to stay focused, and often online school entails sitting at a computer for most of the day. Navigating computers and websites can be confusing, and remote learning often leaves students to figure out any technical problems on their own, at the risk of missing class completely (Peng 2020). UW has its own set of guidelines for online accessibility, including an ‘accessibility checklist’ based on the WCAG 2.0, which lists different aspects of online accessibility and links to many short explanations of how to make specific website features accessible. The website states that it will be updated based on the WCAG 2.1, but this has not been done yet (UW Accessible Technology, 2021). The list is relatively easy to navigate, and intended towards teachers preparing online materials. However, these guidelines are not enforced, and it is generally up to disabled students to request specific accommodations through DRS (Disability Resources for Students). UW students experienced the same changes to accessibility during the pandemic listed above, but UW also had some unique accessibility problems. For instance, while UW is in-person, DRS generally proctors tests for students who have testing accommodations like extra time or a quiet work environment, but during the pandemic they stopped doing so (UW Disability Resources for Students, 2021). Teachers had to work out how to meet their students’ accommodation needs on their own on top of running online classes. Many teachers recorded lectures, added auto-captions, and posted class materials in accessible formats, but these things were not standardized, so the accessibility of classes varied wildly. Practical Suggestions for Improving Accessibility While there are resources available online for web designers, organizers, and even everyday users, many of the barriers outlined have yet to be removed. COVID-19 highlighted many of these problems both inside and outside the virtual classroom. For students and faculty at the University of Washington, the internet is a necessity regardless of the classroom format. Individuals are expected to navigate emails, course information, and UI such as Canvas to ensure they keep up with all of the requirements that come with their roles, but this is made difficult for some. Improved readability, well-designed layouts, and more opportunities for online learning are just a few of the methods in which accessibility can be improved. As mentioned previously, font and language both play a crucial role in readability for neurodiverse individuals. Small, crowded fonts or fonts using bright, high-contrast colors can be overwhelming due to their lack of simplicity. Instead fonts that are sans serif, such as Arial or Comic Sans, can help distinguish between different letters that look similar such as ‘p’ and ‘q’. Long blocks of text, colloquial metaphors, and vague instructions can all limit a text’s readability. Instead one should focus on using short blocks of concise, direct information with clear instructions for ease of understanding. Designing a layout is also difficult in many regards, and designing for neurodiversity is no exception. As Kalina Tyrkiel stated, “keeping the right balance” between a layout that is both engaging and not overstimulating can be hard, but it is possible (Spivak, 2020). There are many color palettes available online to get started when constructing a new layout, many of them tending towards softer colors. Using careful organization and visual indicators can also help keep readers engaged and prevent users from misinterpreting information. Three words to keep in mind when designing a layout are: friendly, organized, and consistent. Finally, when considering accessibility, one should always take into account overstimulation. Sudden noises, flashing colors, and tools that take away control, such as autoplay, all can contribute to anxiety and distress in users. For many individuals, too much stimulation can have serious effects on health, so this suggestion is one of the most crucial when it comes to improving accessibility. By avoiding sudden stimuli and providing visual and literary aids, like captions and subtitles, an online environment becomes safer and more accessible for all individuals. There are many other ways in which accessibility can be improved, and more information regarding these can be found in citations included below. Raising awareness of the necessity of such improvements will also aid in improving accessibility for all individuals, both inside and outside of the neurodiverse community. By focusing on both awareness and accessibility simultaneously, we can work towards a safer, friendlier, and more accessible online space for every user. References Clouder, Lynn, Karakus, Mehmet, Cinotti, Alessia, Ferreyra, Maria Virginia, Fierros, GenovevaAmador, and Rojo, Patricia. “Neurodiversity in Higher Education: a NarrativeSynthesis”. Higher Education, v. 80 (2020). Doi: 10.1007/s10734-020-00513-6.


Disability Advocacy Student Alliance, author. “D.A.S.A. Welcome”. Disability AdvocacyStudent Alliance. Accessed December 11, 2021.http://students.washington.edu/dasa/

Disability Resources for Students, author. “Student Rights & Responsibilities”. Disability Resources for Students. Accessed December 11, 2021.http://depts.washington.edu/uwdrs/current-students/student-rights-responsibilities/

Disability Resources for Students, author, “Using Approved Accommodations”, DisabilityResources for Students, accessed December 11, 2021,http://depts.washington.edu/uwdrs/current-students/accommodations

Hughes, Jessica M.F. Nothing About Us Without Us: Increasing Neurodiversity in Disability and Social Justice Advocacy Groups. ASAN, 2013.https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/whitepaper-Increasing-Neurodiversity-in-Disability-and-Social-Justice-Advocacy-Groups.pdf

Leadbitter, Kathy, Leneh Buckle, Karen, Ellis, Ceri, and Dekker, Martjin. “AutisticSelf-Advocacy and the Neurodiversity Movement: Implications for Autism EarlyIntervention Research and Practice”. Frontiers in Psychology, v.12 (April, 2021). Doi:10.2289/fpsyg.2021.635690.


“Neurodiversity in the Workplace”. EARN. Accessed 16 December, 2021. https://askearn.org/page/neurodiversity-in-the-workplace


The Student Disability Commission, author. “Welcome to the ASUW Student DisabilityCommission website!”. Associated Students of the University of Washington. AccessedDecember 11, 2021.http://sdc.asuw.org/.





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