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Neurodivergence is the term for when someone's brain processes,

learns, and/or behaves differently from what is considered
"typical".

Adhd
autism
 The social model of disability says that people are
disabled by barriers in society and there’s not
anything inherently wrong with them
succesful useful
Students are not motivated
• Micro results
• consequences -> Easily get overwhelmed
• Lots of positive praise
• Zero critique
• rewards don’t really work

• interest-based nervous system vs importance-based nervous system

• Adding humor or irony
• Wearing a strange hat or accessory that sparks curiosity
• Providing a hook to each task in the form of a story, game, or question gets students excited to figure out a problem
• Adding a popular character to a worksheet
• Gamifying lessons with technology 
• Race the clock, level up, and “beat your best record” are very motivating and engaging strategies.
• Use quick quizzes to create excitement and active involvement
Students get distracted
No long videos or texts (without extra support)
No long tasks without interacting
If group lessons, no one by one exercises
Discuss what distracts them (use it as speaking)
Let them choose activity (for kids)
Use a pointer while talking
Novelty
they are under stimulated (stimming)
Students easily get bored
• Find out their hyperfocuses (relative topics)
• Let them choose the activities
• Creative tasks
• TBL
• Interaction
Students can’t stay still
• Stimming toys
• Plan tasks than involve moving their body
• Normalize moving and stretching
Students don’t understand instructions
• Always write them
• Step by step
• CCQs
• Individual CCQs for students who are lost
• leave them somewhere so students can reread them anytime
Students don’t follow deadlines
• Too pressured
• Time perception
• Don’t punish them
• Rewards don’t work – the task must be useful or entertaining
• Deadline one day early
• Breaking apart small classroom tasks with time-bound check-ins and
urgent deadlines
Students don’t do homework at all
• Discuss it together/start doing together
• Eliminate
Students always forget the material
• Personalizing words
• Emergent vocabulary file – visualizing, mid maps, memes.
connections (with people in the group)
• Assign words to people and then they need to share
(Made them write stickers and stick it to laptop (see it all the time!!)
• Revision as a warm-up
• Teaching each other (explaining rules and words)
• TBL
Students talk too fast and make mistakes
• Often not the “English” problem
• Fluency over accuracy
• 3-2-1
• Listening to themselves
Students can’t get their words together
• Often it’s not the “English” problem – thoughts are too fast
3-2-1
Students are bad at listening
• Often not the “English” problem
• Subtitles are okay
• During listening activities
• Divide audio into smaller parts
• Video > audio (visual aid)
• Draw when listening, associations, key words
• Songs are awful
Students don’t understand me/conversations
• Avoid figurative language
• Discuss emotions and sub-text based on the language and not
intonation
• Explain metaphors and social-cultural context
Students are bad at communicating between
each other
• Not the “English” issua
• Plan and rehears the conversation
• Look at examples and discuss what makes them succesful
Students have meltdowns
• Sensory overload (discuss with parents or the student)
• Bright light, loud noises, too much going on at the same time
• Let them regulate, discuss before what to do in this case, let them
leave the meeting (write parents)
Students use not acceptable language or ask
inappropriate questions
• Don’t judge they’re just curious
• Talk about this with parents
• Set boundaries with adults
Some more tips
• Don’t be spontaneous (sudden plan change can lead to a meltdown)
• A lot of positive encouragement
• Games
• Projects
• Less individual work, more interactions
• chaotic in organization but not at the lesson
• recognize patterns even better
Bye bye
• What is the difference between good lesson for a neurotypical and
neurodivergent student?
• Is teaching for neurodivergent students for everyone?