How do you feel about Neurodiversity Celebration Week?
This is the sixth year I have been involved, in some way or another, and I love it, but with reservations, some of which are outlined below:
Corporate Neurodiversity Inclusion is not Everything!
Celebrating neurodiversity and including and appreciating neurodivergent people is not all about work! Yes, most of my paid talks are about neurodiversity inclusion in the workplace, where I can make a difference there through my dual lenses (working in HR Analytics for many years, and being a multiple neurodivergent bereaved working mum of neurodivergent kids) but with free public events the audience members come from many walks of life.
The one theme I heard the most during the NCW panels I attended and spoke at was: this needs to start with schools (or circle back to schools, where Siena Castellon started this).
Yes, inclusion in the workplace is needed, but it is too little too late when neurodivergent young people are traumatised and crushed by the increasingly neuro-normative education system, and by bullies who are taught by their role models to target human vulnerabilities and differences (and as my family know, this is a matter of life and death).
The ‘Tayloristic’ Approach
Please, let us not make neurodiversity inclusion all about ‘productivity’.
We did not create a social justice movement to continue the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor (nor Hans Asperger), so leave such value judgements out of this.
Other benefits of neurodiversity include:
Creativity, innovation, employee engagement, improved retention, reduced absence, avoiding damage to reputation… and evolving into an ‘employer of choice’ for the workforce of the future (Gen Z and beyond).
And let’s not forget, being accepting and compassionate towards human beings who are different from yourself is THE RIGHT THING TO DO!
The Intersectional Lens
Intersectionality should run through EVERYTHING, like a golden thread, not an after-thought! This is critical to advancing equity and meaningful inclusion.
“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single-issue lives.” Audre Lorde.
Uninformed Educators
Neurodiversity speakers and content creators need to take care not to ‘educate’ others about things they do no understand themselves!
Sure, lived experience matters, and ‘nothing about us without us’…
but why
share employment law advice if you are not a solicitor?
share management advice if you have never managed people?
share advice on self-advocacy and negotiating ‘reasonable adjustments’ at work if you have never thrived in an employed job?
Remember – it is OK to reply, “I don’t know” to a question that is outside of your area of expertise.
A Global Movement?
Neurodiversity Celebration Week is not a global initiative, if all the voices we hear are in the Northern hemisphere of the Western world.
How can we capture voices from other parts of the world, or get our messages to other parts of the world?
What would you add?
Recordings from some Neurodiversity Celebration Week events I spoke at in March 2025
Lexxic official Neurodiversity Celebration Week events:
Event 24 – Closing event – recording coming soon!
Speakers Collective unofficial Neurodiversity Celebration Week events:
Ausome Charlie 