Adjusting the Lens: 3 Simple Steps to a More Neurodiversity Affirming Practice

Some years ago, school psychologist Breea Rosas, EdS, NCSP, LEP asked a parent if she had reviewed the report describing her child. With a note of resignation in her voice, the parent replied, “I looked over it and saw that he was low across the board. But don’t worry, I stopped crying about these reports a long time ago.”   

Rosas recalls feeling “broken” by the parent’s response to the report. She saw the child, who had Down syndrome, as “an awesome kid with so many skills”—yet the report focused chiefly on his assessment performance, comparing his scores to those of other children his age. “There’s a better way,” she remembers thinking.  

Moments like that one led her to pursue a different kind of practice—one that focused more on strengths, affirming the broad range of characteristics and capabilities within each of her students. Rosas is not alone. More and more clinicians and educators are moving toward a more neurodiversity affirming approach to care.  

What Is a Neurodiversity Affirming Approach?  

A neurodiversity affirming approach is one that recognizes neurodivergence as a natural variation in brain function and human experience. From a neurodiversity affirming perspective, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other types of neurodivergence are not seen as disorders to be cured or erased, but as unique brain styles to be appreciated and supported. Neurodiversity affirming practices are increasingly common among clinicians and educators.  

“The very core of it is honoring lived experiences and acknowledging that neurodiversity is part of life,” Rosas says. “Instead of making people feel bad about their disabilities and differences, we should be embracing, empowering, and supporting people who have brains and behaviors that are different than ours.”  

How Can We Become More Neurodiversity Affirming? 

Here are three strategies Rosas recommends for creating a more neurodiversity affirming experience. 

Listen to neurodivergent perspectives.  

A key component of neurodiversity affirming care is valuing the viewpoint and priorities of the individual at the center of the evaluation. In practice, that involves conducting lots of observations and interviews. If it’s developmentally appropriate, practitioners can talk to students about their needs, interests, and priorities.  

“Sometimes you get input from what you observe in a setting,” Rosas says. “What kinds of things are they gravitating towards? If you’re working with a fifth grader, you’re asking, ‘What do you think about these goals for your IEP?’ It’s asking parents what their priorities are for their kids.” 

At times, practitioners must balance a child’s desires with the caregiver’s. “If a parent says, ‘I want my kid to play with the other kids at recess,’ and the kid doesn’t want to do that, you have to find the middle ground there,” Rosas says. 

Carefully consider which assessments are right for the situation. 

Rosas prefers to conduct comprehensive evaluations rather than testing for an isolated condition or academic skill set.  

“Doing comprehensive evaluations is always better, because we get the whole picture of what is going on with the kid,” she explains. “If you’re only looking at dyslexia, then you’re looking at deficits in reading, in phonological processing, in orthographic processing, in rapid automatic naming. If we’re just looking at dyslexia, we ignore the other academic strengths, cognitive strengths, social strengths, grit, determination, motivation, and those character strengths.” 

Rosas often collaborates with other educators to select assessments with the student’s characteristics in mind. “As a school psychologist, you’ll have special ed teachers come to you and ask what tests they should give, so it’s important to have a good understanding of academic tests, even if you don’t give them,” she says.  

It’s also important to have a sense of a student’s attention span and language needs so you can select assessments that not only measure skills related to referral concerns, but that are a good fit for the student. “A lot of times people get stuck giving the exact same battery every time because it’s easy to do the ‘plug & play,’” she notes.  

In a neurodiversity affirming evaluation, practitioners consider the time it takes to complete an assessment, the language load of the assessment, and whether the tasks involved are appropriate for the individual. In a study published in 2025, researchers interviewed autistic adults about the diagnostic process they had experienced. They emphasized “the importance of adopting a personalized approach to diagnostic assessments,” especially when the tasks involve play (Pritchard-Rowe, et al., 2024).

Focus equally on strengths, differences, and needs.  

Criteria in diagnostic manuals such as the International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11) and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR) are often framed as deficits or as behaviors that diverge from a neurotypical norm. Neurodiversity affirming practitioners widen the lens so there’s room to see an individual’s strengths. A shift toward strengths-based evaluations is taking place among researchers and practitioners across the globe. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden are partnering with U.K.-based Autistica to create the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), a toolkit for use in schools, workplaces, and healthcare settings. The ICF emphasizes the need to identify strengths as well as needs (Ferreira, 2025). 

Additionally, neurodiversity affirming practitioners may reframe “deficits” as areas where an individual needs support.  

“It’s okay to say to say that someone has significant support needs—that someone’s needs are significant compared to same-age peers,” Rosas points out. “Disability isn’t a bad word. Support needs are not wrong. A lot of people think those things are opposing views, but they go hand in hand. As neurodiversity affirming providers, we don't want to ignore support needs; that’s the opposite of what we want. We want to identify significant support needs. We are going to support them.” 

Once support needs have been identified, Rosas considers the individual’s environment. Addressing any mismatch between a person’s environment and their support needs is an important element of neurodiversity affirming practice (Dwyer, 2022).  

“I just started in a new position in a new district, and I’m working with students who have extensive support needs,” she says. “I’m going into classrooms without any context outside of their IEPs. Kids are having behaviors. And I’m saying, what can we change in the environment? Where’s the weighted blanket? Where are the communication devices? We need to pull these things in. That’s my first thought: What in the environment can be changed? Then we look at real, meaningful skills we want to build.” 

Learn more: Creating Autism Friendly Spaces 

Writing reports is another opportunity to focus on strengths, differences, and needs. In her reports, Rosas aims to share a holistic view of the student. She says, “I hope that the parents read it and smile, and say, ‘That’s my kid.’ I hope they see their kid in the report and feel good about it.”  

Often, she pens a letter to the student directly, explaining, “This is what’s going on in your brain. This is what we found out in assessment. Here are some things you’re good at. Here are some things to help you in school and in life.” 

Key Messages 

Neurodiversity affirming practices are becoming more common—and shifting to this paradigm takes time and dedication. A few simple steps can make a big difference: listening to neurodivergent perspectives, choosing assessments that align with the individual, and using language that focuses on strengths, differences, and needs. 

These steps may be challenging, but there’s growing evidence that they lead to greater satisfaction, not only for students and families, but for the clinical and educational professionals involved.  

“Before I started diving into neurodiversity affirming practices, I don’t think I was as passionate,” Rosas says. “It feels really cool to see a kid through this lens—to have parents see that you get their kid. There is nothing more rewarding.” 

Learn more: How to Create a More Neurodivergent Affirming Evaluation