On Saturday, September 13, Stanford University held its sixth annual three-day Neurodiversity Summit at the Li Ka Shing Learning and Knowledge Center on the Stanford University campus. Hosted by Lawrence Fung, MD, PhD, the director of the Stanford Neurodiversity Project, the theme was “Leveraging Neurodivergent Strengths to Create a Better Future Together”. The conference functioned as a space where neurodiverse individuals could come together and share their work on building strength-based opportunities for neurodivergent people in education, the workspace, healthcare and for self-advocacy in daily life. Speakers came from all around the world, both through Zoom and in-person, including representatives from Stanford Online High School and its own neurodiversity advocacy project.

The SOHS speakers consisted of Sadie Giessner (‘27), student body vice president and co-leader of the Disability Culture Club; Hannah Poplack (‘26), leader of the Neurodivergent Student Alliance (NSA) and an autistic individual with Tourette’s syndrome; Dr. Anne Hruska, an OHS Senior Instructor, faculty sponsor of the NSA and is neurodivergent; Nell Forgacs, an OHS parent and co-leader of the OHS Family Network and Abby Kirigan, the executive director of REEL. In a separate presentation, Maxwell Palance (‘26), a student with Autism Spectrum Disorder, attended as the co-chair for the Stanford Neurodiversity Project’s Network for K-12 Neurodiversity Education and Advocacy (NNEA), and was a staff member at the event.

But what does it mean to be neurodivergent? Around 55% of Americans are not able to define the term neurodivergent, while only 32% can. “Neurodiversity” is the word that encompasses the whole spectrum of brain differences, including both individuals who are neurotypical and neurodivergent. Being neurodivergent applies to individuals who do not consider themselves to be neurotypical. Neurodivergent individuals include those with ADHD, dyslexia, autism spectrum condition, synesthesia, learning disabilities, sensory sensitivities and more. On the other hand, neurotypical individuals are those whose brain function, sensory intake, etc. are considered to be “normal” or typical.

OHS and REEL (a non-profit organization that works with schools to improve the experience for neurodivergent and 2e [twice-exceptional] students) have been working on the Neurodiversity and 2e Initiative, a project to increase awareness about what neurodiversity is, and how to accommodate the overlooked needs of neurodivergent students.

In the spring of 2025, the team gathered data from families, educators and students to understand the neurodivergent experience at OHS, both online and in-person. Then, they created a series of training sessions for OHS instructors and staff, providing them with lessons on how to work with the neurodivergent and disabled members of their student body.

They gave this instruction in the form of anonymous vignettes submitted by students. Hannah Poplack narrated a vignette about an autistic student named Dylan, based on a personal experience of hers.

“Dylan … thinks very literally and has trouble interpreting tone,” Poplack says. When Dylan meets with his academic advisor to discuss course options for the following year, Dylan states that he wants to take Astrophysics, a very rigorous class. When asked the reason, Dylan thinks that having interest in the course is enough and says: Because I want to. “But the way that he expresses it and his blunt tone,” Poplack says, “the academic advisor is kind of taken aback by this” and concludes the session, offended.

These kinds of interactions cause neurodivergent people to feel like they have done something wrong, or have missed something they were “supposed” to do. This self-doubt and guilt can cause harmful practices for neurodivergent individuals, like masking. Masking is when neurodivergent individuals repress traits and bodily needs in order to behave more like neurotypicals. Depending on who is asked to in the neurodiverse community, masking has its benefits, especially to protect neurodivergent individuals from discrimination in the workplace; but it also has psychological consequences.

“Dylan, in this example, is working so hard to take other people’s perspectives,” Dr. Hruska adds, “but maybe sometimes people that work with Dylan don’t work that hard to take Dylan’s perspective.”

Society has this “perfect, perfect little picture of what a successful kid looks like,” Dr. Hruska says. This picture is stifling for neurodivergent students who are not able to meet these standards. But social norms of success are demanding for neurotypical students as well. By accommodating people’s needs instead of forcing them to accommodate to society, we allow both neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals to lower their masks.

Based on this idea of universal support, schools should adopt the phrase “one for all, and all for one”.  As Forgacs explained, “We really, really take to heart the principles of universal design because we know that when we create a support to meet the needs of one family or one group, we’re really meeting the needs of many families and many groups within our school.”

“Options serve many needs,” Forgacs says. Neurodivergent and disabled peoples’ happiness is often sacrificed for the “greater good” of the neurotypical experience. At school dances, with blasting music, crowded floors and strobing lights, “a quiet room at a dance is not quiet because there is a sign on the door,” Dr. Hruska says, and more must be done to secure a safe sensory experience in the room. But yet the only two options for neurodivergent students at a dance should not be either dance floor mayhem or total isolation in the quiet room.

Accommodating neurodiverse needs and providing several routes of experience at events are crucial. And if this requires lessening the neurotypical experience from a 10 to an 8, it is an acceptable sacrifice if it allows the neurodivergent experience to go from a 0 to a 7. So far, the Neurodiversity and 2e Initiative, along with the OHS Family Network have been able to produce FAQ resources for in-person OHS events, silent rooms and low sensory flash light walks for dances. They currently have a podcast about neurodiversity in the works, their biggest project yet.

Maxwell Palance serves as co-chair of NNEA, a student-run organization that provides resources for neurodiverse advocacy. NNEA has newsletters, handbooks, monthly meetings and is affiliated with SNP Reach, a summer camp where students work on advocacy projects for neurodivergent children and teens. Examples presented at the Summit included the PEEPS and BuddyBuddy programs that give neurodivergent high-schoolers leadership skills through teaching younger neurodivergent children in subjects like art, etc. Another example of a project born from SNP Reach is the Cocoon Corner, a program that provides storybooks and materials to create sensory safe and accepting spaces for newly-diagnosed neurodivergent children, ages 5-12.

“As someone who is neurotypical but an ally,” Sadie Giessner reflects, “I think one really amazing thing about this project was … I got to hear directly what the experience of my peers was. I hope that as we move forward in this project, I will continue getting to hear … the voices of our neurodiverse student body.” The DCC and the NSA are two of the places where these voices can be heard and where students can “form allyships,” as Giessner puts it. “The Disability Culture Club or DCC … supports all kinds of disability,” Giessner explains. “Its goals are first to support its members, second to do outreach and help the student body and broader school community to better understand topics of disability, and then again to do advocacy.” In its last meetings its members all collaborated on compiling a document covering the process of applying to colleges with accommodations. They also recently discussed accessibility successes and failures at the Washington D.C. Homecoming event.

The Neurodivergent Student Alliance (or Neurodiversity Club) is a safe space for neurodivergent students and allies. “I wish more people knew about Neurodiversity Club,” Dr. Hruska said. “[In this club] I’ve just seen kids be made happier in a fundamental way.” According to Poplack, it seems an alumni event with neurodivergent OHS graduates might also be in the works.

Looking forward, REEL will be leading a train-the-trainers program during the 25-26 school year to give OHS staff, TAs and peer tutors what Abby Kirigan calls “an empathy building experience.”

“[W]e’ll be able to train the folks that then can train those folks … in taking that first step of empathy,” Kirigan says.

The point is neurodivergent people are not alone, neither in OHS nor in the rest of the world.

“There are people out there like you,” Poplack says, “but you unfortunately need to put a lot of work into finding them. They’re not just going to pop up out of thin air. I wish they did, but you have to often work to make the community that you want to see in the world, and people will then be drawn to you if you are sharing your honest, authentic self … So sometimes, you just have to take the first step and be really weird.”

The speakers’ advice on taking the first steps of advocacy is simple. Educate yourself before you advocate. “[F]ind a platform and talk, honestly. It’s kind of worked for me, it seems like,” Poplack laughed, gesturing to the audience, “there’s a room full of people.”

Advocacy takes work, and the Stanford Neurodiversity Summit alone does not fix the struggles placed on neurodivergent students, employees, and families. Instead this summit is a call to action, a call to advocacy.

“We advocate for change and finally, change occurs,” Giessner says. “Change … is not a linear process.”

“Change takes time,” Poplack adds, “and it’s not something that’s going to happen only in my time at OHS.”

Overall, Poplack concludes that “Even if my brain is a bunch of neurons and weird chemical things, I think everything still feels real and I think there are people like myself who are suffering because of the systems who are in place. So maybe subjectively, when compared to the expanse that is the universe, it doesn’t really matter that much, but within our little subjective corner of reality I think advocating for making the world a more accessible and inclusive place feels like it has meaning, and that’s a meaning that I choose to believe in.”