Neurodiversity Celebration Week March 21-27, 2022

A Very Special Q&A with Siena Castellon, founder of Neurodiversity Celebration Week

Mon, March 3/21, 7-7:45pm PST, on Zoom

REEL hosted an inspirational Q&A session to honor Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2022 with founder Siena Castellon. Learn about her experiences at school and life and why she created this special week to honor the neurodivergent. (transcript below)

Please join us for a Q&A with Siena Castellon, founder of Neurodiversity Celebration Week, and Stanford student. Learn about her experiences at school, why she founded this special week, and her books (The Spectrum Girl's Survival Guide and The Spectrum Girls Survival Toolkit).

"My name is Siena Castellon. I am a multi-award-winning neurodiversity advocate, author, Young Leader for the SDGs, and the founder of Neurodiversity Celebration Week. I am also a teenager who is autistic and has ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia. As a student with several learning differences, I know that there is still a stigma associated with having special educational needs and that there are still many misconceptions about what it means to have learning or thinking differences. I want to change this."

You Can Make a Difference With One Small Step

Ask your school to take the Neurodiversity Celebration Week pledge

Send this template email to your school's leader: Dear School Leader, Did you know that 1 in 5 children has a learning difference, and these neurodiverse students often have negative school experiences that focus on their challenges. It doesn't have to be this way. Together, we can change the narrative. Instead of focusing only on the drawbacks of being neurodivergent, we can acknowledge the many strengths and talents that come from thinking and perceiving the world differently. By celebrating the strengths of neurodivergent students, we can begin the seismic shift in the way neurodiverse students are perceived and treated, including how they feel about themselves. Please sign our school up for Neurodiversity Celebration Week and bring one of their suggested activities to our school.

Celebrate With Us

• Share our list of books featuring neurodiverse themes with your school library or visit our local partner bookstores (Kepler's, Books Inc, Reading Bug, Linden Tree) to pick up a book for your classroom or home

• Visit Palo Alto's Mitchell Park or Rinconada Libraries for their neurodiversity book displays and virtual story times or ask your local library to create a display

• Forward our blog post: Using Picture Books To Teach About Neurodiversity: Better Understanding Ourselves and Each Other

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Read the transcript here

diana here um we are reel2e.org you can visit our website and we are helping twice exceptional students thrive in schools by creating resources and events for parents and educators so you can check us out at reel2e.org for more information and this week we're celebrating neurodiversity celebration week and the founder of this week sienna is here to speak with us tonight. sienna castellon is a 19 year old multi-award-winning neurodiversity advocate best-selling award-winning author and a un young leader for the sdgs you'll have to tell us about that she is the founder of neurodiversity celebration week an international initiative that challenges stereotypes and misconceptions about neurological differences by highlighting the strengths and accomplishments of the neurodivergent community. sienna is the author of the spectrum girls got survival guide how to grow up awesome and autistic love that title which won a 2021 silver nautilus book award and the first place 2021 purple dragonfly book award sienna is also the author of the spectrum girls survival toolkit the workbook for autistic girls. sienna has won over 25 national and international awards for her advocacy including the 2021 commonwealth youth award and the campaigner of the year at the european diversity awards we are so excited to have her here and this is going to be a q a so we have some questions pre-prepared and then sienna would love to get questions from the audience as well. so i'll kick it off with a few questions of our own and then we'd love to have you guys either unmute and ask or you can ask through the chat so sienna we would love to start off just hearing about your experience in um you know your elementary and secondary education uh what was it like as a neurodiverse student and what inspired you to start neurodiversity celebration week.

so i was diagnosed with my learning differences throughout my education so my first diagnosis was when i was eight years old and my last was when i was 15. and it was just a journey throughout with my dyslexia diagnosis there were a lot of challenges that came with that. i have an uncle who's dyslexic and so my mother saw my symptoms very early on and identified it as dyslexia and she went into the school really to just say how do i get her diagnosed and the school told her there's no way that she can be dyslexic because she can read. teachers weren't educated on dyslexia so they were actually just using like the misconceptions and stigmas that they had just picked up from conversations or wherever they found this information from but it wasn't through teaching or training and so i ended up not getting diagnosed at that young age i think i was five when my mother first identified it um i instead had to wait till i was 11 to get that diagnosis.

and because of that delay i wasn't able to get extra time i wasn't able to get the support i needed i had to go through a system where teachers would constantly critique me on my spelling. i remember there was this criteria for one of the exams i was taking that you had to have perfect spelling to get the top grade and so the content of my essay was a top grade but because of my spelling i ended up getting a c and it was just things like that where i was constantly being shut down because of my dyslexia. and then even when i got the diagnosis teachers said okay well you can get extra time but then we'll still grade you on your spelling but the problem is extra time doesn't make me spell correctly you can give me all the time in the world and i'm still going to have spelling challenges because that's the nature of dyslexia. and so i had to spend you know it was very challenging to be in a school system that is fundamentally discriminatory against you and that was just in the dyslexia department.

you know within dyspraxia dyspraxia is a motor coordination disorder that makes you clumsy and disorganized i would have teachers who knew about my dyspraxia diagnosis and they would paint me out as a liar that was one thing that happened regularly. what would happen is i remember i was 11 years old and i didn't have my pleasure and so i came into school and my teacher said to me where is your blazer and i said to her it's in my locker and then i went to my locker and it wasn't in my locker. and so another teacher said to me where is your blazer and i said it is at home and so these teachers ended up talking to each other and they said siena just lies about all these different things and they contacted my parents and they said she has a lying problem.

because what would happen is i just wouldn't know i wouldn't know where my blazer is i'm dyspraxic i have organization problems i lost my blazer i lost my workbook i lost whatever it was and so i would come up with guesses as to where it could be and then you know i would get more information along the way and realize that guest was incorrect i would check my locker and it wouldn't be in there. and so instead of teachers saying okay well this kid is dyslexic this kid has some organization problems that support her with this organization they just kind of gaslit me and came up with these narratives to explain something that was very easily explained through my diagnosis. and so i was actually bullied by teachers a lot along the way and i had to move schools very frequently.

and when i reached 13 i just got very fed up with it and i thought i want to create something so the teachers can educate themselves and i also want to create a resource so that children can be supported. because i was trying to find help online to see you know how i could work with my organization how i could um improve you know my spelling in the school system how i could get by and a lot of the resources were designed for parents it would be things like you should pack your child's backpack before school all directed at the parent instead of the student. and some of the advice because it wasn't directed for me wasn't helpful and so i am i created qr mentoring which was a website to support and mentor children with learning differences but also to provide some resources for teachers.

and then from there i realized that i wanted to do more within the school system i wanted to really create something that would educate teachers but that would also educate the neurotypical peers of neurodivergent students and so i created neurodiversity celebration week. and it's a week run into schools where you flip the narrative and you focus on the positives of learning differences instead of the negatives and you also just educate yourself on the benefits of neurodiversity and the empowering message of neurodiversity. and so i have been running my event for a couple years now and i've really seen it grow at the beginning it was just schools that would take part but then i found that a lot of the principles of neurodiversity celebration week aligned with what some businesses were trying to achieve and so i opened it up to businesses. and now we've got schools organizations charities all involved in neurodiversity celebration week.

that is an amazing story i you really took something so difficult and turned it into something so positive um i'm curious you talk so much about strengths and neurodiversity which is something that we really believe in. what do you feel your neurodiversity what strengths have they given you and how have they helped you achieve all that you've achieved until today. definitely um with my dyslexia i found a lot of creativity that comes with that um and it's helped me kind of create my week there's a lot that goes into it with coming up with ideas and i will i'll have to create all these different activity plans and like lesson packs and assembly packs and so my finding that my creativity really helps me do that.

with my autism there's a logical thinking that comes with it which really helps me in the sciences i wanted to do math and physics and i got a place at imperial actually to study material science because i was very much into the the stem focus um because that really aligned with my structured way of thinking. i like with the my autism was definitely a superpower in that field um i soon started at stanford and took a cs class and now i've found that i'm very interested in that because it's really just following rules like you're just given like a set rules for like syntax and the way you structure things and that's perfect for the way that my autism works. i just i just love it it's so i mean occasionally like you'll get a bug and you'll have no idea what's going on but then you'll find like oh i i broke this rule and it's all about just kind of memory i i love it i love just the format of it and i it's completely due to my autism.

and then with my adhd individual they did this study and they found that individuals with adhd have more beta waves in their brain and these beta waves help you to stay calm under pressure. and so if you look at um individuals who work in the emergency room surgeons firefighters police officers and actually i'm astronauts they're a very disproportionate number of astronauts who have adhd along with all the other professions i listed very disproportionate number of individuals with adhd because of this ability to stay calm under pressure. and i really found that when i was running my week and running all the campaigns that i've done in my five years of advocacy i would just be able to focus at the task at hand and not get stressed out when you're writing a speech for an event that's in an hour and you're only on like page one and you need seven more pages or when you're presenting in front of hundreds of people. i found that i was always able to to stay calm and focus on what needs to be achieved rather than you know panicking or stressing about what was going on and i attribute all of that to my adhd.

wow that that i mean really highlights the strengths and we don't talk about them enough and so i'm so um happy to hear all those things i think i definitely want to talk about them with my own neurodiverse children um so you have such a positive energy and so much enthusiasm given all the things that you know the teacher bullying and everything you went through where do you think that comes from. is it something because we had a lot of questions about you know what can parents do to support their neurodiverse children. yeah i think it came from educating myself and really learning about neurodiversity and understanding that these individuals were wrong you know there's there's a big difference between being dyspraxic and being a liar very big difference.

and i at the time he really focused on what these teachers these teachers um when my mother went in and said you know she can't spell i think that it could be dyslexia they said no and the way that they explained it was she can read and so she's not dyslexic she's lazy she just doesn't care about her spelling and that's why she has bad spelling. and i would do horribly on spelling tests and they would say it's because she's lazy she just doesn't care about her work and it was really hard to hear that but when i educated myself on dyslexia i realized i'm not lazy you know i'm putting all this work into doing these spelling tests. you know i remember i would stand outside the classroom and i had a kid come up to me and say hey i haven't studied can i take a look at the spelling test words and he took a look at my list went into the exam and got 100 just by looking at my list ahead of time i was studying those um words every single day for 20 minutes but yet i was the one who was painted out as lazy and he was the one who was painted out as oh you got 100 so you must have prepared well done here's a coke sticker.

and so i in educating myself and understanding the way that my neurodiversity affects me and then looking back and realizing okay this is why this event happened this is why um this spelling test went this way this is why i was constantly forgetting my blazer i was able to rewrite that narrative in my mind that these teachers had painted at me. and i was able to rewrite it in an empowering way and uh okay well this was because of my dyslexia this is a challenge that i have but here are all the strengths i have. that's amazing one of the questions that we got um that was pre-submitted was do you find diagnostic labels helpful or limiting and we get a lot a lot of parents ask us should i tell which i reveal my child's diagnosis um to the child and so i'm curious what you think about that it sounds like it was super helpful for you to understand your diagnosis.

a hundred percent it's very important to tell your child about their diagnosis um for me with my autism diagnosis i was diagnosed at 12 and i was told like my parents made it were very open with me about it and it meant that after i was diagnosed i gave myself a lot more grace when it came to some social blunders i would make because of my autism. i really wondered why i was the way i was there were children in my class you could just have these natural conversations you could come up to them and you could say anything and they would be able to give you some kind of response whereas with me i would script conversations um i would come up with answers to how was your day what did you do over the weekend because i found it very difficult to think on the fly in these social situations and come up with something that my peers would appreciate. and so i would watch tv shows and i would write notes on things with certain characters would say and i would memorize these things and then you know conversation is natural it goes in so many different directions and so there were times when i would be talking to somebody and it would go really well and then they would mention what they did over the weekend and then a conversation would start over some topic that i hadn't prepared and i would really struggle.

i also didn't have natural facial expressions and people would comment on it i remember parents of children in my class would say why aren't you smiling when i was in the playground and i always i remember saying to my mother do you have to think about your facial expressions or do they just come naturally and she just said to me i've never had to think about them. and i was over here having to be like okay you say how are you doing and then you smile i would have to kind of tell myself when to do it like put a cue in for that facial expression and i always knew that there was something different i always wondered what's going on with this because this is not normal. and it caused me a lot of anxiety knowing that i was different and not knowing why and feeling like there was something wrong with me and when i was told oh it's autism i no longer felt alone because then i realized there's a community of people who were going through this with me.

i think that if my diagnosis had been kept from me i wouldn't have had that moment and i would have continued to feel like what's wrong with me and it would have created some some mental health problems. and so definitely i would say being very open with your children about the learning differences or neurodiversities that they have. thank you that's a super helpful answer we got some all caps super helpful in the chat um and so given you taught you said you spoke to your mom about this can you tell us a little bit about how your parents supported you and what advice you have for the parents on this call and supporting their own neurodiverse children.

my mother would she was like my advocate so i would um she would help me to understand my neurodiversity she would go online and she would research different um tips for dyslexia dyspraxia when i was like very young when i was eight years old and i was diagnosed with dyspraxia she would go online and she found these organizational tips like these post-it notes and so we had post-it notes all over the house with all the tasks that i had to do. we would take the post-it note off once i achieved them and she would help me organize myself she would contact the school sometimes and ask for clarification on homework assignments when she thought that i might have written out the homework assignment wrong. she would help me understand my neurodiversity and then she would advocate for me so i would tell her yeah i need the teacher to email me the homework assignment so i don't write it out wrong and then she would be the one who would go into the school and ask for that.

or i remember there was a time at school where i'm i'm twice exceptional and so at school i was considered gifted but i also had these learning differences and i had a teacher who said it is not fair for you to have extra time because extra time is for the kids at the bottom of the class and you're at the top of the class if you get extra time you'll have an unfair advantage. and she fundamentally misunderstood the importance of extra time extra time isn't to give me an advantage compared to somebody else and extra time has nothing to do with other people extra time has to do with my potential. when you look at whether somebody needs extra time you say okay if this person didn't have dyslexia dyspraxia adhd how would they do on this test and for me i have a slow reading speed because of my dyslexia and so when i have to do an english comprehension test if i didn't have dyslexia i would do it a lot faster and i would be able to finish it.

and so extra time gives me the ability to be at the same level as my potential to be at the same level as i would be if i didn't have dyslexia hypothetically it doesn't quite work that way in practice because extra time doesn't help with spelling problems but that's the idea behind it. and she misunderstood that and so she was saying oh well compared to joey in the class you're now going to have an advantage and so my mother went in and explained that to her and had a long conversation about why i need extra time. and because of her advocating on my behalf i was then able to get this very valuable adjustment and so she um she did all of that for me as i grew up i was able to take on that role and so now at university she has no involvement i advocate on myself all the time but it was very important for her to do that for me when i was eight nine years old.

that sounds like an amazing mom i'm glad that she did that for you and um you know it really helps um a lot of parents today hear what she did and what we could be doing for our kids because sometimes pictures. i was thinking what a powerful statement about the time and the fairness because that comes up so much such a such a powerful story sienna about a lot um there was also our friend that danielle that talked about how one day when she was in school her friend broke both wrists and came into school with both broken wrists and the teachers made accommodations in writing for them. and she's like just because there's invisible sort of equivalent of broken wrists you're not giving these kids what they need did you expect the broken wrist child to continue to write like all the other kids in the class no you didn't so anyway i yes i think the way that you put it is a really powerful way to say it.

so what what do you hope that schools will change so hopefully they will more embrace um strength aspect of neurodiverse students and that peers will be more understanding of students with learning differences um what do you hope schools will change in order to support nerd over students to reach their full potential feel confidence in who they are. i wish that teachers would listen more um one of the challenges that i have with teachers even well-intentioned teachers is they like to maintain that power dynamic of i'm in a position of knowledge and you have to learn from me. and so when that's kind of inverted when a student comes to them and says let me explain some adjustments that i need let me effectively teach you how to teach me teachers don't like that.

and so a lot of the time and this is an experience that i've had a teacher might have taught a class with another individual with adhd or they might have taught a class with another individual with autism and so you go to them and you say oh i need some adjustments and they tell you yay i know what i'm doing i i've been teaching for years i've been teaching for 15 years i've had all these students come through my class with adhd i know how to support them. and whenever i hear that i just think oh no because if you've met one person with autism you've met one person with autism we have very different experiences. i am very sensitive to touch i can feel the wind when i go outside and so there are times where i have to um dress in a way that i don't get distressed from the wind that's how sensitive i am i have a friend who broke her arm and she didn't know she walked around with a broken arm for a couple of days before she was able to before she realized that something was wrong and that was because she was under sensitive she couldn't feel that that it was broken.

and so we have two of vastly different experiences and so if he had had my friend in the class she would have needed very different adjustments and the adjustments that she would have needed if applied to me could have even been detrimental. and so it's really important that teachers are open and listen to the unique adjustments that each student needs because you can share a label but it have very different implications on your life and you have very different presentations and need very different adjustments. and so i would say for teachers to never assume that they know everything about an accommodation even if someone were to come to me and ask me for adjustments i would not say oh i know all the adjustments i know what i'm doing instead i would say what do you need what would be helpful for you and so i wish that more teachers would do that.

i'm going to edit that little segment and send it to some teachers in my life we have a question in the chat that i thought was really good and that's um how do you deal with people who doubt your autism because you don't fit what they imagine autism to be. um we uh get a lot of that just women in general um don't always fit the diagnosis diagnostic criteria for some of these diagnoses and get overlooked under diagnosed or misdiagnosed or never diagnosed or diagnosed really late um i don't know so this person's asking how do you deal with people who doubt it because you don't fit the image of what they think autism is. this is something that i really struggle with um it hasn't happened recently because of zoom but there was a time oh it was the biggest challenge every single event i would go to where i would speak somebody would come up to me afterwards and say oh you gave this speech you were so eloquent you can't be autistic.

and it would be the most frustrating thing in the world because what people don't realize is there's a difference between maybe what you see when i'm on stage and what you might see in my personal life. i remember i had to go to one event where i had to go on the tube it's um like the subway in england and i had multiple panic attacks i had a panic attack thinking about having to go on the tube because i'm hypersensitive and very sensitive to touch to sound to light and so being on a loud tube that's packed with other people it's just a sensory nightmare. and so i had a panic attack thinking about doing this i had a panic attack on the tube um which was awful and so i had to leave before my stop continue my panic attack on the tube station and then get back on while having all of this anxiety and then i end up finally getting to the location.

and i was just so frazzled i felt like i couldn't give my speech because i'd had this really hectic morning but i end up going on stage anyway give my speech and then maybe seven people come up to me afterwards you know like you can't be autistic and i just thought not today you cannot give me that today i have had the morning i've had. and so my response to that is i would just try to educate them i would try to say look there are very different presentations of autism there are some people that with their presentation they are mute or selectively mute there are some people that with their presentation they cannot make eye contact. but with my unique way that my autism affects me and also the way that i was raised i was raised as a girl and so i had to deal with a lot of societal pressures growing up people would pressure me about my facial expressions you know people would come up to me and say why aren't you smiling.

growing up because of my sensory processing disorder i wanted to wear one outfit but because i'm a girl people expected me to take pride in my appearance to have a fashion taste to want to have varied outfits. and so when i would wear this same um clothing combination people would comment on it people would give me a lot of grief i would effectively be bullied by adults over and so i ended up doing what is called masking i hid my autism symptoms and i conformed to the expectations of a neurotypical. and so that meant that i don't present in the way that one might expect because in i'm instead of embracing my autism traits i've been raised to hide them and so that's what i will tell people who doubt me.

i will say naturally i do not behave this way when you look at how i presented when i was younger i didn't make eye contact um but now because of all these pressures i mask and so i explain it that way. and and i say you know you can't judge an autistic person based on their behavior on one particular day the thing with autism is it's not like dyslexia that's a constant my autism changes day to day. there are some days where i cannot leave the house because of my sensory processing disorders whereas those are other days where i'm happy to do so and so you can't take a good day or you can't take one particular moment of my day and judge and and use that to extrapolate on how i am every day and so i explain it that way.

wow amazing answer and since you brought up um masking there's a question in the chat um given that we are in a world that still has so much misunderstanding and biases against neurodiversity do you recommend those that can to mask it or die at or to disclose diagnoses when applying to schools colleges and jobs. i would say i'm not an advocate of mastery i didn't really have like a choice in the matter i just ended up masking as a survival mechanism but it causes a lot of anxiety um especially growing up when you force yourself to do something that is not natural to you it can be very draining and it can be very stressful. so i wish that i had been raised in an environment where my autistic traits were embraced and where people were supportive of me not making eye contact and was supportive of other behaviors that i had because hiding them is very exhausting.

it's you you just have to kind of act all day and now it's become so natural to me that i can't turn it off but at the end of the day you get very worn out by it because and a neurotypical person they can just have a conversation and not think about their body language and their facial expressions and their voice intonation they can just talk naturally. whereas when you're masking you have to worry about all of those things and it's draining to have all of those added pressures on you. and so when i say like when possible you know do not pressure your child to mask or if you are autistic yourself i would say if you can do not lost but i do recognize that there are a lot of social pressures that mean that sometimes you don't have the the choice to do so.

i always recommend disclosing there was a time where in applications i wouldn't disclose because i felt like it would be held against me but i've since changed my mind because i felt like would i want to work for an organization that would hold it against me is that a dynamic that i want to be a part of. and so for me i'm very happy to disclose and so i will make them aware of all of my adjustments that i might need and i will make them aware of all the neurodiversities that i have and then i will see the way that they respond. if they respond with okay we're really happy to make these accommodations in the interview we're really happy to support you then i'm very comfortable going forward with accepting a role from that place if they choose to offer one to me but if instead they say we're not willing to offer you these accommodations then i know that that's not the the place of work that's not the university for me that's not the school that's not the job for me.

and so that is one thing i do i always disclosed music is just a test to see what it would be like if i accepted a role at that organization. someone is asking if you disclosed when you applied to stanford if you are comfortable sharing i wrote my application on my uh neurodiversities um because it asked me kind of about my extracurriculars and so i talked about how i was an advocate kind of my whole application was like revolved around my my advocacy and so i was very open about it. um but one thing that i did is instead of disclosing just by saying i'm autistic full stop i disclose by saying i'm autistic and this is how it affects me this is my unique presentation because people have a lot of misconceptions around autism.

oftentimes people would have met one person with autism or maybe watch a television show like big bang and seen one presentation of autism and so when you say i'm autistic they think of sheldon or they think of that person that they know and they expect you to behave in that exact way. and so it's important to say i'm autistic and this is how it affects me so that then you don't get judged by whatever um by you know whatever standard that they have. and so i talked about my unique presentations of each of my differences in my application and i talked about it in a positive way and how i consider it a superpower.

i love that um that comes up a lot for people applying to various schools at different levels here so um super helpful to think of it that way um cali would like to know do you ima how do you imagine combining your interest in computer science and neurodiversity if at all. i if there's an opportunity to combine them i would be happy to i'm not sure how i would do it but i plan on kind of keeping it separate um you know computer science being my job and neurodiversity celebration week being kind of a side project that i do. um currently that's the way it's going with i prioritize my education and my schoolwork and then in the time i have outside of working on psets and going to classes i work on my neurodiversity celebration week.

so um start jumping back to um the masking questions someone says when i think of my three the one with more social anxiety masks the best when you think of yourself as a kid did you care what others thought or you were forced. i was forced by necessity to think about what others thought because i was bullied a lot so i would be in school environments where kids would call me a robot kids would there were a lot of challenges that came from the fact that i didn't make facial expressions and i didn't have voice intonations um a lot everybody wanted to comment on that i had teachers parents kids commenting on that um and. with students with like kids they're kind they're vicious they'll notice that you have some difference and they will hone in on that and give you all this grief for the way that you behave.

and so for me i was forced to care about the way that people perceived me because i would transfer schools and when i would transfer into a new school i would think this is a new opportunity for me to give a different impression i cannot let this group of people think that i am a robot and be bullied for it because i don't want to move school again. and so in the social environment i would constantly be thinking about how i was perceived i would think after every interaction i would have i would analyze it i would think okay do they think i'm weird do they think that i'm robotic did they think that i am fake do they think that i'm putting on an act with my facial expressions. um i was this was something that really bothered me i was bullied for my facial expressions and then i worked on making facial expressions but the thing is i would cue them and so i would have a flat affect and then i would think okay you've got to smile now and then i would smile but there would be no kind of lead-in it would just be this on and off switch.

and so i ended up getting bullied for not making facial expressions and then getting bullied for making facial expressions um and so i ended up very much caring about the way i was perceived. it's heartbreaking to hear that and it's so inspirational how what change you're making in the world given the experiences that you faced so if any if other people have questions feel free to post them in the chat i'll read some another one that came in the rsvp form. what advice would you give to caretakers on how to best support neurodivergent teens that want to hide their differences it's hard to know how to help them when they internalize their struggles and dismiss any attempts to highlight their strengths.

i would say that just never give up on highlighting the strengths just always keep bringing it up and even if this the the teen kind of rejects them and maybe disagrees with these strengths it's important that they continue to hear them because they may eventually start to internalize um the the message of positivity. for wanting to hide um traits i do recognize that for some people that is advantageous for me it was very advantageous when i was in a mainstream school environment where i was being bullied. and my mother supported me in doing this i would have conversations with her and i would tell her you know if i do something that you think is different or that you think is maybe um a bit weird or that you think one of my peers would perceive as weird let me know and so she would occasionally stop me in conversation and say you know maybe you could have said this instead um because my mother is neurotypical.

the other thing that my mother was incredibly helpful with is preparing for job interviews um she would tell me okay this is how you shake somebody's hand. and for me as an autistic person i'm very logical and so the way i think is i'm going in for a job interview i only need to focus on the skills that are needed for this job and showing the person that i have the skills needed as an autistic individual i do not think oh they are going to ascertain how confident i am based on the strength of a handshake like that logically doesn't make sense to me but that is the way the world works. and so my mother is neurotypical was able to be that bridge in between and so she would show me okay this is how you give a proper handshake this is you need to look the person in the eye you when you respond to questions like this is kind of the way to do it.

and so she was um incredibly helpful in that and when she would give me advice it was always from an empowering way it was always from a let me teach you and support you not let me highlight your challenges. and so she would she would phrase things as why don't you try doing it this way instead of the way you are doing it is wrong and so that was always something that i really appreciated about. i love that we actually have a question from a student um and i think this is gonna be our last question for the evening i know we could ask you questions for hours this has been amazing but i know um sienna has had non-stop calls from 3 a.m so we're so lucky she's still able to be awake with us.

um do you have any advice for advocating on a learning difference for example dyscalculia and this is a student asking how to advocate for themselves. i would say um before you go in to make your make your points and advocate for yourself it's really important that you understand your neurodiversity so what i do when i advocate for myself is i think what do i want to achieve what accommodations do i need. and so i think of all of the accommodations that would be helpful to me and then i think of why i need them and so then when i go in i'm able to say this is what i need and this is why i need it as opposed to i'm just calculate i'm going to need a bit of support full stop.

it's important to be able to say this is exactly what i mean because there are some teachers who won't know how to support you if you go in and you just say this is my diagnosis. and so if you're able to tell them clearly what you need and why that's the important element you need to be able to justify it because there are some teachers who will feel like oh well giving you this accommodation will give you an unfair advantage that's something that i get a lot teachers thinking the accommodations give you unfair advantages. but if you're able to say but this is why i need it this is why it will level the playing field and not elevate me you have a much higher chance of getting that adjustment.

thank you so much and maureen thank you for asking a question i love that we have students here um so just to wrap this up we'll let you um go as you've had three days in one today. i wanted to share the link to neurodiversity celebration week in the chat everyone can ask their schools to sign the pledge and sienna has an exhaustive list of activities that your school can do to promote neurodiversity and strengths and understanding in your school. there's a lot of amazing resources and posters and many things available there so thank you so much sienna and thank you everyone for coming this evening we recorded the evening and we will share it um i don't know a lot of people wanted to be here couldn't make it they're very excited to watch the recording and we wish you the best of luck um at stanford and with everything you do. we look forward to seeing what comes next with all your superpowers um you're really an inspiration to so many people so thank you so much now thank you so much it was lovely to be here today and to talk with you you too good night everyone.