Blog
Read the latest articles from ION Team Members and Volunteers
When Children Don’t Fit into a “Neat Box”: Whose Version of the World Are We Measuring?
Reflections from Deaf Awareness Day at Hi Hopes. Written by Alia Booley and Natasha Van StadenION South Africa What happens when we judge human communication…
- KC Tales ·
The Coat Made of the Wrong Fabric
The coat was made to be sensible. It was long enough to keep the cold out and thick enough to last more than one winter.…
NAMIBIA NICE CONFERENCE 5-9 OCTOBER 2026
Renowned Neurodiversity Advocate and SEN Expert, Ayanwole Boluwatife Joshua Speaks at NICE 2026 in Namibia, Champions Inclusion Through EdTech ION U35 versatile African Inclusion Leader…
The Neurodiversity Gap: Making Equality Visible
A new tool from the Institute of Neurodiversity (ION) to help people of all neurotypes assess their experience of equality, identify gaps and decide what…
Neuroequality
Why neuroequality must take its place alongside other equality and human rights movements For decades, societies have worked to recognise and address inequalities based on…
Introducing the ION Global Sustainability Leaders SIG
Climate change and sustainability are among the most complex challenges facing humanity. They require us to rethink how we live, work, build, consume and make…
Neuroism: A Word for When Neurological Difference Becomes Disadvantage
Human beings vary neurologically. We vary in how we think, communicate, concentrate, learn, remember, socialise, regulate emotion, process sensory information, respond to uncertainty and interact…
Sensory Intelligence: The Intelligence We Rarely Measure
We have spent more than a century trying to measure how intelligently humans think. Perhaps we should also ask how intelligently humans sense. We readily…
Un cumpleaños loco.
Yo soy mi historia clínica.¿Dejé de ser mi historia, acaso?Es muy malo preguntarse tantas cosasque complican, además, el tratamiento Marisa Wagner ¿Qué es un cumpleaños…
- KC Tales ·
The Places Where I Don’t Feel Alone
There was once a child called Kai who liked being alone more than being among people. Some people found this unusual and worried about Kai.…
Cross-cultural neuroinclusion: what a professional placement in Singapore taught me about what we’re not talking about
Neuroinclusion isn’t one size fits all. For most of us embedded in neurodivergent circles, that feels obvious. We advocate for the idea that if you’ve…
More Than a Fist Bump: Carrying Neurodiversity and Inclusion with Pride at NDP61
Penned by Warren Sheldon Humphries, Strategic Advisor, Institute of Neurodiversity Singapore There are moments in our lives that become more than memories. They become milestones…
When One of the World’s Oldest Institutions Changes
Some changes can quietly change history, this month, the Church of England took a step that deserves far more attention than it has received. Its…
Neurotypicality: Has It Lost Its Meaning and Is It Leading to Misclassification?
Professor Uta Frith’s recent challenge to the breadth of the autism spectrum has opened an important debate. Her subsequent suggestion that Chris Packham “cannot be…
- ION UK ·
Making Bodywork Work
Why hands-on therapy isn’t always helpful – and how to improve your experience The challenge Not everyone enjoys being touched. For some neurodivergent people, physical…
Beyond Compliance: Are We Measuring the Right Things?
We often praise organisations for values like integrity, customer centricity, ethics, accessibility, inclusion, and governance. But values only matter if the systems behind them make…
When Home Isn’t the Place You Can Be Yourself
For many people, the hardest place to be themselves is not at work, at school or in society. It is at home. Over the years…
Brain Health, Human Value and Economic Resilience: An Important Conversation
The launch of the Nature Medicine Commission on Brain Health for Economic Resilience is a welcome development. The growing recognition that brain health matters to…
The Social Mystery
Many discussions about friendships and belonging assume that everyone starts inside the room. The challenge, we are told, is building friendships, maintaining relationships, and staying…
Who Benefits From Neurodiversity?
I have been thinking a lot recently about the growing industry surrounding neurodiversity, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, Tourette’s and other minority neurotypes. Before I go any…
BOX365: Friendship, What Are We Actually Talking About?
(Extract from a yet to be published book “The Box365 – A year of different minds – same sky”) – January 30 “The Four” WhatsApp…
Friendship
Many of us grow up believing that friendship looks a certain way. Friends stay in regular contact.Friends remember birthdays.Friends reply quickly.Friends meet often.Friends share everything.…
The Future of Global Health Must Be Human
As World Health Assembly delegates gather in Geneva once again, I find myself reflecting on a different kind of global health question. Not only: How…
Neurominority Minds: The Early Warning Detection Organisations Often Ignore
Many neurominority people spend their lives being told they are: Yet in organisational systems, these same traits can function as something critically important… an early…
When Home Becomes the Place You Are Excluded From
Neurominority exclusion within family systems There is a particular kind of pain that many neurominority people carry that is rarely spoken about openly. We hear…
Let’s Talk About Small Talk
“We have a meeting. It starts at 09:00. Why are we talking about the weather at 09:07?” If you’ve ever sat there thinking this, you’re…
Launching the ION ND Parents Community
Most parenting advice is built on an invisible assumption: that the parent delivering it processes the world in a typical way. That they regulate emotion…
The Hidden Risks of “No Diagnosis”
For many adults, particularly those without obvious co-occurring conditions, the absence of a diagnosis creates a dangerous illusion: that nothing is different enough to matter.…
Diversity, Until It Comes Close to Power: When Openness Is Used Against Us
Across the world, more people are beginning to speak openly about how their minds work. Individuals of minority neurotypes such as dyslexia, autism, ADHD, Tourette…
Human Intelligence in the Age of AI
Why Embracing Neurodiversity May Hold the Key to Retaining the Human Advantage Burnout is rising, mental health is deteriorating, and trust in institutions is eroding.…
Embodied Cognition and Neurodiversity: Rethinking How Humans Think, Feel, and Function
We Were Taught the Mind Is Separate. It Isn’t. For a long time, we’ve treated thinking as something that happens purely in the brain clean,…
The Snow That Stayed Too Long
The snow arrived quietly. It did not fall in thick flakes or swirling storms. It came down at night, thin and deliberate, each piece settling…
Rethinking Difference: Inclusion Beyond the ‘Fix’
“Neurodivergent people aren’t the problem. They reveal the problem.” – Dr. Ludmila Praslova Inclusion efforts often start with the question: “How can we support neurodivergent…
Ageing Outside the Model: The Erasure of Neurominorities in Later Life
Neurodiversity conversations across the world are finally shifting from deficit to difference, from cure to inclusion, from childhood “intervention” to lifelong rights. And yet one…
Pioneering Neurodiversity in Financial Services: ION and GAIN’s Groundbreaking Submission to the GRI Sector Standards
The Institute of Neurodiversity, Canada (ION Canada) and the Group for Autism, Insurance, Investment and Neurodiversity (GAIN) have set a new benchmark in financial services…
2026: Thinking Differently, Together
If 2025 was the year neurodiversity gained visibility, let’s make 2026 the year we start seeing it differently. Not just as a diagnosis, but as a fundamental…
You Are Not Just a Parent. You Are Part of a Global Movement
From Lone Parent to Global Voice: Why Community Changes Everything Parenting a neurodivergent child can feel isolating. You are often forced into the role of…
When Research Gets Neurodiversity Wrong: Questions We Must Ask
As neurodiversity gains visibility across research, policy, education, and healthcare, the quality of the research shaping public understanding matters more than ever. Poorly framed studies…
From Eight Voices to a Global Movement: ION’s Journey 2020–2026
In 2020, the Institute of Neurodiversity (ION) began as a conversation between eight neurominority individuals at a time when the world itself was in flux. There was no brand, no funding and no roadmap — only a shared purpose and a clear belief that neurodiversity deserved to be understood, respected and embedded into society as a natural and valuable part of humanity.
From those early conversations, ION was shaped by principles that remain unchanged today: that lived experience must sit at the heart of everything we do, that inclusion must be systemic rather than symbolic, and that real change happens when communities are built with people, not for them.
Five years on, ION has grown into a global movement of over 40,000 members across more than 100 countries, with active chapters in 40+ nations. Supported by committed corporate partners and powered by hundreds of volunteers worldwide, ION continues to work across boardrooms, classrooms, policy spaces and grassroots communities to advance meaningful neuroinclusion.
What began as eight voices has become a global family — and this is only the beginning.
Standing Against GBV (Gender-Based Violence): A Neurodivergent Woman’s Perspective from the Global South
Being a woman in South Africa means navigating the uncertainties that impact our personal safety. It requires a constant awareness that stepping out alone at…
Neurodiversity and Celebration: When Joyful Moments Become Sensory Overload
Celebrations, whether family gatherings, national milestones, cultural events, or moments of global excitement, are often described as joyful, vibrant, and energising. They come with anticipation,…
ION, NEUROPOWER WORLD, AND SINGAPORE BRINGS NEURODESIGN TO THE FOREFRONT OF SINGAPORE’S URBAN PLANNING
Around the world, cities are becoming faster, denser, and more complex. Yet many of these environments still overlook one essential truth: human minds experience the…
Podcasts
World Autism Awareness Day, ION and United Nations Event 2023
Catch up on this year’s World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD). Watch four moderated panel discussions, as we explore the contributions autistic people from around the world make in their communities. Each panel discussion highlights the role autistic people play at home, at work, in the arts and in policymaking. Catch up now on the four panel sessions at UN TV.
'Take pride in who you are': Android developer shares with the UN
Introducing Aniket Kadam, an Android developer at 100ms in India. After being one of the panellists at the ION UN event to commemorate World Autism Awareness Day, UN News asked him to share his experiences as an autistic individual.
Neurodiversity – Shifting Paradigms in Mental Health Conference Sessions
Missed our third virtual conference Neurodiversity – Shifting Paradigms in Mental Health?
We are pleased to provide a link to all the sessions below.
