At the Hamilton Food Cupboard this spring, students teamed up with neurodivergent community members to unpack boxes, stock shelves, and arrange dinner bags for families. Their project was part of Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences Regina Conti’s Neurodiversity and Community Inclusion course, designed to build meaningful connections between students and neurodivergent community members.
“Very often, people who have developmental disabilities are the recipients of help or support,” says Adele Johnson ’27, a psychology major who helped design the Hamilton Food Cupboard project. “But our project provided a nice opportunity for them to be in the reverse role, of the person who’s providing support.”
Over the past four years, Conti has offered this course, distinguished for its blend of academic and experiential learning.
Prior to their projects, Conti’s students review the literature on neurodiversity and inclusion, familiarizing themselves with neurodiverse history and strategies for supporting a sense of belonging. The term neurodivergent refers to a set of identities and diagnoses (including autism spectrum disorder) that differ from what is considered typical neurological behavior, while neurotypical describes those without these neurocognitive differences.
“Over time, the emphasis has shifted from just physical inclusion — living or having access to spaces that include non-disabled community members — to actually feeling a sense of belonging in those spaces and having meaningful relationships with the people who inhabit them,” says Conti. The first phase of her course examines the psychological and social experience of disability, particularly for individuals with autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions.
Once versed in this context, students then work in small teams to design and implement programs at local partner sites. This year’s course consisted of 15 students who designed programs at five other locations: the Hamilton Public Library, the Hamilton Center for the Arts, the Palace Theater, Village Clay, and the Community Wellness Center.
These projects took varying forms: participants at Village Clay made custom tic-tac-toe boards based on their interests, such as clay sticks and pucks for hockey. At the Palace Theater, they learned how to play several instruments (including the guitar, xylophone, and drums) and wrote a song together.
Following each program, participants were interviewed by students running other groups to gauge satisfaction and feelings of inclusion.
Conti has been parsing through this data and has incorporated her students’ findings into her greater research as a social psychologist. An article she wrote based on this data — and its promises for neurodiverse inclusion — was recently accepted as part of a special issue of the Journal of Social Issues. The piece focused on intersectional approaches to understanding neurodiversity.
“Something that I’ve been interested in doing from the beginning is trying to get an idea of how these programs enhance experiences of social inclusion within organizations in this region,” she says. “Altogether, participants seem to appreciate the opportunity to bond with a group, develop their special interests, and feel the pride that comes with completing a project.”