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Inclusively Empowered: My Journey Toward Neurodiversity

Writer's picture: Aieshea BanksAieshea Banks

Hey there! So glad you're here!


Welcome to Inclusively Empowered Communication's Blog! I wanted to share a bit of my journey with you. I have been a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) for over 20 years. Since my clinical internships in graduate school, I have worked primarily with youth and adolescents who were on the autism spectrum or who had developmental disabilities. Although I worked with a wide variety of clients, the experiences of pre-adolescents and adolescents with low support needs always intrigued me. They were fun to work with. They had adequate communication skills in some areas but struggled to relate to others. I really enjoyed working with them to improve their connections with others. Our activities were engaging, relational, and focused on connecting. I loved what I did.


As I continued to work with the children over the years, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen to the them when they graduated from high school when their support decreased significantly. Their challenges looked minimal, but the impact on their lives was much greater. I also learned that autistic adults had greater difficulty with employment, finishing college, and maintaining adult relationships than other adults with comparative intellectual abilities at all levels.


I entered the Rehabilitation Science Ph.D. program at Loma Linda University in the Fall of 2016. I wanted my research to focus on providing a voice to autistic adults in academic literature so professionals could understand their needs. I wanted to learn from their lived experience to understand how to provide more effective support to autistic youth. My research focused on how autistic young adults perceived their social communication (Click here to read my published research article).


While interviewing my participants, I was moved by their level of openness and quite shocked by their experiences. Although they were thriving adults, they had received very little support for their challenges and quite a bit of messaging about their need to change who they were to be more "normal". They shared how they often felt the need to hide pieces of themselves (called "masking") to feel accepted. I related to this on a personal level, but I couldn't understand why. Listening to their stories inspired me because of their tenacity... but saddened me because their level of trauma was much greater than I had imagined. I believed that professionals and other supporters were failing them, even though they had good intentions, and we needed to do something differently.


While writing my dissertation in 2021, I learned about Neurodiversity. I took a deep dive into the subject and fell in love with its principles. Neurodiversity acknowledges people's differences as a part of their unique brain development, it asserts that people should be respected and accepted unapologetik-ly (purposefully spelled uniquely) for who they are. It discussed how support should look to empower and not make people feel the need to be someone or something else. This philosophy was very different from my training as an SLP where I had been taught to find the problem and correct it. Neurodiversity said to find strengths and build on them to help with the challenges.


Learning about neurodiversity was right on time for me personally. My son has had attentional differences (ADHD-Inattentive type) and they were impacting his learning. Additionally, I had a history of feeling socially awkward at times, feeling like I had to work harder than others to maintain an image of having it together, and I suffered from "high-functioning" anxiety and depression. In my quest to support him (and myself), I adopted a growth mindset approach to empower instead of looking for problems to fix. The principles I learned of Neurodiversity fit in perfectly. I could use them professionally with my clients, and personally with my son, to support how their brains process information, find their strengths, find meaningful strategies to support their challenges, and ultimately empower who they were as individuals.


My son's ADHD was not hyperactive; he did not fit my understanding of ADHD. So I began to research Inattentive ADD to understand his needs better. As I gained a better understanding of ADHD, I related to several symptoms. I began to suspect that I had ADHD. In April 2023, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD-Mixed type (I have aspects of both inattentiveness and hyperactivity). When I received my diagnosis, so much of my life's experience made sense. I now understood many of my internal challenges. This was the moment I realized why I related to my research participants when they shared about their internal challenges and the need to modify themselves to be fully accepted.


Understanding neurodiversity changed my life professionally and personally. It changed my perspective toward self-acceptance, self-compassion, and what support should look like. It helped me to embrace my challenges, embrace my son's challenges, and support other people from a holistic perspective. I thought I did it before I learned about neurodiversity. However, learning about neurodiversity helped me to see and work to deconstruct my ableist views. Embracing a neurodiversity mindset is a journey that doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lot of deep thinking to challenge what we have been taught about what's "normal". As I continue to learn and embrace more, I strive to bring others along.


I no longer provide direct clinical support to clients in my role as an SLP. I am now a professor and I have the responsibility of teaching future SLPs how to be compassionate and ethical professionals. Supervising graduate students who work with autistic clients, teaching a graduate course in Counseling in Speech-Language Pathology, and teaching a doctoral-level course in Neurodiversity are among some of my roles in the department.


I understand the impact of applying the principles of neurodiversity personally and professionally. I have seen people, including myself, feel empowered and proud of themselves, despite their challenges, because they have learned to accept themselves.


Inclusively Empowered Communication, LLC (IEC) was developed out of my passion for empowering people to be brave enough to love and honor all parts of themselves. With my personal and professional background, I wanted to share the neurodiversity framework with others because I truly believe that it will lead to better outcomes, personally and professionally, for everyone involved.


Click for a resource sheet on Understanding Neurodiversity.



IEC offers educational workshops and consultation services to organizations that include educational settings, small and large workplace settings, and parent training (however, this is not an exhaustive list). If you'd like information on receiving services for your company, contact us at Info@InclusivelyEmpowered.com.



Stay Empowered,


Aieshea Banks, PhD, CCC-SLP

Owner | Educational Consultant

Speech-Language Pathologist


A Black woman sitting on the steps with a t-shirt on that reads "Me. Unapologetik".
Accepting and Empow Neurodivergence Unapologetik-ly.
















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2 Comments


lakieta
Mar 23, 2024

I love how personal this journey has become for you. This feels like soul work to me! Excited to see it and support it!

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Aieshea Banks
Aieshea Banks
Mar 23, 2024
Replying to

Thank you Dr. Elle ☺️ I hope that this work serves its purpose, to uplift and empower as many neurodivergent people, and their support systems, as I can. ❤️

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