We asked the expert panellists from the launch event to create a recommended multimedia “reading list” and this is what they shared:
Alicia Broderick
Jac den Houting (2019): TEDx: Why Everything You Know About Autism is Wrong
This is a clear, succinct, and accessible discussion of the necessary paradigmatic shift from pathology paradigm thinking to neurodiversity paradigm thinking. If you are trying to market to “neurodiversity” (by which you mistakenly probably mean “neurodivergent people”) without actually shifting your assumptions away from pathologizing neurodivergent people and toward understanding and valuing the full range of human neurodiversity, then your efforts may be misguided.
Kristen Essex
Workplace Neurodiversity Rising by Lyric Rivera (they/them) – The book guides organizations to consider what they can do to support neurodivergent employees and offers practical strategies to cultivate a neuroinclusive organizational culture. Rivera is an autistic author who runs the Neurodivergent Rebel blog and pioneered the #AskingAutistics hashtag, where simple questions invite autistic people to respond and converse with one another.
Organization for Autism Research has a free-to-access Libby library of curated autism related e-books and audio books: https://researchautism.org/resources/lending-library/
Josephine Go Jefferies
I recommend watching an award-winning advertisement, ‘Me, My Autism, and I’ directed by Tom Hooper for Reckitt’s Vanish laundry stain remover detergent. The short film features Ash, a young person with autism and her family in England. This is an example of cause-related marketing to raise awareness of autism as affecting girls and women. The campaign is focused on autism visibility and representation with guidance from the advocacy organisation, Ambitious about Autism https://www.diversityinadvertising.co.uk/winner/vanish-me-my-autism-and-i/
Jean Hewitt
I recommend watching the short film about the Grimaldi building project for the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and taking a peek at the free to download PAS 6463 Guidance: Neurodiversity & the Built Environment – PAS 6463:2022 | BSI (bsigroup.com)
Margaux Joffe
“Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People” This Disability Justice Primer, based on the work of Patty Berne and Sins Invalid, offers analysis, history and context for the growing Disability Justice Movement.
Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg. A paradigm-shifting study of neurodivergent women—those with ADHD, autism, synesthesia, high sensitivity, and sensory processing disorder—exploring why these traits are overlooked in women and how society benefits from allowing their unique strengths to flourish
We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation by Eric Garcia. With a reporter’s eye and an insider’s perspective, Eric Garcia shows what it’s like to be autistic across America. Chapter 4 goes into detail on Autism in the workplace, what to understand and pitfalls to avoid.
If you want to see the recent research i mentioned on neurodivergent employee experience with disclosure and accommodations: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/margauxjoffe_accommodations-neurodiversity-hr-activity-7199401243008458752-nLdF
Tim Vogus
This is a video of Eric Garcia (an autistic journalist) and Steve Silberman (author of Neurotribes) discussing Eric’s outstanding book “We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation.” You will think and see differently after this conversation. Read the book too!
I found this related exchange (the essay by Robert Chapman and all the responses) in the Boston Review really insightful – https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/the-future-of-neurodiversity/
Cinthia B Satornino
There are many great works so I’m going to pick one that helped me on my ADHD journey with myself and my son because it is concise, easy to understand, and practical:
Your Complete ADHD Guide from the editors of ADDitude