Recently, I had the opportunity to facilitate a nervous system regulation experience with a group of autistic and neurodivergent folks. This happened at an arts camp established by the non-profit for whom I currently work.

One of my goals as a mentor, coach, clinician, and teacher (i.e. perceived expert, or PE)…is to find paths to plain language so that the full diversity of mentees, clients, and students (i.e. perceived novices, or PN) have access to the messages and practices I present.

I sincerely want the PN with the highest support needs to have access to me, and the PN with the immediately lowest support needs. (Note: I no longer use the framing of “high-functioning” and “low-functioning,” which is an assimilationist, radical behaviorist, and pathologizing/medicalized construct. Rather, I use some version of “lower-support-needs” and “higher-support-needs,” which points in a direction of accommodationism, inclusion, trauma-informed care, and person-centered praxis.)

While I work to focus on the process, the journey…and not the product, the destination…I work to remain pointed in the direction of reaching everyone within my sphere of power and influence.

Inclusion means everyone.

Back to camp and my nervous system regulation exercise. While seeking plain language paths to complex lessons, I generally assume competence. That is, I enter with the premise that all of the people in front of me, regardless of how attentive or competent they appear to be to most outside observers, have the ability to process that which I am illuminating.

This is the principle of assuming competence. I’m unsure where or from whom the construct originates, but I do know that the inclusionist and self-advocacy communities with whom I’ve worked and served for several decades have generally set a foundational value that every student should be provided with the chance to learn alongside their peers without requiring proof they can learn. It’s a harm reducing strategy that communicates to those I am influencing…simply…I accept and validate you in this relationship and assume you are with me.

Then, it becomes critical to attend and listen to the audience. We, perceived experts, must attend because non-verbal communication is the most salient information in these contexts. At least, we will be able to observe, collect, and process the most communication from the most people while being actively attentive. We will ensure maximum accessibility, or a movement toward universal design.

So…there I am, illuminating aspects of the brain and nervous system.

I try to pace and chunk my speech…so that I am communicating calmly, clearly, and again, with the mutual human respect of assuming competence. My gold standard human for this is Fred Rogers, who most people know as Mr. Rogers. I never met him, but I consider him an important ancestor and I aspire to be a lineage holder of the work he did. As an example, here is Fred Rogers testifying to the U.S. congress in 1969.

I try to use on-body visual and experiential aides as I go. In this case, the fact that two fists joined in the middle, palms together and thumbs pointed up and toward the face, both looks like AND is approximately the size of your brain. Just…everyone has this lovely little brain model they can conjure and manipulate right in front of themselves and BY themselves.

I move around…which has something to do with *my* neurodivergences and inability to remain perfectly still but also allows me proximity, without threat, to each human in my influence sphere. I allow long pauses for questions and interruptions. Interruptions are a wonderful and important occurrence which most perceived experts are trained and indoctrinated to regard as forbidden and punishable. For the most part, I accept and encourage interruptions. If I’m in a position or mood wherein I don’t want interruptions, I will set that boundary and graciously allow mistakes along the way. Again, the assumption is that each perceived novice over whom I have actual power is able and will assimilate to the context in their own time…WHILE I provide the accommodation of accepting, unconditionally regarding, validating, and permitting the imperfections that make each of us beautifully ourselves.

Finally, we come to the construct of a regulated versus a dysregulated nervous system. I cannot remember how I approached it, but I know that at one point a camper interrupted to ask, “What does dysregulated mean?” Again, I can’t precisely remember how I responded, but I responded and the camper reflected back to me, in the form of another blessed interruption, “So dysregulated means out of control.”

And there it was, the plainest of language framings, which, while certainly simplified, hit the bullseye so that more if not most and perhaps all people in that room attending to me and the interaction could access the lesson.

Regulated = in control

Dysregulated = out of control

I added a layer of complexity by describing how it’s not usually 100% or 0%. That is, we can be a little dysregulated, or out of control, or a lot…and that we can do certain things to take back control, especially when we’re a little dysregulated rather than mostly and also more out of control.

Other voices joined the chorus of experiences and solutions. Tools learned, invented, and discovered by various campers.

And there, in a space occupied by teenagers and young adults, many of whom have high enough support needs to have spent a lifetime with caregivers, teachers, clinicians, and other experts assuming INcompetency…we found community and a path towards true independence and freedom, confidence and know-how gained through lived experience.

I’m grateful, every day, to exist in community with autistic and other neurodivergent people, to feel kinship with vulnerable and oppressed folks, and to step, inch by inch, in the direction of harm reduction, healing, and empowerment.

-G