Inclusion @ Mac.Rob | Neurodiversity Week Talk 2025

“...We [should] focus on the strengths of neurodivergent people, not just the deficits.”

Dr. Jessica Riordan.

These wise words, spoken by Dr. Jessica Riordan reflect the attitudes and qualities that we can all adopt when moving towards a more neuro-inclusive future. For this reason, Mac.Rob’s Inclusion Committee decided to host an external speaker event to engage the school community. It was amazing to see over 70 students and staff members have the privilege of listening to Dr. Riordan present her inspiring neurodiversity seminar in-person at our school’s theatre on March 19th, 2025. It also warmed our hearts to see that, at time of writing, over 160 people have made the effort to view the livestream even though they couldn’t be there in person. If you are interested, we highly recommend you to view the recording on Mac.Rob’s YouTube channel here.

Dr. Riordan is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a co-founder of the University of Melbourne Neurodiversity Project, a groundbreaking project which aims to improve the experiences of all neurodivergent staff and students through neurodiversity-affirming education, community-building, and research. This incredible initiative has taken her worldwide to share her findings, and we were incredibly fortunate to be able to welcome her to Mac.Rob too!

During the seminar, Dr. Riordan explained that the term neurodivergent refers to people who aren’t what is considered ‘neurotypical’ (meaning those who do not conform to societal norms). Whilst neurodivergence is often surrounded with misconceptions that frame these experiences as disorders that are inherently negative, recently, with the work of passionate academics like Jess, more neurodiversity affirming research and practises have arisen within our community.

Thanks to Mr. Jach and Ms. Valucava for creating the Neurodiversity Celebration Week Library display of books and posters!

Upcoming research has come to support the idea that neurodivergence is a different way of thinking, meaning it comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. It was very interesting to hear Jess explain how people usually tend to focus on the negative aspects and ignore the positives. These discussions encouraged everyone to challenge our pre-existing biases and taught us so many things. For example, whilst many people and diagnostic criteria including the DSM5 believe that Autistic people are bad at socialising, studies have found that communication between 2 Autistic people flows just as well as conversations between 2 neurotypical people, and in conversations between Autistic and neurotypical individuals, both were perceived to be poor communicators. For more information on this fascinating phenomenon, we highly recommend you check out the Double Empathy Problem.

Hearing her journey about figuring out what being neurodivergent meant to her, how she supported her kids who were also neurodivergent, and what has inspired her work, were some of our favourite parts to hear about. We are sure many in the crowd also felt this way, and we hope they feel more open to seeking support if they are also part of the neurodivergent community.

Overall, this talk was an amazing way to spend our lunchtime, and meet people who wanted to learn like us. To everyone in the Neurodivergent community, your experiences are valid, you are valid, and together we hope to create a world that better supports you.

Flora L, Dinali J and Antara A | Inclusion At Mac.Rob (IAM) Committee Members

Presentation images by Lixi Li, Pallas Photographer.