This Neurodiversity Awareness Week (18-24 March 2024), Laura, our Active Travel Social Prescribing (ATSP) Community Development Coordinator here at NCVS, went to a Neuro-inclusive Language and Communications discussion held on Monday 18 March 2024.
Neurodiversity is a relatively new term, and cultural and personal understandings of neurodiversity have changed significantly, especially around language. People are cautious of causing offence or getting something wrong; this discussion was built around how people can use the ‘right’ language when talking about neurodiversity.
You can watch a recording of the discussion.
Laura says:
I love and work with neurodiversity every day and want to ensure my approach to people is as inclusive as possible, and these discussions raise things that I wouldn't always stumble across myself.
It was fantastic that what was said about collaborative approaches — putting people with needs first and asking the right person the right questions at the right time — relates strongly to the work NCVS does. But there is so much more we could do around feedback responses in everyday conversations, such as asking if someone needs a task explaining in a different way so they can better understand how to tackle it.
I loved that someone raised the point that asking someone for something 'ASAP' could mean different things to different people. One of the panellists said if she isn't given a deadline an hour or three weeks away, she probably won't get it done to that person's expectations, which can cause unnecessary stress.
Find out more about Neurodiversity Celebration events on the Neurodiversity Awareness Week website.
