I’m Not Going to Give You a Map: Wayfinding in Neurodivergent Worlds

Course Description

In this session, we will explore wayfinding alongside autistic and neurodivergent people rather than following specific maps. Through clinical stories, narrative practices, and reflections, we’ll examine how neuronormativity and ableism shape expectations—and how we can support agency, unmasking, regulation, advocacy, and connection. Come curious, leave with questions, practical ways of relating, and an appreciation for local knowledge and lived experience.

Instructor Information

Educational Goals

1. Increase participants’ awareness of how neuronormative and ableist expectations can shape therapeutic conversations, goals, relationships, and interpretations of behavior.
2. Expand participants’ clinical thinking about accessible engagement with autistic and neurodivergent clients by attending to communication, sensory processing, stamina, comfort, and agency.
3. Support participants in considering narrative and relational practices that make room for diverse ways of communicating, being, and participating.

Measurable Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to define neuronormativity and ableism as presented in the session and identify at least two ways these assumptions can influence clinical practice or clients.
2. Participants will be able to identify at least three strategies for adapting therapeutic engagement to a client’s communication and sensory profile, including pacing, visual documentation, reducing question demand, and using stories or scripts.
3. Participants will be able to distinguish a rule-based concept of “social skills” from a relational approach that emphasizes learning how to relate across different people and contexts.
4. Participants will be able to identify at least two narrative lines of inquiry that can explore masking, productivity expectations, agency, accommodation, or experiences of being able to be oneself.
5. Participants will be able to describe ways intersectionality, local knowledge, and lived experience can inform clinical curiosity and reduce the risk of imposing dominant professional assumptions.

Outline with Main Points for Each Topic (including times)

1. 12:45–12:55 PM · Locating knowledge and experience — 10 minutes

   • Co-researching with people we walk alongside
   • Freire’s philosophy of educating through critical consciousness where students are participants in their learning

2. 12:55–1:05 PM · Language, meaning and power — 10 minutes

   • Neuronormativity and ableism
   • How meaning and power shape the language we hear and use
   • How do we honor preference and lived experience?

3. 1:05–1:15 PM · Local knowledge, intersectionality, and learning from clinical mistakes — 10 minutes

   • Local knowledges: Knowledge held by people about their own lives, bodies, relationships, environments, and experiences.
   • Neurodiversity movement and disability justice frameworks situate intersectionality not as an afterthought, but as a core focus (Mingus, 2011; Wise, 2023).

4. 1:15–1:35 PM · Learning to relate — 20 minutes

   • Communication, sensory processing, pacing, and accessible engagement
   • Allow more time and become comfortable with silence.
   • Use visual tracking or shared documentation when helpful.
   • Consider first person, third person, characters, stories, or scripts.
   • Reduce unnecessary words and question demand; use examples, choices, sentence starters, or statements that can be completed.
   • From social skills to relational skills

5. 1:35–1:50 PM · Clinical stories — 15 minutes

   • Unmasking, regulation, advocacy, agency, productivity, and expectations
   • Ableism and neuronormativity as forces in society rather than people

6. 1:50–2:00 PM · Narrative lines of inquiry and small-group reflection — 10 minutes

   • When do you feel most able to be yourself? Can you tell me a story about that?
   • What becomes possible when you have access to the supports or accommodations that work for you?
   • Questions for clinical reflection: Whose definition of success is operating here? Where is the client’s agency in this conversation?

7. 2:00–2:15 PM · Wayfinding rather than mapping — 15 minutes

   • Integration and takeaways
   • Therapy as wayfinding rather than mapping: learning with each person rather than arriving with a predetermined route.
   • What might change in your practice if you became more curious about how someone is learning to navigate their world—and less concerned with helping them follow the “right” path?

Total instructional time: 10 + 10 + 10 + 20 + 15 + 10 + 15 = 90 minutes / 60 = 1.5 CE hours

Signing in and out

• Sign in at the door before 12:45 PM.
• Sign out and complete this session’s evaluation at the door when it ends at 2:15 PM.
• Sign-in, sign-out and the evaluation are not part of the 1.5 CE hours.

References

• Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). Herder and Herder.
• Mingus, M. (2011, February 12). Changing the framework: Disability justice. Leaving Evidence. https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/changing-the-framework-disability-justice/
• Olinger, C. (2021). Narrative practices and autism: Part 1: Theory and engagement: Shedding ableism from therapy. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (2), 32–41. https://dulwichcentre.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Theory-and-engagement-Part-1-by-Courtney-Olinger.pdf
• Olinger, C. (2026). Collective agency in practice: A participatory action research project within the autism community. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 45(2), 79–99. https://doi.org/10.1521/jsyt.2026.45.2.79
• Wise, S. J. (2023, May 14). Neurodiversity affirming practice: Core principles. Lived Experience Educator. https://www.livedexperienceeducator.com/blog/neurodiversityaffirmingpractice