Heidi and Cath discuss Neurodiversity Affirming practice: 
 
Case study 1:
"A mid-adolescent student on the autism spectrum is enrolled in a highly demanding academic program. He is verbal but resists collaboration with caregivers, frequently fights over screen use, and struggles to manage workload, leading to failing grades. Parents have tried tutoring and structured routines, but the student prefers screen-based activities and resists other interests or physical activity. How can an SLP use neurodiversity-affirming strategies to support communication, self-regulation, and collaboration in this context?"
 
 
Case study 2:
"H is a 8;5 boy, Grade 2 at mainstream school, ASD 2 with significant teacher support required. “Probably ADHD too” according to parents but they haven’t sought a Dx. 
 
Goals have been around literacy - mostly letter tiles with some writing attempts incorporated due to very poor fine motor control (he has a full time scribe at school). Also very basic social skills goals due to some incidents at school misinterpreting social clues etc.
 
He is very inattentive in session, hyper fixates on toy cars. Won’t tolerate extended discussion on anything else and when I’ve attempted to incorporate his interests in sessions he will just hyper fixate on the cars aspect. Other strategies I’ve used with ND clients like visual schedules, timers, planning activities together have had minimal success. 
 
Socially - how to navigate teaching appropriate social skills in a mainstream setting while acknowledging his ND communication needs and preferences? 
 
Parents goals have been tolerating other topics of discussion, acknowledging a greeting/farewell, and turn taking during conversation and play which all seem appropriate.