Kate Boot Neurodivergent Advocacy and Therapeutic Services

01/10/2025

Lately in my practice I’ve been struck again and again by how environments, not bodies, create the biggest barriers.

Whether it’s a child in school who only realises they’re overwhelmed once meltdown hits, or an adult forced into a busy work task without time to arrive and regulate. It isn’t their interoception that’s “failing.” It’s the systems that demand instant adaptability and punish difference.

From a neurodiversity paradigm perspective, interoception is simply one way that brains and bodies vary. But when schools, workplaces, and services don’t flex, those natural differences are made disabling.

And when we look through an intersectional lens, we see how these disabling environments stack with racism, classism, ableism, sexism, q***rphobia and more; intensifying exclusion for people who hold multiple marginalised identities.

Justice means shifting the focus: away from trying to “fix” people, and toward reshaping environments, expectations, and systems. Because thriving isn’t about overriding our needs, it’s about being in spaces that honour them.

✨ If you’re a teacher, employer, or clinician: pause and ask, what would it look like if the environment carried more of the load, so the person didn’t have to?

Would love to hear your answers 💜

28/09/2025

28/09/2025

Gestalt Language Processing Reframed: Monotropism, Interests & Connection

Helen Edgar from and I have been deep in planning mode for our GLP Conference session - and we’re so excited to share where our thinking has taken us!

We’re bringing together two big ideas:
✨ Gestalt Language Processing
✨ Monotropism - the theory that autistic minds focus deeply on a small number of interests at a time, shaping how attention and communication flow.

Monotropism isn’t new - it was developed by Dr Dinah Murray, Wenn Lawson and Mike Lesser in the 1990s and first published in 2005. It’s increasingly recognised in the autistic and neurodivergent community as a core part of understanding autism.

We’ll be sharing a visual that compares more traditional views of GLPs with a monotropism-informed, neurodiversity-affirming reframing - one that’s grounded in connection, interests, and how attention works in a monotropic mind.

We’d love to see you there, so come along and join us at the GLP Conference this October! Link to register is in my bio 💕

27/09/2025

Today I had the privilege of participating in some much needed research with ***routloud and 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

The project centres q***r experiences of sexual expression for people in the South West and it made me think hard about the intersections of AuDHD, q***rness, and disability, and how often our knowledge about our own lives is erased or mistrusted.

In therapy, this shows up as epistemic injustice:
❌ people being disbelieved when they share their needs
❌ people lacking language for their lived realities
❌ people being forced into deficit-based frameworks that don’t fit

For those of us navigating multiple intersecting identities, the weight of this injustice compounds. And yet, it’s in these spaces that some of the most powerful wisdom lives. I heard that today, sitting in community with some pretty awesome human beings ❤️

Whilst I felt seen and in community with these people, I was also acutely aware of both my own privileges and the role I hold as an SLT. This post explores what testimonial and hermeneutical injustice (Fricker, 2007) can look like when AuDHD, q***rness, and disability overlap and how therapists can start to dismantle these patterns in everyday practice.

Because neurodiversity-affirming practice isn’t just clinical technique, it’s Disability Justice, it’s social justice, it can create epistemic justice for folks living at the sharpest intersections.

✨ I’d love to hear: where have you noticed epistemic injustice showing up in your practice or community?

Huge thanks to everyone involved today and to the research project team for inviting me to facilitate a focus group and take part in the research.

K 💜

***r

24/09/2025

Ipseity is a beautiful word. It’s the quality of being oneself and embracing individuality, of what makes us unique.

It’s a word you can find in the Monotropic words e-book Flappy Inky Feathers, Autistic Realms, and I created at the start of this year.

The book continues:

“The only person who can be you is you. Nobody else can be better at being you than you!
Embracing our uniqueness is a powerful political act for Autistic people. It’s a rejection of traditional narratives about Autism which fail to capture the beauty of our experiences; this includes monotropism.”

Life would be incredibly dull if everyone was a carbon copy of their neighbours. We need infinite variety in infinite combinations. This is how we grow as a species. Our brains have endless natural variations. This is a Good Thing.

The way we experience the world can be beautiful. The small details, the joy in sensory experiences, the wonderful expressions of empathy, the bliss we feel in a monotropic flow state. Our lives and our experiences have intrinsic value just as we are.

23/09/2025

FREE WEBINAR: MONDAY 29TH SEPT 7-8PM

I've spent the last 12 hours or thinking what I might be able to do to put some positivity out into the world given everything that is happening.

This is one way... I'd like to invite you to attend a free webinar where we will explore Nurturing Self-esteem in Autistic Young People.

Monday 29th September 7-8pm, recorded for those who can’t attend in person (I won’t record the Q&A bit at the end though)

Book on here for free: https://www.gr0ve.org/online-groups/

I don't have time to make a new webpage for this - sorry - scroll down and you'll see it listed to book for free at the bottom - I'll send the link out on Monday.

22/09/2025

I’ve been thinking about scripting a lot lately, I even had a conversation about it today with another therapist. Over the past year I’ve leaned into it and noticed how quietly powerful it is for me. As an AuDHD clinician, scripting feels like pre-paying cognitive work: protecting spoons, reducing masking, and giving my impulsive brain a pause that centres other people’s safety.

I’m also working with several autistic adults who are experiencing really poor mental health right now. For some of them, the default expectation to communicate primarily through spoken language comes at a huge cost to wellbeing. Often I find myself wondering: is this another piece in the accumulation of stressors they’ve experienced? I suspect so.

That assumption, that mouth-produced speech must be the “primary” or “truest” form of communication, is a product of neuronormativity. It links to what Miranda Fricker (2007) called epistemic injustice: when certain ways of knowing or communicating are treated as less credible. Asking people to translate themselves into neurotypical norms places additional labour on them, contributes to isolation, and worsens mental health. That’s precisely why choice in how we communicate matters.

For me, scripting is both practical and political: a small refusal of systems that demand instant answers and unpaid emotional labour. I’ve been talking with other neurodivergent therapists who are discovering how a small set of ready phrases can change day-to-day life, too.

I want to be clear: scripting isn’t a one-size-fits-all fix. Intersectional identity, access and privilege shape how people experience language, so these are options, not prescriptions. If something here doesn’t fit your context, tweak it, reject it, or ignore it, it has to be about your safety first.

If you have found anything resonates, or helpful, I’d love to hear in the comments 💜

19/09/2025

19/09/2025

Why the gold infinity symbols?

The rainbow infinity symbol represents neurodiversity, and the gold infinity symbol is for autism.

Rainbow colours have come to symbolise diversity and acceptance through the LGBTQIA+ movement, so it makes sense that they would be chosen to promote neurodiversity too.

The infinity sign stands for eternity, harmony, balance, interconnectedness, inclusivity and limitless possibilities.

Combining the two feels like a powerful representation of the infinite and beautiful variation in human brains and nervous systems, and something to be embraced and accepted. Neurodiversity is natural and crucial to humanity's existence.

The rainbow infinity symbol's first recorded usage was Autistic Pride Day on June 18th, 2005. Autistic UK subsequently took the sign and turned it gold, a colour which was already being used to represent autism because Au is the symbol for gold in the periodic table.