Since my diagnosis in 2017, I’ve reflected that my performance and movement practice had perhaps always been a way of stimming, although I wouldn’t have known to call it stimming at the time. Stims are often described as techniques for sensory regulation, particularly to ameliorate sensory overload for autistic people. For example, in my experience, swaying from side-to-side helps me to process what’s incoming, if it’s too much. Commissions were selected by a panel including representatives from BBC Arts, Arts Council England, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales, Creative Scotland, Unlimited and the UK Disability Arts Alliance.

Another part of myself that I often felt was burdensome, or annoying to other people, was my sharply attuned senses which often led to overwhelm or meltdown when I was growing up.However, I do read and tend to write, quirky, unsympathetic characters who struggle to fit in. Capable, privileged, single-minded characters, especially those with support groups they can rely on, I can’t identify with. In general, poetry is a way to explore an obsession or a fascination with something I’m fixated on and discover more about it – and, inevitably, myself as part of the process. Joanne Limburg (2017). Perspective: The shape of the problem: Joanne Limburg asks what it means to write as an autistic subject. The Poetry Review, 107:1. Published online, here. It lets me notice little details that other people often don’t, and turn these tiny details into poems. When neurodiversity is used to include everyone, and to drive a radical agenda of acceptance, the benefits can be substantial. One problem in our current model of classroom support, which all too often relies on a diagnosis before support is offered, is that children may sit on clinical waiting lists for months before receiving a diagnosis. If their needs are not being met in this time, serious outcomes can ensue, including exclusion and mental ill-health. Neurodiversity reminds us of the variability that exists in every school, in every classroom. A neurodiversity-affirmative school provides a platform for teachers to analyse and act upon the apparent needs of the children in their class without waiting for external (often clinical) validation to do so. Such practice is truly child-centred, and permits a rapid response to the changing needs of pupils, while waiting for the insights that can come from a clinical evaluation.

Penny Kiley (2021). How To Watch Your Mother Die, short story published in ‘Spread the Word: Life Writing Prize 2021 Anthology’, here.

I was only diagnosed ADHD this year at the age of 58, so I’ve never had a ‘radar’ in respect of recognising other neurodiverse writers.

Like Limburg, Whiteley describes the mismatch of understanding between the autistic child and the (probably neurotypical) adult, contrasting with the child’s extraordinary affinity with animals, which extends to understanding their language. Next steps I understood from early on that Adam wrote poetically," she says. "That way of writing is in and of itself Adam's form of writing. It's not something that's outside of him that he's calling upon to create an art form." In my nature writing, in particular, I really feel like my experience of the world is shaped by sensitivity to noise and light. Leaning into this lets me write about my relationship with nature in a unique way that has fostered and deepened my love for it. People often assume that poetry is always autobiographical or confessional but there’s fiction in poetry too. In my notebooks, my imagination can run wild in support of a neurodivergent world. Sometimes called monotropism, these are interests that are intensely interesting and preoccupying for autistic people.I love the detail in this, and the anthropomorphism of everything. Even the air is ‘as puffed out as the robin’s chest’, suggesting the pride and excitement of spring.

Hen Night, a short film by award-winning theatre and screen writer/director Vici Wreford-Sinnott, inspired by the writing of award-winning journalist Frances Ryan. Jessica has just had her hen night - a last night of freedom but not in the ways she, or any of us, might have imagined. Opal Whiteley (1976). The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart. Adapted by Jane Boulton. Tioga Publishing Company. Recommended reading and listening from other neurodivergent writers and artistsSchools that have provided tablets and laptops to the whole school benefit those children who struggle to spell and write, without singling them out.