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Track 7
Difference is not a deficit to fix — change the environment first.
35–45 minutes · 6 lessons · Voluntary learning
Neurodiversity is how brains work. Cognitive difference is not a behavior plan waiting to happen.
A quiet body, a trained face, and “use your words” are how support becomes a smaller person.
Empty chairs are data. Map whose difference we manage, and whose words we skip.
Both frames exist. Using our comfort as the plan is how support becomes a smaller person.
A repeatable method: ask, match communication, change the room, teach only what they want, document, review.
Take this back to one person you already serve.
Bring one live work object into the application workspace. Name who it was built for, who may carry the burden, and one change or formal escalation.
Difference is not a deficit to fix. At the Minnesota Department of Human Services, neurodiversity is how brains actually work — not a behavior to train out of someone. If we measure success by eye contact, stillness, and looking ready, we did not support a person. We made them perform our comfort. This course is a staff guide: change the environment first. Ask how they communicate. Honor the words they choose for themselves. And stop treating compliance as the goal.
If we measure success by eye contact, stillness, and looking ready, we did not support a person. We made them perform our comfort.
Use this aid while applying Neurodiversity and Cognitive Difference to a live DHS work object.
Bring one live work object into the application workspace. Name who it was built for, who may carry the burden, and one change or formal escalation.
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
People, not programs. Evidence, not the staff course.
Person-centered principles and limits on coercive practices.
Respect, choice, and feeling safe as the floor.
Early intensive developmental and behavioral intervention. A chosen benefit, not a mandate to look typical.
Rights, dignity, and limits on coercive practices.
The reporting door.
Consultation is a government-to-government path, not a house-rule checkbox.