3. Neurodiversity: From "Correcting" the Person to Adapting the Therapeutic Space
The growth of neurodiversity-affirming or neuro-affirming practice may ultimately have a greater impact on creative arts therapies than simply adding another specialization to professional training. Its significance lies in the fact that it challenges some of the assumptions underneath therapy itself.
Historically, interventions with autistic and other neurodivergent people have often measured improvement according to neurotypical expectations: increased eye contact, more conventional social behaviour, reduced repetitive behaviour, greater tolerance of particular sensory environments, or communication that resembles normative communication. Neurodiversity scholarship has increasingly challenged these deficit-based frameworks and called for approaches that respect autistic ways of communicating, sensing, moving, and relating (Lerner et al., 2023; Mathur et al., 2024). ([PubMed Central (PMC)][1])
Neurodiversity-affirming practice changes the starting question. Instead of: “How can we help this person function more normally?” it asks: “What does meaningful participation, communication, regulation, connection, and wellbeing look like for this person?”
This shift is increasingly reflected in research priorities. A recent study examining goals and outcomes in autism found that the neurodiversity paradigm redirects attention away from normalization and toward autonomy, adaptive functioning, quality of life, and wellbeing (Jordan et al., 2026).
The National Autistic Society describes neuroaffirmative practice explicitly as a movement away from viewing autistic behaviours and ways of being as inherently problematic. Instead, it emphasizes agency, autonomy, flexible communication, accommodations, respect for different communication styles, and the adaptation of environments and expectations to the individual (Edgar & Adkin, 2025). The organization also stresses that neuroaffirmative practice does not mean ignoring disability or support needs; rather, support should be individualized and autism-specific instead of based on an assumption that all autistic people need the same form of intervention. ([National Autistic Society][4])
That has particularly important implications for creative arts therapists.
Art, music, movement, drama, rhythm, gesture, and sensory materials already provide **multiple channels of communication that do not depend exclusively on spoken language**. Music-based interventions, for example, can engage emotional, cognitive, and social processes while drawing on areas of relative strength and interest for some autistic people; current research increasingly emphasizes individual variability rather than assuming a uniform therapeutic response (Navarro et al., 2025). ([Frontiers][5])
But neurodiversity-affirming practice asks creative arts therapists to go further than simply offering a nonverbal modality. It asks us to reconsider **the therapeutic environment itself**.
Lighting, acoustics, the sensory properties of materials, transitions, pacing, movement, predictability, expectations around participation, and access to different forms of communication may all influence whether a person is actually able to engage. Research and practice literature increasingly emphasize individualized sensory accommodations and flexible environments rather than expecting neurodivergent people to tolerate settings designed around neurotypical sensory norms (Cobbaert et al., 2024; Pavlopoulou et al., 2025). ([PubMed Central (PMC)][6])
This can also change how therapists interpret behaviour. Repeated movement, sound, mark-making, or engagement with a preferred image or theme may not necessarily be something to extinguish or move beyond. Repetitive movement, including stimming, may function as self-regulation, communication, pleasure, or expression (National Autistic Society, n.d.). Within an arts therapy context, repetition may similarly become a meaningful creative language rather than evidence that the client is “stuck.”
The same shift applies to communication. Contemporary research with autistic adults increasingly emphasizes that autistic communication should not be evaluated solely against neurotypical conversational standards, and that clinicians need to recognize different forms of reciprocity, expression, and social connection (de Marchena et al., 2025).
For creative arts therapists, this raises a particularly interesting possibility: the arts may not simply provide alternative techniques for neurodivergent people; they may provide alternative epistemologies of communication. A drawing, rhythm, gesture, movement pattern, repeated form, or sensory choice can convey knowledge about a person's internal experience without requiring that experience to first be translated into conventional speech.
This aligns with a broader principle emerging in neurodiversity-affirming healthcare: the neurodivergent person's lived experience becomes a source of knowledge rather than merely the object of professional assessment. Reviews of neurodiversity-informed healthcare increasingly call for greater involvement of neurodivergent people in shaping interventions, services, and research itself (Gray et al., 2025).
The deeper change, therefore, is not simply that arts therapists are learning more about autism or ADHD. It is a shift in therapeutic position: from correcting difference toward creating conditions in which difference can be understood, expressed, supported, and valued.
Key References
Edgar, H., & Adkin, T. (2025). *Embracing neurodiversity affirmative practice: A path to inclusive support for autistic people*. National Autistic Society.
Lerner, M. D., et al. (2023). A framework for neurodiversity-affirming interventions for autism.
Mathur, S. K., et al. (2024). Affirming neurodiversity within applied behavior analysis.
de Marchena, A., et al. (2025). Communication in autistic adults: An action-focused review.
Gray, L., et al. (2025). Navigating neurodivergence: A scoping review to guide health practice.
Jordan, P., et al. (2026). Priorities and perspectives regarding goals and outcomes of interventions for autistic people.
The growth of neurodiversity-affirming or neuro-affirming practice may ultimately have a greater impact on creative arts therapies than simply adding another specialization to professional training. Its significance lies in the fact that it challenges some of the assumptions underneath therapy itself.
Historically, interventions with autistic and other neurodivergent people have often measured improvement according to neurotypical expectations: increased eye contact, more conventional social behaviour, reduced repetitive behaviour, greater tolerance of particular sensory environments, or communication that resembles normative communication. Neurodiversity scholarship has increasingly challenged these deficit-based frameworks and called for approaches that respect autistic ways of communicating, sensing, moving, and relating (Lerner et al., 2023; Mathur et al., 2024). ([PubMed Central (PMC)][1])
Neurodiversity-affirming practice changes the starting question. Instead of: “How can we help this person function more normally?” it asks: “What does meaningful participation, communication, regulation, connection, and wellbeing look like for this person?”
This shift is increasingly reflected in research priorities. A recent study examining goals and outcomes in autism found that the neurodiversity paradigm redirects attention away from normalization and toward autonomy, adaptive functioning, quality of life, and wellbeing (Jordan et al., 2026).
The National Autistic Society describes neuroaffirmative practice explicitly as a movement away from viewing autistic behaviours and ways of being as inherently problematic. Instead, it emphasizes agency, autonomy, flexible communication, accommodations, respect for different communication styles, and the adaptation of environments and expectations to the individual (Edgar & Adkin, 2025). The organization also stresses that neuroaffirmative practice does not mean ignoring disability or support needs; rather, support should be individualized and autism-specific instead of based on an assumption that all autistic people need the same form of intervention. ([National Autistic Society][4])
That has particularly important implications for creative arts therapists.
Art, music, movement, drama, rhythm, gesture, and sensory materials already provide **multiple channels of communication that do not depend exclusively on spoken language**. Music-based interventions, for example, can engage emotional, cognitive, and social processes while drawing on areas of relative strength and interest for some autistic people; current research increasingly emphasizes individual variability rather than assuming a uniform therapeutic response (Navarro et al., 2025). ([Frontiers][5])
But neurodiversity-affirming practice asks creative arts therapists to go further than simply offering a nonverbal modality. It asks us to reconsider **the therapeutic environment itself**.
Lighting, acoustics, the sensory properties of materials, transitions, pacing, movement, predictability, expectations around participation, and access to different forms of communication may all influence whether a person is actually able to engage. Research and practice literature increasingly emphasize individualized sensory accommodations and flexible environments rather than expecting neurodivergent people to tolerate settings designed around neurotypical sensory norms (Cobbaert et al., 2024; Pavlopoulou et al., 2025). ([PubMed Central (PMC)][6])
This can also change how therapists interpret behaviour. Repeated movement, sound, mark-making, or engagement with a preferred image or theme may not necessarily be something to extinguish or move beyond. Repetitive movement, including stimming, may function as self-regulation, communication, pleasure, or expression (National Autistic Society, n.d.). Within an arts therapy context, repetition may similarly become a meaningful creative language rather than evidence that the client is “stuck.”
The same shift applies to communication. Contemporary research with autistic adults increasingly emphasizes that autistic communication should not be evaluated solely against neurotypical conversational standards, and that clinicians need to recognize different forms of reciprocity, expression, and social connection (de Marchena et al., 2025).
For creative arts therapists, this raises a particularly interesting possibility: the arts may not simply provide alternative techniques for neurodivergent people; they may provide alternative epistemologies of communication. A drawing, rhythm, gesture, movement pattern, repeated form, or sensory choice can convey knowledge about a person's internal experience without requiring that experience to first be translated into conventional speech.
This aligns with a broader principle emerging in neurodiversity-affirming healthcare: the neurodivergent person's lived experience becomes a source of knowledge rather than merely the object of professional assessment. Reviews of neurodiversity-informed healthcare increasingly call for greater involvement of neurodivergent people in shaping interventions, services, and research itself (Gray et al., 2025).
The deeper change, therefore, is not simply that arts therapists are learning more about autism or ADHD. It is a shift in therapeutic position: from correcting difference toward creating conditions in which difference can be understood, expressed, supported, and valued.
Key References
Edgar, H., & Adkin, T. (2025). *Embracing neurodiversity affirmative practice: A path to inclusive support for autistic people*. National Autistic Society.
Lerner, M. D., et al. (2023). A framework for neurodiversity-affirming interventions for autism.
Mathur, S. K., et al. (2024). Affirming neurodiversity within applied behavior analysis.
de Marchena, A., et al. (2025). Communication in autistic adults: An action-focused review.
Gray, L., et al. (2025). Navigating neurodivergence: A scoping review to guide health practice.
Jordan, P., et al. (2026). Priorities and perspectives regarding goals and outcomes of interventions for autistic people.
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