Stories from The Future of Normal

EDUCATION

MARTIN

Neurodivergent Private School
New York City

REX

Homeschooling
Rural Vermon

JAKOR

Inclusive School District
Teaneck, New Jersey


SYSTEMS

NEUROINCLUSIVE HEALTHCARE

DR. MEL
Vermont

ADVOCACY & WORKPLACE

SUMMER
Rural Vermont

“We all have different brains. We think, learn, play, communicate and experience the world differently. One size fits all’ does not work for all. Everything we do, we offer in multiple different ways. We believe this is an important part of helping people feel like they belong.”

- Dr. Mel

 

PRISON REFORM

DANTE
San Quentin & SF Bay Area

“I was what they considered hyperactive. I got put on Ritalin and Thorazine. I was thirteen. I think it stems from doctors just trying to put a Band Aid on a bullet wound.”

- Dante

“Growing up, I realized that I was different early on. My younger self really struggled to fit in ... and it made me feel really invisible. Having an autism diagnosis is allowing me to really belong. It made me feel this connection that I had been longing for most of my life.”

- Summer

 

PUBLIC POLICY

ASHLEY
School Board, Baltimore

“I remember struggling to read. There was a point in middle school, where I felt like kids in my classes had other classes that I didn’t know about. I graduated from high school with a 1.4 GPA.”

- Ashley


HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF NORMAL

HIGH TECH & NO TECH
Breakthroughs and Throwbacks

“My hope for the future of normal is that we would, as a society, step back and question, why are we obsessed with this concept? Why are we so concerned about producing and reproducing things and people in our own image and punishing so harshly when people don’t conform or subscribe to those to those definitions? At the end of the day, what we urgently need, in every realm of society, is a greater capacity to recognize, listen, learn, and imagine things that might be beyond our comprehension and have the curiosity and commitment to question our norms.”

Jody Lewen | Director, Mt Tam College, San Quentin

EQUINE HEALING COMMUNITY

Square Peg: Horses, Autism, Nature and Movement
Montara & Sonoma, California

 

BRAIN IMAGING

TEEN MENTAL HEALTH

Neurocognitive fMRI Reading Diagnostics
Haskins Lab, Connecticut

 

EXPERIENTIAL INTERVENTION

Neuroscience-based VR & Video Games
Neuroscape Lab, UCSF

Mirror Journaling App
Child Mind Institute, USA

 

MINDFULNESS IN EDUCATION

Meditation Programs in Schools
Mindful Life Project, West Coast


Watch clips from the work-in-progress here.

Everyone has a neurodiversity story. What’s yours?

Click here to read mine.