Community Guide to Neurodiversity Justice in Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery

From Bridgette Hamstead and Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism

Table of Contents

Front Matter
Author’s Note
How to Use This Guide
Framework and Language Commitments

Introduction
Disasters Do Not Create Inequity. They Expose It.

Part I: Foundations of Neurodiversity Justice in Disaster Contexts

Section 1
What Neurodiversity Justice Means in a Disaster Context

Section 2
Who Is Included When We Say Neurodivergent

Section 3
Why Disabled and Neurodivergent People Experience Disproportionate Disaster Harm

Section 4
From “Special Needs” to Structural Access

Section 5
Lived Experience as Expertise, Not Anecdote

Part II: Community Power, Labor, and Infrastructure

Section 6
Paying Neurodivergent Expertise

Section 7
Partnering With Neurodivergent-Led and Disability-Led Organizations

Section 8
Mutual Aid, Informal Networks, and Survival Infrastructure

Part III: Preparedness Systems

Section 9
Risk Communication That Does Not Collapse Under Stress

Section 10
Plain Language, Cognitive Accessibility, and Information Design

Section 11
Preparedness Without Individual Blame

Section 12
Voluntary Registries, Privacy, and Trust

Section 13
Preparing for Medication, Routine, and Support Disruption

Part IV: Built Environments and Physical Access

Section 14
Sensory Environments as Safety Infrastructure

Section 15
Shelter Design That Does Not Require Masking

Section 16
Decompression, Regulation, and Non-Punitive Space

Section 17
Accessibility for Neurodivergent Families, Elders, and Care Networks

Part V: Response Operations

Section 18
Field Response Without Escalation or Criminalization

Section 19
Communication Access During Active Response

Section 20
Intake, Triage, and Executive Function Barriers

Section 21
Protecting Neurodivergent Responders and Volunteers

Part VI: Aid, Relief, and Stabilization

Section 22
Accessing Emergency Aid Without Administrative Harm

Section 23
Medication Continuity and Assistive Supports as Stabilization Infrastructure

Section 24
Food, Sleep, and Regulation Needs

Part VII: Recovery and Long-Term Stability

Section 25
Housing, Displacement, and Neurodivergent Risk

Section 26
Case Management That People Can Actually Use

Section 27
Preventing Institutionalization and Forced Segregation

Section 28
Trauma, Grief, and Non-Coercive Mental Health Support

Part VIII: Agency Infrastructure and Accountability

Section 29
Embedding Neurodiversity Justice Into Policy and Governance

Section 30
Procurement, Contracting, and Vendor Accountability

Section 31
Data, Metrics, and Ethical Evaluation

Section 32
Training That Changes Behavior, Not Just Awareness

Section 33
Leadership, Culture, and Decision-Making Under Pressure

Section 34
Legal Frameworks, Rights Protection, and Emergency Powers

Section 35
Community Accountability, Repair, and Redress

Conclusion

Section 36
From Compliance to Care, From Inclusion to Justice

End Matter

Appendix A: Core Neurodiversity Justice Principles for Disaster Systems
Appendix B: Common Neurodivergent Access Failures Observed After Disasters
Appendix C: Questions Agencies Should Ask Before the Next Disaster
Appendix D: Recommended Uses of This Guide Across Agency Functions
Appendix E: A Note on Language and FrameworkFront Matter

Community Guide to Neurodiversity Justice in Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery

Author
Bridgette Hamstead, MS
Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism
Neurodiversity Coalition of America

About This Guide
This community guide was developed to address a persistent and well-documented reality: disaster systems routinely fail neurodivergent and disabled people, not because our minds or bodies are fragile, but because emergency infrastructures are designed around narrow assumptions about cognition, communication, behavior, and compliance. Autistic people, ADHD people, intellectually disabled people, learning-disabled people, brain-injured people, and psychiatrically disabled people experience disproportionate harm during disasters due to environmental mismatch, administrative burden, sensory overload, criminalization of distress, and exclusion from decision-making.

Globally, disabled people are two to four times more likely to die in disasters than nondisabled people, and are consistently less likely to receive warnings, evacuate safely, access shelters, or obtain recovery aid. Large-scale surveys conducted by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction have found that more than 80 percent of disabled respondents lack a personal preparedness plan, not because of individual failure, but because systems are inaccessible, under-resourced, and built without us. In the United States, more than one in four adults is disabled, approximately 3 percent of children are autistic, and over 6 percent of adults have an ADHD diagnosis, meaning neurodivergent people are present in every community, every workforce, and every disaster zone.

This guide treats those facts as design imperatives, not footnotes.

Community Accountability Statement

This guide is grounded in the neurodiversity justice framework and the social model of disability. It rejects deficit-based, charity-based, and compliance-based approaches to disaster planning. It affirms that neurodivergent people are experts in our own lives and that lived experience is a valid and necessary form of knowledge alongside technical and professional expertise.

The recommendations in this guide are informed by disability justice scholarship, disaster risk reduction research, public health data, and the collective knowledge of neurodivergent communities who have survived hurricanes, wildfires, floods, heat waves, pandemics, displacement, institutionalization, and systemic abandonment. This work is accountable to those communities, not to institutional comfort or reputational risk.

This guide does not aim to make neurodivergent people easier to manage during disasters. It aims to make disaster systems safer, more humane, and more just.

How to Use This Guide

This is not a checklist, a compliance document, or a public relations tool. It is a community guide intended for agencies, municipalities, emergency managers, public health departments, nonprofit organizations, mutual aid networks, and coalitions that are willing to interrogate how harm is produced and sustained during disasters.

Each section can be read independently, but the guide is designed to be read sequentially. Later sections build on earlier conceptual foundations. Reflection prompts are included throughout to support internal discussion, training, and planning. Agencies are encouraged to use this guide alongside community partners, not in isolation.

This guide assumes that meaningful change requires structural redesign, not one-time trainings or awareness campaigns.

Language Commitments and Framework

This guide uses identity-first language and recognizes disability and neurodivergence as integral aspects of identity, culture, and community. It uses the term neurodivergentto refer to people whose cognitive functioning diverges from dominant norms, including but not limited to autistic people and ADHD people.

The guide is rooted in the social model of disability, which understands disability as arising from barriers in environments, systems, and attitudes rather than from individual deficits. It is further informed by disability justice principles, which emphasize intersectionality, collective liberation, leadership of those most impacted, and the right to dignity and autonomy.

Terms such as “special needs,” “high functioning,” “low functioning,” “behavior problems,” and “noncompliance” are avoided, as they obscure systemic responsibility and contribute to harm.

Who This Guide Is For

This guide is for people and institutions responsible for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery who recognize that existing systems are insufficient and are willing to redesign them. It is for planners, responders, administrators, policymakers, advocates, and organizers who want to reduce harm rather than manage it.

It is also for neurodivergent community members seeking language, evidence, and frameworks to advocate for safer disaster systems.

Who This Guide Is Not For

This guide is not for organizations seeking to check a box, secure funding without accountability, or extract disability narratives without sharing power. It is not intended to provide cover for systems that continue to criminalize, segregate, or abandon neurodivergent people during emergencies.

A Note on Evidence and Lived Experience

Throughout this guide, research findings, population data, and global statistics are used to illustrate scale and pattern. Lived experience is treated as equally authoritative, particularly where formal data is absent due to historical exclusion of disabled people from research and planning processes. Both are necessary to understand how disasters actually unfold for neurodivergent communities.

Introduction

Disasters do not create inequity. They expose it.

Every disaster reveals the same pattern. Systems built for speed, verbal processing, sensory tolerance, and compliance collapse first for the people they were never designed to hold. Autistic people, ADHD people, intellectually disabled people, learning-disabled people, brain-injured people, and psychiatrically disabled people are not disproportionately harmed by disasters because we are inherently vulnerable. We are harmed because disaster systems assume a narrow version of how humans think, communicate, regulate, and survive under stress.

Research across disaster risk reduction, public health, and disability studies consistently shows that disabled people experience higher mortality, higher injury rates, longer displacement, and poorer recovery outcomes following disasters. Global analyses estimate that disabled people are between two and four times more likely to die in disasters than nondisabled people. Large-scale international surveys repeatedly find that the majority of disabled respondents do not receive accessible warnings, cannot evacuate safely, and are excluded from preparedness planning. In the United States, where more than one in four adults is disabled and millions of children and adults are autistic or ADHD, this is not a marginal issue. It is a design failure affecting a substantial portion of the population.

Disasters intensify every barrier that already exists. Information becomes faster, louder, and more fragmented. Environments become crowded, unpredictable, and sensory-hostile. Administrative systems demand rapid decision-making, documentation, phone calls, and repeated self-advocacy at the exact moment executive function is most compromised. Distress is misread as defiance. Shutdown is misread as refusal. Stimming, dissociation, and withdrawal are treated as behavioral problems rather than survival responses. These dynamics are not accidental. They are the predictable outcomes of systems that prioritize control over care and efficiency over access.

Traditional disaster planning has responded to this reality by creating categories like “special needs,” “vulnerable populations,” or “high-risk individuals.” Those labels do not reduce harm. They obscure responsibility. They position neurodivergent people as exceptions to be managed rather than as community members whose access needs should shape the system from the start. When disaster access is framed as charity instead of infrastructure, inclusion becomes optional and failure becomes routine.

This guide takes a different approach.

Grounded in the social model of disability and a neurodiversity justice framework, this guide understands disaster harm as a systems problem. Neurodivergent people are disabled by inaccessible communication, sensory-hostile shelters, punitive response protocols, and bureaucratic recovery systems. When those barriers are removed, capacity increases. Survival increases. Dignity increases. Systems that work for neurodivergent people work better for everyone under crisis conditions.

Neurodivergent people are not only disaster survivors. We are also planners, responders, caregivers, parents, elders, volunteers, mutual aid organizers, healthcare workers, emergency managers, and public servants. Many disaster systems quietly rely on neurodivergent labor while simultaneously designing policies that exclude neurodivergent access. Any serious approach to preparedness, response, and recovery must account for this reality.

This guide was written to support agencies and communities willing to move beyond awareness toward structural change. It does not offer quick fixes or universal solutions. It offers a framework for understanding how harm is produced and how it can be prevented through intentional design. It centers lived experience as expertise, treats access as infrastructure, and insists that disaster justice and disability justice are inseparable.

Disasters are moments of collective truth. They show us whose lives are prioritized, whose distress is tolerated, and whose survival is negotiable. This guide exists to make neurodivergent survival non-negotiable.

Section 1

What Neurodiversity Justice Means in a Disaster Context

Neurodiversity justice in a disaster context begins with a clear refusal of the idea that harm is inevitable. When autistic people, ADHD people, intellectually disabled people, learning-disabled people, brain-injured people, and psychiatrically disabled people experience disproportionate injury, death, displacement, or institutionalization during disasters, this is not an unfortunate side effect of crisis. It is the foreseeable outcome of systems designed without us in mind.

Neurodiversity justice recognizes neurodivergence as a natural and expected part of human variation. In the United States alone, more than 28 percent of adults are disabled, approximately 3 percent of children are autistic, and over 6 percent of adults have an ADHD diagnosis. These are not edge cases. They represent millions of people who live, work, care for others, and participate in every community that disaster systems are meant to serve. A system that cannot hold this reality is not under strain. It is under-designed.

In disaster work, neurodiversity justice rejects three dominant assumptions. The first is that disability is primarily an individual vulnerability rather than a systems mismatch. The second is that access can be layered on after plans are made. The third is that efficiency and control must come at the expense of autonomy, dignity, and consent. These assumptions shape evacuation protocols, shelter rules, communication strategies, law enforcement responses, and recovery eligibility systems. They also predict who will be harmed.

A neurodiversity justice framework shifts the question from “How do we manage neurodivergent people during disasters?” to “How are disaster systems disabling people, and how do we redesign them?” This shift matters because disaster conditions magnify environmental barriers. Cognitive load increases while processing capacity decreases. Sensory input intensifies while regulation resources shrink. Routines collapse. Medication access is disrupted. Support networks fracture. Systems that require rapid verbal comprehension, eye contact, standing in line, completing complex forms, or complying instantly with instructions are not neutral. They actively exclude.

Conventional disaster planning often responds to this exclusion by creating separate tracks: special shelters, special registries, special protocols. Neurodiversity justice interrogates why separation is treated as the solution instead of redesign. Segregation does not inherently increase safety. In many cases, it increases isolation, surveillance, and loss of autonomy. Disability justice scholarship has long documented that segregated systems are more likely to produce abuse, neglect, and rights violations, particularly under crisis conditions.

Neurodiversity justice also insists on leadership by those most impacted. Disaster systems frequently consult neurodivergent people after failures occur, if at all. Input is gathered without power-sharing, compensation, or long-term commitment. This reproduces harm while claiming inclusion. Justice-oriented disaster work requires neurodivergent people to hold real authority in planning, implementation, evaluation, and revision. Lived experience is not supplemental data. It is core infrastructure.

Importantly, neurodiversity justice does not frame access as a tradeoff against speed or safety. Evidence from disaster risk reduction consistently shows that inclusive systems are more resilient overall. Clear communication benefits everyone under stress. Predictable environments reduce panic and conflict. Simplified intake processes increase throughput. De-escalation reduces injury to both civilians and responders. Designing for the most overwhelmed person strengthens the system for all.

Finally, neurodiversity justice understands disasters as political events. Decisions about who receives warnings, who evacuates first, whose medications are prioritized, whose behavior is tolerated, and whose housing is restored are not value-neutral. They reflect societal beliefs about whose lives are worth protecting. A justice framework makes those beliefs visible and contestable.

In this guide, neurodiversity justice functions as both an analytic lens and a design mandate. It asks agencies and communities to identify where harm is structurally produced and to commit to redesigning disaster systems so neurodivergent people can survive without masking, pleading, or disappearing.

Reflection prompts

What assumptions about communication, behavior, and compliance are built into our disaster plans?

Where have we treated segregation or exception-making as a substitute for redesign?

Who currently holds power over disaster decisions, and who bears the consequences of those decisions?

Section 2

The Social Model of Disability Under Crisis Conditions

The social model of disability holds that people are disabled not by their bodies or minds, but by environments, systems, and social expectations that fail to accommodate human variation. In everyday life, this mismatch already shapes access to housing, healthcare, education, employment, and public space. During disasters, that mismatch intensifies rapidly and visibly. What is usually survivable friction becomes acute harm.

Crisis conditions fundamentally alter how cognition, regulation, and communication function for everyone. Research across disaster psychology and public health shows that stress, sleep deprivation, threat perception, and displacement significantly reduce working memory, processing speed, emotional regulation, and decision-making capacity. These effects are universal, but they are not evenly distributed. Neurodivergent people, whose baseline functioning already depends on predictability, sensory regulation, routine, and adequate support, experience a sharper drop-off when those stabilizers disappear.

This is where the social model becomes unmistakable. Disaster systems tend to demand more precisely when capacity is lowest. Alerts become frequent, urgent, and contradictory. Instructions are delivered verbally, rapidly, and without visual reinforcement. Shelters require tolerance of noise, light, crowding, physical proximity, and constant surveillance. Aid systems require complex sequencing, documentation, repeated phone calls, and strict deadlines. None of these demands are neutral. They actively disable people whose cognition and regulation are already taxed.

Autistic shutdown, ADHD paralysis, dissociation, and sensory overload are often treated as individual failures to cope. Under the social model, they are understood as rational responses to overwhelming environments. Studies on autistic stress responses show significantly heightened physiological arousal in chaotic sensory conditions, while ADHD research consistently demonstrates that executive function degrades sharply under stress and uncertainty. When disaster environments amplify noise, unpredictability, and cognitive load, they are creating disability in real time.

Crisis also strips away compensatory strategies that neurodivergent people rely on to function in a neurotypical world. Routines disappear. Support people are separated. Medications are lost or delayed. Assistive technology runs out of power. Familiar spaces are destroyed. Communication preferences are ignored. What remains is a system that expects adaptability while removing every tool that makes adaptation possible.

Traditional disaster narratives often interpret this as evidence that neurodivergent people are inherently dependent or fragile. The social model offers a different reading. It shows that disaster systems are brittle. They rely on people being able to self-regulate in hostile conditions, self-advocate through complex bureaucracy, and comply immediately with authority. When those assumptions fail, the system labels people as problems rather than examining its own design.

Importantly, the social model also explains why individual preparedness messaging consistently falls short. Large-scale surveys show that disabled people are far less likely to have evacuation plans, emergency supplies, or continuity arrangements. This is often framed as a failure of personal responsibility. Under the social model, it is a predictable outcome of poverty, housing insecurity, inaccessible information, lack of transportation, and exclusion from planning processes. You cannot prepare for a disaster you are not included in planning for.

Under crisis conditions, disability is produced through speed, noise, rigidity, and punishment. It is produced when distress is criminalized, when support is conditional on compliance, and when access requires performance of calmness and coherence. It is produced when systems treat deviation from the norm as a threat rather than a signal of unmet needs.

The social model under crisis conditions also clarifies why segregation and “special solutions” fail. When systems are not redesigned, separate tracks often replicate the same barriers with fewer resources and greater control. Crisis amplifies the risks of neglect, coercion, and isolation in segregated settings, particularly for people who cannot easily communicate harm or refuse treatment.

Understanding disability through the social model during disasters forces a different set of questions. Instead of asking whether neurodivergent people can cope, agencies must ask whether their systems are tolerable. Instead of asking how to control behavior, responders must ask how to reduce overload. Instead of asking who is vulnerable, planners must ask which design choices create vulnerability.

This guide builds on that understanding. Every section that follows traces a specific point where disaster systems produce disability and outlines how those systems can be redesigned to reduce harm. The goal is not resilience as endurance. It is resilience as redesign.

Reflection prompts

Where do our disaster systems increase speed, noise, and rigidity at the exact moment capacity is lowest?

Which supports do people lose first during disasters, and how could systems compensate for that loss?

How often do we interpret distress as a personal problem instead of a signal that the environment is failing?

Section 3

Why “Special Needs” Framing Causes Harm

The language disaster systems use to describe people is not neutral. Terms like “special needs,” “vulnerable populations,” and “high-risk individuals” are often intended to signal concern, but in practice they distort responsibility and justify harmful design choices. In disaster contexts, these frames consistently shift attention away from system failures and onto individuals, positioning neurodivergent and disabled people as problems to be managed rather than as community members whose access needs should shape the system itself.

“Special needs” framing assumes a default, able-bodied, neurotypical user for whom disaster systems are designed, with everyone else treated as an exception. This creates a two-tier system: a primary pathway built for speed and efficiency, and secondary pathways that are under-resourced, optional, and activated only after harm occurs. Research in disaster risk reduction and disability studies shows that when access is treated as an add-on rather than a baseline, disabled people are less likely to receive timely warnings, less likely to evacuate safely, and more likely to be excluded from shelters and recovery assistance. The problem is not that needs are special. The problem is that systems are narrow.

Vulnerability framing is particularly dangerous during disasters because it invites paternalism and control. When people are categorized as vulnerable, decisions are more easily made for them rather than with them. Autonomy is treated as negotiable. Distress is pathologized. Non-normative behavior is seen as evidence that someone cannot make decisions about their own safety. For neurodivergent people, this often results in forced separation from caregivers or chosen family, unnecessary institutionalization, or involvement with law enforcement under the guise of protection.

Empirical research consistently shows that disabled people are at higher risk of harm during disasters, including higher mortality and longer displacement. However, vulnerability framing misinterprets these outcomes as inherent weakness rather than as the predictable result of inaccessible systems. When agencies respond by targeting “the vulnerable” instead of redesigning infrastructure, the same harms recur in every disaster cycle. The data does not change because the design does not change.

“High-risk” labeling also shapes resource allocation in ways that undermine safety. Funds are often directed toward registries, special shelters, or segregated programs that operate in parallel to mainstream systems. These initiatives are frequently underfunded, poorly integrated, and reliant on voluntary disclosure of disability in contexts where trust is low. Studies of disaster registries show that many disabled people do not enroll due to privacy concerns, fear of surveillance, or lack of confidence that registration will result in meaningful support. When systems then fail to reach those people, the failure is attributed to nonparticipation rather than to justified distrust.

Special needs framing further narrows the imagination of planners and responders. It encourages checklist thinking instead of systems thinking. It focuses attention on visible physical access while ignoring cognitive, sensory, and communication barriers that disproportionately affect neurodivergent people. It also reinforces the false idea that disabled people are primarily disaster recipients rather than disaster actors. In reality, neurodivergent people are present throughout emergency systems as staff, volunteers, clinicians, dispatchers, analysts, and organizers. A framework that treats disability only as need erases this reality and undermines workforce resilience.

From a neurodiversity justice perspective, the central failure of special needs framing is that it treats inclusion as optional. Access becomes contingent on available funding, goodwill, or extraordinary effort rather than a core requirement of public safety. This is why disaster after-action reports so often recommend “better inclusion” without altering foundational assumptions about communication, sheltering, or control. The language itself limits the scope of what is considered possible.

Replacing special needs framing does not mean denying that people have different access requirements. It means relocating responsibility. Neurodiversity justice names access needs as expected features of human populations and treats disaster systems as accountable for meeting them. Instead of asking who is vulnerable, agencies must ask which design choices create vulnerability. Instead of building exceptions, they must build capacity.

When disaster systems abandon special needs framing, several shifts become possible. Planning moves from segmentation to integration. Access is considered at the earliest stages of design. Neurodivergent people are engaged as leaders and co-designers rather than as risk categories. Metrics focus on reduced harm and increased usability rather than on the number of people referred to special programs. These shifts are not theoretical. They are associated with more resilient systems and better outcomes across populations, particularly under crisis conditions.

This guide deliberately avoids special needs language because it obscures the mechanisms of harm. The sections that follow focus instead on how specific disaster practices disable people and how those practices can be redesigned. Justice begins not with labeling people, but with changing systems.

Reflection prompts

Where does our disaster planning rely on categorizing people instead of redesigning systems?

Which resources are segregated or optional rather than integrated and guaranteed?

How might our outcomes change if access were treated as infrastructure rather than as a special service?

Section 4

Neurodivergent People as Disaster Stakeholders, Not Exceptions

Disaster systems often imagine neurodivergent people only at the point of need: as evacuees, shelter residents, or recipients of aid. This framing is incomplete and harmful.

Neurodivergent people are not peripheral to disaster systems. We are embedded throughout them as residents, workers, caregivers, parents, elders, volunteers, responders, clinicians, analysts, dispatchers, organizers, and mutual aid leaders. Any disaster framework that treats neurodivergent people as exceptions misunderstands how communities actually function under crisis.

Population data makes this clear. In the United States, more than one in four adults is disabled, millions of adults have ADHD, and autism prevalence continues to rise as identification improves. Neurodivergent people are present in every neighborhood and every workforce, including emergency management, healthcare, social services, logistics, and public administration. Disaster systems already rely on neurodivergent labor, often without recognizing it or designing conditions that make that labor sustainable under stress.

When neurodivergent people are treated as exceptions, planning defaults to a narrow user profile: someone who can process information quickly, tolerate sensory chaos, follow verbal commands, self-advocate assertively, and comply immediately. Anyone outside that profile is flagged as a problem to be managed later. This approach fails in two directions at once. It excludes neurodivergent community members from accessing safety, and it undermines the effectiveness of disaster systems by ignoring how diverse cognition actually contributes to problem-solving, pattern recognition, logistics, and care work during crises.

Disaster response research consistently shows that community resilience depends on social networks, local knowledge, and informal coordination. Neurodivergent people are central to these networks. Autistic people often maintain deep place-based knowledge and long-term memory of systems and infrastructure. ADHD people are frequently overrepresented in high-intensity response roles that require rapid adaptation, multitasking, and improvisation. Disabled elders hold historical knowledge about previous disasters, institutional failures, and survival strategies. Treating these contributions as incidental rather than structural weakens preparedness and response.

Exception-based planning also erases the diversity of neurodivergent life circumstances. Neurodivergent people are parents evacuating with children, caregivers supporting elders, workers expected to report to duty, and residents navigating damaged housing and disrupted services. Many are low-income, multiply marginalized, or living in congregate or precarious housing, which further increases exposure to disaster harm. When systems plan only for a hypothetical, isolated “special needs individual,” they fail to account for interdependence, caregiving relationships, and the realities of collective survival.

Viewing neurodivergent people as stakeholders requires a shift in both mindset and structure. It means designing disaster systems that assume neurodivergent presence at every stage and in every role. Preparedness messaging must be usable by neurodivergent residents and by neurodivergent staff tasked with disseminating it. Shelters must support neurodivergent families and neurodivergent volunteers working long shifts. Recovery systems must be navigable not only by aid recipients but also by neurodivergent case managers and community navigators who are themselves impacted by the disaster.

This shift also demands a reevaluation of authority. Disaster decision-making bodies are often composed without disabled representation, even though their decisions disproportionately affect disabled communities. When neurodivergent people are absent from leadership, access failures are framed as unforeseen complications rather than predictable outcomes. Including neurodivergent stakeholders in governance is not symbolic representation. It is risk reduction. It brings experiential knowledge into planning processes before harm occurs.

Stakeholder framing also clarifies accountability. If neurodivergent people are recognized as full members of the disaster system, then access failures are system failures, not individual shortcomings. Missed alerts, shelter avoidance, aid drop-off, and post-disaster institutionalization become indicators of design flaws rather than evidence of noncompliance or vulnerability. This reframing changes how after-action reports are written, how funding is allocated, and how success is measured.

Importantly, treating neurodivergent people as stakeholders does not require assuming uniform needs. Neurodivergence is not a single profile. Needs vary widely across sensory processing, communication styles, support requirements, and life contexts. Stakeholder framing simply requires that systems be flexible, redundant, and humane enough to accommodate that variation without punishment or exclusion.

In a neurodiversity justice framework, disaster systems are judged not by how well they manage exceptions, but by how well they hold the full range of human minds and bodies that make up a community. Stakeholder inclusion is not an aspirational value. It is a functional necessity for safety, resilience, and recovery.

Reflection prompts

Who do our disaster plans assume will be present, and who do they quietly exclude?

How are neurodivergent people already contributing to disaster preparedness and response in our community?

What would change if neurodivergent people were treated as system designers rather than service recipients?

Section 5

Nothing About Us Without Us in Disaster Planning

The phrase “nothing about us without us” is widely invoked in disability advocacy, yet it is rarely operationalized in disaster planning. Too often, neurodivergent and disabled people are consulted after plans are written, invited to comment on finalized documents, or asked to share personal stories without being given real authority over decisions. In disaster contexts, this pattern is not merely tokenistic. It is dangerous. Plans created without the people most impacted reliably reproduce the same access failures, even when intentions are good.

Meaningful participation in disaster planning requires more than representation. It requires power-sharing. Neurodivergent people must be involved at the earliest stages of planning, including risk assessment, priority-setting, budget allocation, and policy design. This is not a moral appeal alone. Research in disaster risk reduction consistently demonstrates that inclusive planning improves preparedness, response effectiveness, and recovery outcomes. Systems that incorporate local and lived knowledge identify risks and barriers that technical models miss.

Token consultation often follows a predictable script. Disabled people are invited to focus groups or advisory panels with no decision-making authority. Feedback is solicited but not tracked. Recommendations are acknowledged but deferred due to “operational constraints.” Compensation is absent or minimal. The result is extractive participation that consumes community labor while leaving systems unchanged. Over time, this erodes trust and reduces future engagement, reinforcing the false narrative that disabled communities are hard to reach or disengaged.

In disaster planning, the consequences of this pattern are measurable. After-action reports repeatedly cite failures in communication access, shelter usability, and aid navigation that disabled communities have warned about for years. The problem is not lack of input. It is lack of accountability to that input. A neurodiversity justice framework demands that participation be tied to influence, and that agencies be able to show how community knowledge altered outcomes.

Operationalizing “nothing about us without us” means building governance structures where neurodivergent people hold real authority. This can include voting seats on planning committees, co-chair roles, control over specific budget lines, and formal veto power over policies that create access barriers. It also means ensuring that participation itself is accessible. Meetings must offer multiple communication modalities, predictable agendas, sensory-considerate environments, and flexible participation options. Otherwise, only a narrow subset of disabled voices will be able to engage.

Compensation is a critical component of ethical participation. Neurodivergent people are often asked to contribute expertise during disasters while also managing personal impact, displacement, or loss of income. Expecting unpaid labor under these conditions reinforces economic exclusion. Paying neurodivergent planners, advisors, and community representatives recognizes lived experience as expertise and reduces reliance on those with the most resources rather than those most impacted.

Power-sharing also requires agencies to confront discomfort. Neurodivergent input often challenges foundational assumptions about speed, control, and efficiency. It may require slowing processes, redesigning shelters, revising enforcement protocols, or reallocating funds. These changes can feel disruptive to established hierarchies. A justice framework treats that disruption as necessary. The alternative is continuing to absorb the far greater costs of harm, litigation, public distrust, and preventable suffering.

Importantly, inclusion must be sustained across the disaster cycle. Neurodivergent people are frequently consulted during preparedness planning but excluded during response and recovery, when decisions are made quickly and behind closed doors. Crisis is often used as a justification for suspending participation. This is precisely when participation matters most. Mechanisms for community input must be built to function under emergency conditions, not paused because of them.

Nothing about us without us also applies to evaluation. Neurodivergent communities should be involved in defining what success looks like and how it is measured. Traditional metrics such as speed of shelter opening or number of aid applications processed do not capture access or harm. Community-defined indicators, such as shelter avoidance rates, reports of distress or escalation, and continuity of care, provide a more accurate picture of system performance.

When disaster planning genuinely embodies “nothing about us without us,” several shifts occur. Plans reflect lived realities rather than hypothetical users. Trust increases, leading to higher engagement during crises. Systems become more flexible and humane. Most importantly, harm becomes less predictable because it is actively being designed out.

Reflection prompts

Where in our disaster planning process do neurodivergent people have real decision-making power?

How do we document and respond to community input, especially when it challenges existing practices?

Are we willing to change timelines, budgets, or protocols in response to neurodivergent leadership?

Section 6

Paying Neurodivergent Expertise

Disaster systems routinely rely on neurodivergent knowledge while refusing to treat it as labor. Autistic people, ADHD people, intellectually disabled people, learning-disabled people, brain-injured people, and psychiatrically disabled people are frequently asked to advise on access, communication, sheltering, and crisis response without compensation, formal authority, or long-term support. This practice is often framed as “community engagement” or “stakeholder input,” but in reality it is unpaid labor extracted from people who are already disproportionately harmed by disasters.

From a neurodiversity justice perspective, unpaid consultation is not neutral. It reproduces economic exclusion and narrows whose voices are heard. When agencies rely on volunteer participation, they privilege neurodivergent people who have financial stability, flexible schedules, and lower support needs. Those most impacted by disaster systems, including low-income neurodivergent people, multiply marginalized people, and people with higher support needs, are systematically excluded. The result is planning that reflects survivorship bias rather than community reality.

Research across disability studies and participatory governance shows that paid participation increases the diversity, consistency, and impact of community engagement. Compensation enables people to contribute without sacrificing basic needs, caregiving responsibilities, or recovery from crisis. It also shifts the power dynamic. When neurodivergent people are paid for their expertise, agencies are more likely to treat their input as consequential rather than advisory.

In disaster contexts, the ethical stakes are even higher. Neurodivergent people are often consulted in the aftermath of disasters to explain why systems failed, while simultaneously navigating displacement, trauma, loss of income, and disrupted care. Expecting free labor under these conditions is exploitative. It communicates that neurodivergent lives are valuable as data points but not as professionals.

Paying neurodivergent expertise also clarifies roles and accountability. Compensation creates an expectation of deliverables, timelines, and feedback loops on both sides. Advisors are not simply sharing personal stories. They are contributing analysis, design insight, and risk assessment grounded in lived experience. Agencies, in turn, are obligated to demonstrate how that expertise shaped decisions. This moves participation out of the realm of symbolism and into operational reality.

Equitable compensation requires more than stipends. Agencies should budget for neurodivergent expertise in the same way they budget for consultants, engineers, or legal counsel. This includes hourly rates, contracts, and longer-term positions with benefits where appropriate. Compensation structures should be flexible, recognizing that neurodivergent contributors may prefer different work rhythms, communication methods, and modes of participation.

Payment must also be accessible. Traditional reimbursement models that require upfront expenses, complex invoicing, or delayed payment create barriers for neurodivergent people, particularly those with limited financial reserves or executive function challenges. Neurodiversity-affirming compensation practices include clear contracts, predictable payment schedules, minimal administrative burden, and multiple payment options.

Importantly, paying neurodivergent expertise is not only about fairness. It improves disaster outcomes. Neurodivergent contributors identify risks that technical planners often miss, such as how shelter lighting affects regulation, how alert phrasing triggers panic, or how intake processes collapse under stress. These insights reduce downstream costs associated with crisis escalation, emergency medical response, law enforcement involvement, and prolonged recovery. Investment in expertise upfront prevents harm later.

There is also a workforce dimension. Many neurodivergent people work within disaster-related systems as emergency managers, public health professionals, social workers, and volunteers. When agencies value neurodivergent expertise externally but fail to support neurodivergent staff internally, they reinforce a double standard. Paying for expertise must be paired with creating sustainable working conditions for neurodivergent employees, including flexible scheduling, sensory-safe environments, and non-punitive performance expectations during crises.

A justice-oriented disaster system treats neurodivergent expertise as essential infrastructure. Budgets reflect values. If inclusion disappears when funding decisions are made, it was never inclusion. Paying neurodivergent people for their knowledge is a baseline requirement for ethical, effective disaster planning and response.

Reflection prompts

Where in our disaster budget is neurodivergent expertise funded, and where is it expected to be free?

Whose voices are excluded by unpaid or underpaid participation models?

How might compensating lived experience change the seriousness with which we treat community input?

Section 7

Partnering With Neurodivergent-Led and Disability-Led Organizations

Disaster systems often treat partnerships with disability organizations as supplemental rather than foundational. Neurodivergent-led and disability-led organizations are frequently contacted late, asked to disseminate information without context, or brought in after harm has already occurred. This pattern frames these organizations as outreach tools instead of as critical infrastructure. From a neurodiversity justice perspective, that framing is both inaccurate and harmful.

Neurodivergent-led and disability-led organizations hold forms of knowledge that disaster systems do not. They understand how people actually navigate inaccessible systems, how distrust forms after repeated harm, and which supports are most likely to be used under stress. Many of these organizations already function as informal disaster response networks, coordinating mutual aid, sharing information in accessible formats, replacing lost supplies, and supporting people who avoid formal systems because of prior trauma. Ignoring this reality weakens preparedness and response.

Effective partnership begins with recognizing these organizations as equal collaborators rather than as service extenders. That requires engaging them before disasters occur, involving them in risk assessment and planning, and resourcing them to participate meaningfully. One-off memoranda of understanding or last-minute requests do not build trust. Long-term relationships do.

Trust is a central theme in disaster outcomes for neurodivergent people. Research consistently shows that disabled communities are less likely to engage with emergency systems they perceive as punitive, surveilling, or dismissive. Disability-led organizations often serve as trusted intermediaries precisely because they are accountable to community rather than to institutional metrics. Partnering with them improves uptake of warnings, shelter use, and recovery supports, not because of persuasion, but because trust already exists.

Partnership also requires respecting organizational autonomy. Neurodivergent-led groups should not be treated as subcontractors tasked with fixing gaps created by inaccessible systems. When agencies offload access responsibilities without changing their own practices, they reinforce inequity. Justice-oriented partnerships involve shared planning, shared decision-making, and shared responsibility for outcomes. Agencies must be willing to redesign their systems in response to what partners identify, not simply ask partners to adapt communities to existing structures.

Funding is a critical component of ethical partnership. Many neurodivergent-led and disability-led organizations operate with limited resources, relying on volunteer labor even as they shoulder disproportionate disaster response work. Agencies should provide direct funding for preparedness activities, communication infrastructure, staffing, and post-disaster response. Funding should be flexible and not contingent on crisis-only deliverables, recognizing that preparedness and trust-building happen over time.

Partnerships must also account for diversity within disability communities. No single organization can represent all neurodivergent experiences. Agencies should cultivate relationships across multiple organizations serving different communities, including organizations led by multiply marginalized disabled people. This reduces reliance on a single voice and helps prevent the elevation of the most institutionally palatable perspectives at the expense of those facing greater barriers.

Information flow within partnerships should be bidirectional. Disability-led organizations are often expected to disseminate agency messages, but their feedback about how those messages are received is rarely integrated into real-time decision-making. Effective partnerships include mechanisms for rapid feedback during disasters, allowing agencies to adjust communication, shelter operations, or service delivery based on community response.

Importantly, partnerships should extend into recovery and evaluation. Neurodivergent-led organizations are well positioned to identify long-term impacts such as increased institutionalization, housing instability, and service loss that may not appear in official data. Including them in recovery planning and after-action reviews provides a more accurate picture of outcomes and helps prevent the same harms in future disasters.

When partnerships are treated as infrastructure rather than outreach, disaster systems become more adaptive and humane. Neurodivergent-led and disability-led organizations are not optional allies. They are essential components of a just disaster ecosystem.

Reflection prompts

Which neurodivergent-led and disability-led organizations are we partnered with before disaster strikes?

How are these partnerships funded, and who controls decision-making?

Do our partnerships allow for real-time feedback and system change during emergencies?

Section 8

Mutual Aid, Informal Networks, and Survival Infrastructure

When formal disaster systems fail, people do not stop needing support. They turn to each other. For neurodivergent communities, mutual aid and informal networks are not supplemental to disaster response. They are often the primary means of survival. Any serious community guide to disaster justice must treat these networks as real infrastructure rather than as informal charity.

Research across disaster sociology consistently shows that neighbors, families, and community groups provide the majority of immediate post-disaster assistance, particularly in marginalized communities. For disabled and neurodivergent people, this reliance is even greater. Many avoid shelters, law enforcement, or official aid systems due to prior trauma, fear of institutionalization, or inaccessibility. Mutual aid fills the gaps left by systems that prioritize compliance over care.

Neurodivergent mutual aid networks are often highly adaptive. They distribute information in accessible formats, provide flexible support without eligibility screens, and respond quickly to changing needs. Autistic-led groups have coordinated medication replacement, sensory supplies, quiet housing arrangements, and peer check-ins after disasters. ADHD-led networks have excelled at rapid logistics, supply redistribution, and real-time coordination. These efforts are not accidental. They reflect lived knowledge of how systems fail and how people actually survive.

Despite their effectiveness, mutual aid networks are frequently ignored or undermined by formal disaster response. Agencies may view them as disorganized, unaccountable, or politically uncomfortable. In some cases, mutual aid efforts are actively obstructed through permitting requirements, policing, or exclusion from coordination spaces. This creates a false hierarchy in which formal systems are treated as legitimate and community systems as fringe, even when the latter are meeting needs the former cannot.

A neurodiversity justice framework rejects this hierarchy. It recognizes mutual aid as a form of community-based disaster preparedness and response that deserves support rather than suppression. This does not mean co-opting or professionalizing mutual aid networks. It means respecting their autonomy, learning from their practices, and removing barriers that limit their effectiveness.

Agencies can support mutual aid without controlling it. This includes sharing timely information, providing material resources without restrictive conditions, and coordinating logistics when requested. It also includes protecting mutual aid spaces from unnecessary surveillance or enforcement. Trust is foundational. When communities believe that engagement with agencies will lead to monitoring, data extraction, or loss of autonomy, they disengage. Disaster response becomes weaker as a result.

Mutual aid networks also play a critical role in recovery. Long after official response winds down, community groups continue to support displaced people, replace lost items, and navigate complex aid systems. For neurodivergent people facing executive function barriers, these supports can mean the difference between stabilization and prolonged crisis. Ignoring this labor leads to underestimation of recovery needs and misallocation of resources.

Importantly, mutual aid is not a substitute for systemic responsibility. Governments and agencies cannot abdicate their obligations by pointing to community resilience. When mutual aid is romanticized without being resourced, it becomes another form of exploitation. Neurodiversity justice demands both strong public systems and strong community networks, working in relationship rather than competition.

Disasters reveal which infrastructures are visible and which are taken for granted. Mutual aid and informal networks have always been part of how communities survive. Recognizing them as legitimate disaster infrastructure is not radical. It is realistic.

Reflection prompts

Which mutual aid networks are already operating in our community, especially among neurodivergent people?

How do our disaster systems interact with these networks, and where do they create friction?

What resources or barriers could we remove to support community-led survival efforts without controlling them?

Section 9

Risk Communication That Does Not Collapse Under Stress

Risk communication is one of the most consistent failure points for neurodivergent people during disasters. Alerts are often rapid, contradictory, jargon-heavy, emotionally charged, and delivered through limited channels. They assume fast processing, intact working memory, tolerance for ambiguity, and immediate access to technology. Under crisis conditions, these assumptions fail for many people. For neurodivergent people, they fail first.

Disaster research consistently shows that cognitive capacity drops sharply under stress, sleep deprivation, and threat. Working memory narrows. Processing speed slows. Emotional regulation becomes more fragile. This is not a neurodivergent-specific phenomenon. It is a human one. Neurodivergent people, whose baseline cognitive load may already be high due to sensory processing differences, executive function demands, or communication barriers, experience this drop-off more steeply. Communication systems that are merely “adequate” in calm conditions become actively disabling in crisis.

Traditional risk communication prioritizes urgency over usability. Messages are packed with multiple instructions, shifting timelines, and undefined terms. Alerts may say to evacuate “if possible,” “when safe,” or “depending on conditions,” without clarifying what those phrases mean in practice. Research on emergency messaging shows that ambiguity increases freeze responses and delays action, particularly among people with executive function differences. When people cannot determine what to do first, they often do nothing.

Neurodiversity justice reframes risk communication as an access issue, not a messaging problem. Communication is infrastructure. If it collapses, everything downstream collapses with it. Effective disaster communication for neurodivergent communities must be designed for overwhelmed brains, not ideal ones.

This requires several structural shifts.

First, messages must be concrete and sequenced. One message should communicate one primary action, with clearly defined timing and exceptions. “Evacuate now using Route A by 6 p.m.” is cognitively usable in ways that layered conditional language is not. Follow-up messages can add detail, but initial alerts must prioritize clarity over completeness.

Second, redundancy is essential. No single channel reaches everyone. Neurodivergent people may rely on text rather than audio, visuals rather than speech, or peer networks rather than official alerts. Disaster systems that depend on a single mode of communication systematically exclude people. Redundant channels are not inefficient. They are protective.

Third, tone matters. Alarmist or punitive language can trigger panic, shutdown, or avoidance. Research on crisis communication shows that calm, authoritative, and respectful tone improves compliance and reduces distress. For neurodivergent people with trauma histories related to authority or institutional harm, tone can determine whether a message is acted on or ignored.

Fourth, information must be consistent across platforms. Conflicting messages increase cognitive load and erode trust. Studies of disaster response repeatedly show that inconsistency is a major driver of noncompliance, even among highly motivated populations. For neurodivergent people who rely on predictability to regulate, inconsistency is particularly destabilizing.

Fifth, updates must be clearly labeled as updates. One of the most common sources of distress reported by neurodivergent disaster survivors is not knowing whether new information replaces or supplements previous instructions. Clear versioning and explicit statements about what has changed reduce confusion and anxiety.

Risk communication must also account for people who do not trust or cannot access official channels. Neurodivergent people who have experienced institutional harm may rely more heavily on community organizations, mutual aid networks, and peer communication. Agencies should plan for this reality rather than viewing it as a problem. Sharing information with trusted community partners before and during disasters increases reach and credibility.

Finally, communication planning must include feedback loops. Disaster communication is often treated as one-way dissemination. Neurodiversity justice demands two-way communication, where agencies monitor how messages are received and understood, particularly among disabled communities. This allows for rapid correction when messages are confusing or harmful.

When risk communication is designed for neurodivergent access, the benefits extend to everyone. Clear, calm, redundant messaging improves response rates, reduces panic, and increases trust across populations. Designing for the most overwhelmed person in the community strengthens the entire system.

Reflection prompts

Would our alerts still make sense to someone who is panicked, exhausted, or overloaded?

How many actions do we ask people to take at once, and which ones are truly essential?

Where do inconsistencies in our messaging create confusion or distrust?

Section 10

Plain Language, Cognitive Accessibility, and Information Design

In disaster contexts, complexity is not neutral. It is a barrier. Information that requires sustained attention, inference, or prior system knowledge becomes inaccessible precisely when people are least able to process it. For neurodivergent people, whose access often depends on clarity, structure, and predictability, poorly designed information can be as disabling as a locked door.

Research in public health communication and cognitive psychology consistently shows that comprehension drops sharply under stress. Processing speed slows, working memory narrows, and the ability to integrate new information declines. Executive function demands increase at the same time that executive capacity decreases. These effects are universal, but they disproportionately impact autistic people, ADHD people, intellectually disabled people, learning-disabled people, and brain-injured people, who may already be managing higher baseline cognitive load. When disaster information is dense, abstract, or contradictory, it actively excludes.

Plain language is often misunderstood as oversimplification. In reality, it is precision. Plain language means information is organized around what people need to know and do, in the order they need to do it, using familiar words and concrete actions. Studies of emergency communication show that plain language messaging improves comprehension, recall, and compliance across populations, particularly during crises. For neurodivergent people, plain language can be the difference between action and paralysis.

Cognitive accessibility goes beyond word choice. It includes how information is structured, formatted, and delivered. Disaster communications frequently fail by presenting large blocks of text, long lists of requirements, or multiple contingencies without hierarchy. This design assumes sustained attention and strong working memory. Neurodiversity justice demands a different approach: information that is scannable, chunked, and prioritized.

Information design should answer three questions immediately: what is happening, what do I need to do now, and what happens if I cannot do that. When these answers are buried or implied, people must infer next steps under stress. Research on decision-making under threat shows that ambiguity increases freeze responses and avoidance. Clear decision pathways reduce distress and increase follow-through.

Visual supports are a critical component of cognitive accessibility. Icons, diagrams, and step-by-step visuals reduce reliance on verbal processing and working memory. For autistic people and people with language processing differences, visual information is often more stable under stress than spoken or written text alone. Visuals also support people with limited literacy, people using translation tools, and people processing information in a second language.

Consistency in design is as important as clarity. When different agencies use different terms, layouts, or formats, cognitive load increases. Neurodivergent people often rely on pattern recognition to process information efficiently. Inconsistent design disrupts this strategy and forces constant reorientation. Standardized templates for alerts, updates, shelter information, and aid instructions reduce this burden and increase trust.

Cognitive accessibility also requires acknowledging that many people cannot process information in real time during disasters. Repetition is not redundancy. It is access. Messages should be repeated across time and channels, with explicit indicators of whether information is new, changed, or unchanged. This reduces the need for constant monitoring and reassessment, which is particularly taxing for people with ADHD or anxiety-related conditions.

Disaster systems often rely heavily on forms and written instructions during response and recovery. These materials frequently use legal or bureaucratic language that is difficult to parse even under calm conditions. Research on administrative burden shows that complex forms disproportionately exclude disabled people, contributing to lower aid uptake and prolonged instability. Simplifying language, reducing required fields, and providing examples are evidence-based strategies for increasing access.

Importantly, cognitive accessibility must be built into information creation, not added later. Retrofitting plain language summaries after materials are finalized reinforces a two-tier system where accessible information is treated as secondary. Neurodiversity justice requires that cognitively accessible design be the default.

Plain language and cognitive accessibility do not lower standards or reduce rigor. They increase usability. In disasters, usability saves lives. Systems that require people to decode, infer, or self-advocate under extreme stress are not resilient. They are fragile.

Reflection prompts

Which of our disaster materials require inference, prior knowledge, or sustained attention to understand?

How is information prioritized, and what does that hierarchy communicate about what matters?

Are our forms and instructions usable by someone who is exhausted, anxious, or cognitively overloaded?

Section 11

Preparedness Without Individual Blame

Preparedness messaging in disaster systems often rests on a quiet moral assumption: that safety is primarily a matter of personal responsibility. People are told to make plans, stock supplies, arrange transportation, secure medications, and prepare documentation. When disasters reveal that many neurodivergent and disabled people were unable to do these things, the failure is frequently attributed to lack of awareness, motivation, or compliance. This framing is not only inaccurate. It actively undermines collective safety.

Research across disaster risk reduction consistently shows that preparedness is strongly shaped by structural conditions. Income, housing stability, access to transportation, social support, health care continuity, and trust in institutions are far more predictive of preparedness than individual knowledge. Disabled people, including neurodivergent people, are disproportionately impacted by poverty, housing insecurity, and medical precarity. When preparedness systems ignore these realities, they transform structural barriers into personal shortcomings.

Individual blame narratives are especially harmful for neurodivergent people because they obscure how executive function, sensory processing, and cognitive load shape preparation capacity. Creating a disaster plan requires anticipating future scenarios, sequencing tasks, managing uncertainty, and sustaining attention over time. Research on ADHD and executive function shows that future-oriented planning is significantly impaired under conditions of stress and instability. Autistic people often rely on routine and predictability to manage planning demands. When systems are complex, unpredictable, or change frequently, preparation becomes cognitively expensive or impossible.

Preparedness messaging also often assumes access to resources that many people do not have. Advising people to store weeks of supplies presumes disposable income and storage space. Advising people to evacuate presumes transportation and safe destinations. Advising people to maintain medication reserves presumes cooperative health systems and insurance coverage. Studies of disaster preparedness among disabled populations repeatedly find that lack of resources, not lack of concern, is the primary barrier to preparation.

Blame-based preparedness frameworks have predictable outcomes. They reduce engagement, increase shame, and discourage people from seeking help. Neurodivergent people who have been repeatedly told they are failing at basic adult tasks may disengage from preparedness messaging entirely. This disengagement is then misinterpreted as apathy or irresponsibility, reinforcing the original narrative. The cycle continues.

A neurodiversity justice approach reframes preparedness as a shared responsibility embedded in systems, not as a test of individual competence. This means designing preparedness supports that reduce cognitive load, provide material assistance, and assume fluctuating capacity. It also means recognizing that preparedness is not a one-time achievement. It is an ongoing process shaped by changing circumstances.

Preparedness without blame prioritizes infrastructure over instruction. Instead of focusing solely on what individuals should do, agencies must ask what supports make preparation possible. This includes accessible information, community-based navigators, medication continuity planning, transportation support, and housing stability. It also includes recognizing that preparedness may look different for different people. For some, it may mean identifying trusted contacts rather than assembling supplies. For others, it may mean knowing where to go for help rather than planning every step in advance.

Collective preparedness also requires acknowledging distrust. Many neurodivergent people have experienced harm in medical, educational, and emergency systems. Research shows that prior institutional harm reduces willingness to engage with preparedness initiatives, particularly those that require disclosure of disability or personal information. Preparedness systems that rely on surveillance, registries without safeguards, or punitive enforcement deepen this distrust and reduce effectiveness.

Preparedness without blame shifts the measure of success. Instead of counting how many people completed a checklist, it asks whether people were able to access safety when it mattered. Instead of asking why individuals failed to prepare, it asks why systems did not support preparation. This shift aligns preparedness with justice rather than moral judgment.

When preparedness is treated as collective infrastructure, neurodivergent people are no longer positioned as problems to be corrected. They are recognized as community members whose safety depends on whether systems are designed to support human variation under stress. That recognition is foundational to preventing harm before disaster strikes.

Reflection prompts

Where do our preparedness messages imply personal failure rather than structural responsibility?

Which preparedness tasks require resources or cognitive capacity that many people do not have?

How could our systems support preparation without requiring disclosure, perfection, or compliance?

Section 12

Voluntary Registries, Privacy, and Trust

Voluntary registries are often presented as a solution to the problem of identifying and supporting disabled people during disasters. In theory, registries allow emergency managers to know who may need assistance with evacuation, sheltering, or communication. In practice, registries frequently fail neurodivergent people because they are built on assumptions that ignore history, power, and trust.

Research and post-disaster evaluations consistently show low enrollment in disability registries, particularly among neurodivergent people. This is often framed as a participation problem. From a neurodiversity justice perspective, it is a trust problem. Many neurodivergent people have experienced surveillance, coercion, involuntary treatment, family separation, institutionalization, or punitive intervention after disclosing disability. Expecting people to voluntarily place themselves on a list that may be accessed by law enforcement, emergency responders, or other authorities without clear safeguards is not neutral. It is a risk calculation.

Privacy concerns are not abstract. Registries typically collect sensitive information about disability, medical needs, medications, addresses, and support requirements. In disaster conditions, data governance often becomes less transparent, not more. Information is shared quickly across agencies with different mandates and cultures. Neurodivergent people who have been harmed by child welfare systems, psychiatric systems, immigration enforcement, or policing have rational reasons to fear how this data could be used, misinterpreted, or retained after the disaster ends.

Even when trust exists, registries often overpromise and underdeliver. Enrollment does not guarantee assistance. During large-scale disasters, response capacity is frequently overwhelmed, and registry data may be outdated, inaccessible, or unused. When people who enrolled in good faith are not reached, the resulting sense of abandonment deepens distrust and reduces future engagement. Studies of registry-based programs show that unmet expectations are a major driver of disengagement.

There is also a cognitive accessibility problem. Registry enrollment typically requires navigating online forms, making phone calls, or updating information regularly. For neurodivergent people with executive function differences, fluctuating capacity, or limited access to technology, maintaining accurate registry data can be burdensome or impossible. When registries require constant self-management to remain “valid,” they shift responsibility back onto individuals while presenting themselves as support systems.

A neurodiversity justice approach does not reject registries outright, but it demands strict conditions for their use. Participation must be genuinely voluntary, with no penalties for non-enrollment and no assumptions that registry data represents the full scope of need. Agencies must be explicit about what the registry does and does not guarantee. Overstating benefits erodes trust and causes harm.

Ethical registries require strong privacy protections. This includes clear limits on data sharing, explicit separation from law enforcement and non-emergency surveillance systems, and transparent data retention policies. People must know who can access their information, under what circumstances, and for how long. Consent must be ongoing, not a one-time checkbox.

Registries must also be paired with real response capacity. Collecting data without the ability to act on it is not preparedness. It is risk transfer. Agencies should assess whether they can meaningfully support registered individuals under worst-case conditions before expanding enrollment. If capacity is limited, resources may be better spent on system-wide accessibility improvements that reduce the need for individual identification.

Trust-building requires alternatives to registries. Community-based preparedness, partnerships with neurodivergent-led organizations, and accessible public communication reduce reliance on individual disclosure. When shelters are usable, alerts are accessible, and aid systems are navigable, fewer people need to be singled out for special tracking.

Registries also tend to frame disability as static, when many neurodivergent needs are contextual and fluctuating. A person who does not require assistance in daily life may need support under disaster conditions due to sensory overload, medication disruption, or loss of routine. Systems that rely on pre-identified categories will miss these needs. Designing environments and processes that are broadly accessible is a more reliable strategy.

Ultimately, the question is not whether registries exist, but whether they are trustworthy. Trust is built through transparency, accountability, and demonstrated follow-through. Neurodivergent people will engage with preparedness tools when those tools have a track record of reducing harm rather than increasing exposure.

Reflection prompts

Who is least likely to enroll in our registries, and why?

What risks does disclosure carry for neurodivergent people in our community?

Are we investing more in collecting data than in making systems accessible without disclosure?

Section 13

Preparing for Medication, Routine, and Support Disruption

One of the most predictable and destabilizing impacts of disasters for neurodivergent people is disruption to medication, routine, and support systems. These are often treated as secondary concerns, framed as issues of comfort or convenience rather than as foundations of safety and functioning. In reality, for many neurodivergent people, continuity in these areas is what prevents medical crisis, psychiatric escalation, loss of capacity, and long-term harm.

Research across autism, ADHD, and psychiatric disability consistently shows that stability is a key protective factor. Predictable routines support regulation, executive function, and emotional stability. Medication continuity reduces risk of withdrawal, rebound symptoms, and acute crises. Support relationships, both formal and informal, are central to daily functioning and safety. Disasters disrupt all three simultaneously.

Medication disruption is especially dangerous. Studies following major disasters have documented widespread interruptions in access to prescription medications, particularly for people who rely on daily psychiatric or neurological medications. Abrupt discontinuation of stimulant medications, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, and anti-anxiety medications can result in severe withdrawal symptoms, cognitive impairment, emotional dysregulation, and increased risk of hospitalization. For neurodivergent people, these effects are often misinterpreted as behavioral problems rather than medical consequences.

Preparedness systems frequently place responsibility for medication continuity entirely on individuals, advising people to maintain surplus supplies or carry documentation at all times. This advice ignores systemic realities. Insurance restrictions, pharmacy policies, and cost barriers often make it impossible to stockpile medication. Housing insecurity and displacement increase the risk of loss or theft. Executive function differences can make tracking refills and documentation difficult even in stable conditions. Under disaster stress, these barriers compound.

Routine disruption has similarly profound effects. Autistic research has long documented the role of routine in maintaining regulation and reducing anxiety. ADHD research shows that external structure supports task initiation and emotional regulation. Disasters dismantle routines quickly. Sleep schedules collapse. Meals become irregular. Environments change without warning. Support cues disappear. When disaster planning fails to account for this, neurodivergent people are expected to adapt instantly to chaos while being deprived of the very tools that make adaptation possible.

Support disruption includes loss of caregivers, separation from chosen family, interruption of in-home services, and breakdown of community networks. Disaster evacuation and sheltering protocols often assume nuclear family structures or individual independence. Neurodivergent people who rely on support people for communication, regulation, or daily functioning may be separated during evacuation or denied access to shelters that cannot accommodate interdependence. Research on disaster displacement shows that separation from support networks is associated with worse mental health outcomes, longer recovery times, and increased institutionalization among disabled people.

Preparedness systems can mitigate these harms, but only if they treat continuity as essential rather than optional. This requires planning for medication access as a core component of disaster response, including emergency refill pathways, coordination with pharmacies and health systems, and clear guidance to responders about the importance of uninterrupted medication. It also requires recognizing that documentation may be lost and designing protocols that do not rely exclusively on paperwork for verification.

Routine support can be incorporated into preparedness and shelter design through predictability. Clear daily schedules, consistent meal times, quiet hours, and visual information about what to expect reduce cognitive load and distress. These practices benefit everyone under stress, but they are particularly protective for neurodivergent people. Research on shelter environments shows that predictability reduces conflict, improves sleep, and increases shelter retention.

Supporting interdependence is equally critical. Preparedness planning must assume that many people will evacuate and shelter with caregivers, support people, or chosen family. Policies that restrict who can stay together increase harm and drive shelter avoidance. Allowing people to remain with those who help them regulate, communicate, or manage daily needs is a safety measure, not a special accommodation.

Importantly, preparation for disruption must be collective. Individual contingency plans cannot substitute for system design. Neurodiversity justice reframes the question from “Did individuals plan well enough?” to “Did systems plan for predictable human needs under crisis?” When systems fail to plan for medication, routine, and support continuity, the resulting harm is not accidental. It is foreseeable.

Preparing for disruption does not eliminate it. Disasters will always involve loss and instability. But systems can reduce secondary harm by anticipating where disruption hits hardest and building buffers accordingly. For neurodivergent people, those buffers are often the difference between temporary hardship and long-term crisis.

Reflection prompts

Which medications, routines, and supports are most critical for stability in our community?

How do our disaster plans assume continuity that may not exist?

What policies or practices could we change to support interdependence rather than independence during disasters?

Section 14

Sensory Environments as Safety Infrastructure

Disaster systems often treat sensory conditions as incidental. Noise, lighting, crowding, temperature, smell, and visual chaos are framed as unavoidable side effects of crisis. For neurodivergent people, these conditions are not background discomfort. They are central determinants of safety, capacity, and survival. When sensory environments are hostile, access collapses.

Research across autism, ADHD, and trauma studies shows that sensory overload significantly increases physiological stress responses, including elevated cortisol, heart rate variability disruption, and autonomic dysregulation. Under these conditions, people are more likely to experience shutdown, meltdown, dissociation, panic, or loss of verbal communication. These are not behavioral choices. They are involuntary nervous system responses. In disaster contexts, they are frequently misinterpreted as defiance, aggression, or noncompliance, triggering escalation rather than support.

Disasters intensify sensory exposure at exactly the moment regulation capacity is reduced. Sirens, alarms, generators, helicopters, crowds, fluorescent lighting, echoing spaces, unfamiliar smells, and constant announcements are common features of shelters and response sites. Research on shelter utilization consistently finds that sensory overwhelm is a major reason disabled and neurodivergent people avoid shelters even when remaining at home is unsafe. Avoidance is often rational. The environment itself is a threat.

Neurodiversity justice reframes sensory design as life safety infrastructure. Just as ramps and exits are recognized as essential to physical safety, sensory conditions must be recognized as essential to cognitive and emotional safety. When environments overwhelm the nervous system, people cannot process information, follow instructions, or advocate for themselves. This increases risk of injury, medical crisis, and institutional involvement.

Treating sensory environments as infrastructure requires intentional design choices. Lighting that can be dimmed, reduced reliance on fluorescent lights, and access to natural light where possible significantly reduce sensory load. Noise management strategies, such as designated quiet zones, sound-dampening materials, and clear limits on unnecessary announcements, improve regulation for everyone. Predictable layouts and clear visual signage reduce the cognitive burden of navigation in crowded spaces.

Crowding is a particularly potent sensory stressor. Studies in environmental psychology show that perceived crowding increases stress and aggression while reducing cooperation and problem-solving. For autistic people and people with sensory processing differences, close physical proximity can trigger panic or shutdown. Disaster shelters that pack people tightly without options for space are not merely uncomfortable. They are unsafe. Providing options for spacing, even within limited square footage, reduces conflict and increases retention.

Sensory safety also includes control. Lack of control over sensory input intensifies distress. Allowing people some agency, such as choosing where to sit, whether to wear headphones, or when to engage with others, supports regulation. Research on trauma-informed environments consistently shows that perceived control reduces stress responses and improves outcomes. Neurodivergent people benefit disproportionately from environments that offer choice rather than impose uniform conditions.

Temperature, smell, and tactile conditions are often overlooked. Extreme heat or cold, strong cleaning chemicals, unfamiliar food smells, and uncomfortable seating can all exacerbate sensory distress. These factors compound when people are exhausted or ill. Disaster planning that ignores these elements places additional strain on people whose nervous systems are already overwhelmed.

Importantly, sensory safety is not achieved through segregation alone. While low-sensory spaces are critical, they must be integrated into overall shelter design rather than isolated as punitive or medicalized areas. Spaces intended for regulation should be voluntary, clearly labeled, and accessible without stigma. They should not be used for behavioral control or exclusion.

Designing sensory-safe environments also protects responders and staff. Emergency workers experience high rates of sensory overload, sleep deprivation, and burnout. Environments that reduce unnecessary sensory stress improve staff performance, reduce errors, and decrease turnover. Sensory safety is not a niche accommodation. It is a system-wide resilience strategy.

Disaster environments will never be calm. Neurodiversity justice does not demand perfection. It demands intentional reduction of preventable harm. When sensory overload is treated as inevitable, people are blamed for their responses. When sensory environments are treated as infrastructure, responsibility shifts back to design.

Building sensory safety into disaster systems acknowledges a fundamental truth: people cannot access safety if their nervous systems are in crisis. Designing for sensory regulation is not about comfort. It is about survival.

Reflection prompts

Which sensory stressors are most intense in our shelters and response sites?

Where do we treat sensory overload as unavoidable rather than designable?

How could increased choice and predictability reduce distress for both residents and staff?

Section 15

Shelter Design That Does Not Require Masking

Emergency shelters are often designed around an unspoken expectation: that people will suppress their needs, regulate themselves quietly, follow rules without explanation, and tolerate conditions that would be unacceptable in daily life. For neurodivergent people, this expectation translates into forced masking under extreme stress. Masking is not a neutral coping strategy. Extensive research links sustained masking in autistic people to increased anxiety, depression, burnout, and suicidal ideation. In disaster settings, where stress is already acute, requiring masking can push people into crisis.

Masking in shelters takes many forms. Autistic people suppress stimming to avoid drawing attention. ADHD people struggle to remain still or quiet in environments that demand constant self-control. People with communication differences force eye contact, speech, or compliance to avoid being perceived as difficult or threatening. These efforts consume cognitive and emotional resources that are already depleted. When shelters require masking as the price of safety, they exclude the very people who most need refuge.

Shelter design that does not require masking begins with predictability. Unclear rules, sudden announcements, inconsistent enforcement, and unexplained changes create constant uncertainty. Research on stress and regulation shows that unpredictability is a major driver of anxiety and behavioral escalation. Neurodivergent people rely heavily on knowing what to expect in order to conserve energy and remain regulated. Clear, visible, consistently enforced guidelines reduce the need for constant monitoring and self-policing.

Rules should be explicit, limited, and explained in terms of safety rather than control. Long lists of prohibitions increase cognitive load and invite selective enforcement. When rules are communicated verbally only, or enforced arbitrarily, neurodivergent people are more likely to be perceived as noncompliant. Visual signage, written summaries, and opportunities to ask questions without penalty increase fairness and reduce conflict.

Autonomy is another critical factor. Many shelters operate on rigid schedules and uniform expectations that strip people of control over basic aspects of daily life. While some structure is necessary, excessive rigidity increases distress and resistance. Research in trauma-informed care shows that perceived autonomy, even in small ways, significantly reduces stress responses. Allowing people choices about where to sit or sleep, when to eat within a window, how to communicate with staff, and whether to engage socially supports regulation and dignity.

Shelter environments must also normalize neurodivergent behavior. Stimming, pacing, avoiding eye contact, wearing headphones, needing breaks from interaction, or communicating nonverbally should not be treated as problems to correct. When staff are trained to interpret these behaviors as self-regulation rather than disruption, escalation decreases. Studies of de-escalation in crisis settings consistently show that recognizing and accommodating regulation strategies reduces the need for intervention.

Privacy and personal space are essential to reducing masking pressure. Open gym-style shelters offer little opportunity for withdrawal or decompression. For neurodivergent people, constant exposure to others can be exhausting and destabilizing. Even minimal partitions, quiet corners, or designated low-interaction areas can significantly reduce the need to mask. These design elements signal that regulation is expected, not deviant.

Communication access is tightly linked to masking. Shelters that rely exclusively on verbal instructions force people with auditory processing differences, selective mutism, or anxiety to perform speech under stress. Providing written information, visual cues, and text-based options allows people to communicate without masking or fear of misinterpretation. Research on accessible communication in crisis settings shows that multimodal communication reduces errors and improves compliance.

Importantly, shelter design that does not require masking benefits everyone. Many nondisabled people also experience heightened stress, sensory overload, and reduced tolerance during disasters. Predictable rules, clear communication, and autonomy reduce conflict across populations. Neurodiversity justice recognizes that designing for those who struggle most under stress creates safer environments for all.

Finally, shelter policies must explicitly prohibit punitive responses to neurodivergent behavior. Removal, isolation, or involvement of security or law enforcement in response to distress exacerbates harm and reinforces avoidance. When people fear punishment for dysregulation, they mask harder or leave shelters entirely, increasing risk. Clear guidelines emphasizing support over discipline are essential to maintaining safety and trust.

Shelters are not merely places to sleep. They are environments where people must regulate, communicate, and make decisions under extreme stress. Designing shelters that do not require masking acknowledges a simple truth: people cannot access safety if they must pretend to be someone else to receive it.

Reflection prompts

Which shelter rules implicitly reward compliance and punish difference?

How do our shelter environments force people to suppress self-regulation strategies?

What design changes could reduce the need for masking while maintaining safety for everyone?

Section 16

Decompression, Regulation, and Non-Punitive Space

Disaster environments place sustained demands on the nervous system. For neurodivergent people, especially autistic people and people with ADHD, those demands can exceed regulatory capacity quickly. Decompression and regulation are not optional wellness extras. They are necessary conditions for safety, communication, and decision-making. When disaster systems fail to provide non-punitive spaces for regulation, they often default to control, removal, or escalation instead.

Research across neuroscience and trauma studies shows that regulation capacity is finite and heavily influenced by environment. Prolonged exposure to noise, crowding, unpredictability, and perceived threat increases sympathetic nervous system activation and reduces access to executive function. For autistic people, studies demonstrate heightened sensory reactivity and slower return to baseline after overload. For ADHD people, stress is associated with further reductions in impulse control, working memory, and emotional regulation. Under these conditions, expecting calm compliance is unrealistic and unsafe.

Many disaster shelters and response sites respond to dysregulation by attempting to suppress it. People who pace, cry, withdraw, stim, or struggle to follow instructions are often directed to leave common areas, isolated, or referred to security or medical personnel. These responses frame dysregulation as misbehavior rather than as a signal of unmet needs. Research on crisis escalation shows that punitive or controlling responses increase distress, prolong dysregulation, and raise the likelihood of injury or coercive intervention.

Neurodiversity justice requires a different approach. Decompression spaces should be designed as voluntary, supportive environments where people can regulate without fear of punishment or surveillance. These spaces are not “time out” rooms. They are not behavior management tools. They are part of the core safety infrastructure.

Non-punitive decompression spaces share several characteristics. They are clearly identified and easy to access. They have reduced sensory input, including lower lighting, minimal noise, and fewer visual distractions. They allow people to move, stim, lie down, or sit quietly without judgment. They are staffed by people trained to support regulation rather than enforce compliance. Importantly, entry and exit are voluntary. People are not sent there as a consequence.

Choice is central to effective regulation. Research on trauma-informed environments consistently shows that perceived control significantly reduces stress responses. Allowing people to decide when they need a break, how long to stay, and how to regulate supports faster recovery and reduces escalation. For neurodivergent people, whose regulation strategies may differ from dominant norms, choice also reduces the pressure to mask.

Decompression spaces must be decoupled from medicalization and policing. When regulation needs are treated as clinical emergencies or security risks, people avoid seeking support until distress becomes unmanageable. This increases the likelihood of crisis intervention, restraint, or hospitalization. Studies of psychiatric emergency responses demonstrate that early, voluntary support reduces the need for coercive measures. Disaster systems can apply this evidence by normalizing regulation needs rather than pathologizing them.

It is also critical to recognize that regulation does not always mean quiet. Some neurodivergent people regulate through movement, sound, or repetitive activity. Decompression spaces should allow for varied regulation strategies rather than enforcing silence or stillness. Clear expectations about shared space can coexist with flexibility if they are communicated respectfully and consistently.

Staff training plays a decisive role. Responders and shelter staff must be trained to distinguish between dysregulation and threat. Research on de-escalation shows that when staff interpret behavior through a regulation lens, they are more likely to offer support, slow interactions, and provide choices. This reduces escalation and improves safety for both residents and staff. Training should emphasize that regulation is a prerequisite for communication and compliance, not a reward for it.

Non-punitive space is also about dignity. Being allowed to regulate without being watched, judged, or corrected communicates that distress is human and expected under crisis conditions. For neurodivergent people who have experienced punishment or exclusion for their regulation needs throughout their lives, this message is profoundly protective.

Importantly, decompression and regulation supports benefit the entire shelter population. Disasters affect everyone’s nervous system. Providing spaces and practices that support regulation reduces overall tension, conflict, and burnout. Neurodiversity justice recognizes that designing for those most impacted by overload creates safer environments for all.

When disaster systems fail to provide non-punitive regulation spaces, they create a false choice between compliance and exclusion. When they do provide them, they create the conditions for safety, communication, and collective care. Regulation is not a behavioral issue. It is an environmental one.

Reflection prompts

How does our current shelter design respond to visible distress?

Where do people go when they are overwhelmed, and what happens to them there?

What would change if regulation were treated as a safety need rather than a problem to manage?

Section 17

Accessibility for Neurodivergent Families, Elders, and Care Networks

Disaster systems are often built around an implicit ideal of independence. Plans assume individuals can act autonomously, make rapid decisions, and meet their own needs once provided with information or resources. For many neurodivergent people, this assumption does not reflect reality. Survival during disasters is frequently collective, interdependent, and relational. When disaster systems fail to account for families, elders, and care networks, they fracture the very structures that make safety possible.

Neurodivergent people are embedded in a wide range of care relationships. Autistic children rely on caregivers who understand their communication, sensory needs, and regulation strategies. Neurodivergent adults may rely on partners, roommates, support workers, or chosen family for daily functioning. Disabled elders often depend on consistent routines and familiar support people to maintain stability. These relationships are not optional supports. They are core safety infrastructure.

Research on disaster displacement shows that separation from caregivers and familiar supports is associated with increased distress, medical complications, and long-term institutionalization among disabled people. For autistic people in particular, separation from trusted caregivers can trigger severe dysregulation, loss of communication, and regression in skills. For elders with cognitive or psychiatric disabilities, disruption of care relationships is linked to increased mortality and prolonged recovery. These outcomes are not caused by disability itself, but by systems that treat interdependence as a liability rather than a reality.

Disaster evacuation and sheltering protocols frequently fail care networks in predictable ways. Shelters may restrict who can stay together, limit caregiver access, or require documentation that is unavailable during crisis. Intake processes may separate people based on age, gender, or perceived independence without understanding support needs. Policies designed for efficiency can inadvertently dismantle care arrangements that took years to build.

A neurodiversity justice approach recognizes interdependence as a design principle. Disaster systems must assume that many people will evacuate, shelter, and recover as part of a network rather than as isolated individuals. Policies should prioritize keeping people with their caregivers, support workers, and chosen family whenever possible. This includes recognizing nontraditional family structures and informal care relationships.

Accessibility for families also requires understanding cumulative stress. Neurodivergent parents navigating disasters are often managing their own regulation while supporting children or elders with high support needs. Research on caregiver stress shows that disasters dramatically increase burnout, decision fatigue, and health risks among caregivers. Systems that do not provide additional support to caregiving units effectively double the burden and increase the likelihood of crisis.

Elders present unique considerations. Neurodivergent elders may have layered disabilities, including sensory changes, mobility limitations, and cognitive differences. Disasters disrupt medication schedules, sleep, nutrition, and social contact, all of which are critical for elder stability. Studies of elder outcomes after disasters show higher rates of hospitalization and institutionalization when continuity of care is lost. Shelters and recovery programs must be designed to support elders within their care networks rather than isolating them in medicalized settings by default.

Children are similarly impacted by system design. Neurodivergent children often rely on structured environments, familiar routines, and consistent caregivers. Disaster conditions remove all three at once. When shelters lack sensory-safe spaces, predictable schedules, and support for regulation, families may choose to avoid them entirely, increasing risk. Child-focused disaster planning that does not include neurodivergent realities is incomplete.

Accessibility for care networks also includes logistical considerations. Caregivers may need space for medical equipment, sensory tools, food preparation, or mobility supports. Intake systems that treat these needs as burdens rather than necessities create barriers that compound stress. Research on shelter utilization shows that families with complex needs are more likely to self-displace or remain in unsafe conditions when shelters cannot accommodate them.

Importantly, supporting care networks benefits disaster systems as a whole. When people are able to stay with those who know how to support them, fewer staff resources are needed to manage distress, communication breakdowns decrease, and safety improves. Interdependence reduces system strain rather than increasing it.

Neurodiversity justice rejects the myth of independence as the benchmark of worthiness. In disasters, survival is collective. Systems that recognize and support care networks honor how people actually live and increase the likelihood of safe outcomes.

Reflection prompts

Which of our disaster policies assume independence rather than interdependence?

How do our shelters and evacuation plans support or disrupt existing care relationships?

What would it look like to design disaster systems around keeping people together rather than sorting them apart?

Section 18

Field Response Without Escalation or Criminalization

Disaster response places extraordinary power in the hands of responders. Decisions made in seconds can determine whether someone receives help, is restrained, is removed from a shelter, or is funneled into the criminal legal or psychiatric system. For neurodivergent people, particularly autistic people, intellectually disabled people, and psychiatrically disabled people, field response is one of the most dangerous points in the disaster cycle. Research across disability studies, policing, and emergency management consistently shows that disabled people are disproportionately subject to escalation, use of force, and involuntary intervention during crises.

Neurodivergent behavior under disaster conditions is frequently misread. Shutdown, delayed responses, lack of eye contact, echolalia, pacing, stimming, agitation, or difficulty following multi-step instructions are often interpreted as noncompliance, intoxication, defiance, or threat. Studies examining police and emergency interactions with autistic people show that these misinterpretations significantly increase the likelihood of escalation and injury. Under disaster conditions, where responders are stressed, fatigued, and operating under pressure, the risk intensifies.

Criminalization often enters disaster response through routine protocols. Law enforcement is commonly tasked with evacuation enforcement, shelter security, and crowd control. Security-based models prioritize compliance and speed, leaving little room for alternative communication or regulation needs. Research on crisis intervention demonstrates that command-and-control approaches increase resistance and distress among disabled people, while de-escalation and choice-based approaches reduce harm and improve cooperation.

A neurodiversity justice framework demands a fundamental shift in how field response is conceptualized. The goal is not control. The goal is safety. Safety is achieved by reducing threat perception, slowing interactions, and supporting regulation, not by forcing compliance. This requires reexamining default roles, training, and protocols.

Field responders should be trained to recognize neurodivergent distress as a signal of unmet needs rather than as a challenge to authority. Evidence from crisis intervention and trauma-informed response models shows that when responders slow down, reduce verbal demands, offer choices, and avoid physical contact, escalation decreases. Simple shifts, such as allowing additional processing time or offering written communication, can prevent situations from deteriorating.

Choice is a critical de-escalation tool. Offering options preserves autonomy and reduces perceived threat. Research in behavioral psychology shows that even small choices restore a sense of control under stress, lowering physiological arousal. In disaster response, choices might include where to stand, whether to communicate verbally or in writing, or which route to take during evacuation. These options do not undermine authority. They enhance safety.

Avoiding unnecessary physical contact is essential. Many neurodivergent people experience touch as painful or disorienting, especially when overwhelmed. Physical guidance or restraint can trigger panic responses, leading to further escalation. Studies of restraint use in crisis settings consistently link physical intervention to increased injury and trauma. Neurodiversity justice requires that physical contact be a last resort, used only when there is immediate risk to life.

Communication strategies must also change. Rapid-fire questioning, raised voices, and simultaneous instructions overwhelm processing capacity. Research on effective crisis communication emphasizes the importance of clear, simple language delivered one step at a time. Allowing silence and waiting for responses improves comprehension and reduces distress. Responders should be trained to tolerate pauses without interpreting them as refusal.

Criminalization is often justified as necessary for order. In reality, it frequently creates additional emergencies. Arrests, involuntary psychiatric holds, and use of force consume significant resources and produce long-term harm. Disabled people subjected to these interventions experience higher rates of injury, trauma, and distrust, making future engagement with emergency systems less likely. Disaster systems that rely on criminalization are less efficient, not more.

Field response without criminalization also requires examining who is deployed where. Neurodiversity justice favors multidisciplinary response teams that include medical personnel, social workers, peer support workers, and disability-informed responders, rather than relying exclusively on law enforcement. Evidence from crisis response programs shows that non-police-led interventions reduce use of force and improve outcomes for disabled people. In disaster contexts, these models can be adapted to support evacuation, shelter intake, and on-site support.

Accountability is crucial. Agencies must track incidents involving disabled people during disaster response, including use of force, removal from shelters, and referrals to law enforcement or psychiatric facilities. Without data, patterns of harm remain invisible. Transparent review processes that include neurodivergent community representatives help identify where protocols need redesign.

Field response is where disaster systems most visibly express their values. When distress is met with punishment, systems communicate that only certain kinds of people deserve safety. When distress is met with support, patience, and respect, systems create the conditions for cooperation and trust. Neurodiversity justice insists on the latter.

Reflection prompts

How do our field response protocols interpret silence, delay, or atypical behavior?

Where do we default to enforcement rather than support during disasters?

What training or staffing changes would reduce reliance on criminalization and escalation?

Section 19

Communication Access During Active Response

Active disaster response is characterized by speed, uncertainty, and rapidly changing conditions. Communication systems are often stretched or degraded at the exact moment clear information is most critical. For neurodivergent people, communication access during this phase is not a convenience. It is a determinant of safety. When communication fails, people miss evacuations, misunderstand instructions, are perceived as uncooperative, or are excluded from aid and shelter.

Research in emergency management and disability studies consistently shows that communication breakdowns are a primary driver of harm during disasters. Under stress, auditory processing declines, working memory narrows, and the ability to interpret complex or abstract language decreases. These effects are amplified for autistic people, people with auditory processing differences, ADHD people, brain-injured people, and people experiencing dissociation or panic. Systems that rely on rapid verbal exchange and one-way commands are structurally inaccessible.

Active response communication often defaults to speech, volume, and repetition. Instructions are shouted. Questions are asked quickly and repeatedly. Information is delivered while people are moving, crowded, or overwhelmed. This approach assumes that louder and faster equals clearer. Evidence shows the opposite. Increased volume and speed raise arousal levels and reduce comprehension, particularly for people already overloaded. Neurodiversity justice requires slowing down communication rather than intensifying it.

Communication access begins with modality choice. No single mode works for everyone. Some neurodivergent people process written information more reliably than spoken instructions. Others benefit from visuals, icons, or demonstrations. Some cannot use speech under stress and rely on gestures, typing, or assistive technology. Active response systems must be prepared to offer multiple modalities simultaneously, without requiring people to justify or disclose why they need them.

One of the most common failures during active response is the assumption that lack of verbal response indicates refusal or incapacity. Research on autistic communication under stress shows that shutdown and selective mutism are common responses to overload. Interpreting silence as noncompliance escalates situations unnecessarily. Allowing extra processing time, offering written prompts, or asking yes-or-no questions can preserve access and reduce conflict.

Information sequencing is critical during active response. Responders often provide multiple instructions at once due to urgency. Cognitive research demonstrates that under threat, people can reliably process only one or two discrete steps at a time. For neurodivergent people, this limit may be even lower. Breaking instructions into single steps and confirming understanding before moving on increases compliance and safety.

Visual communication plays a particularly important role during active response. Clear signage, pictograms, color coding, and physical demonstrations reduce reliance on auditory processing. Visual cues remain accessible even when noise levels are high or language barriers exist. Disaster response research shows that visual guidance improves navigation, reduces panic, and speeds evacuation across populations. For neurodivergent people, visuals often remain usable when speech does not.

Technology can both support and undermine communication access. Text alerts, messaging apps, and accessible mobile platforms can be lifelines for neurodivergent people who cannot process verbal information. At the same time, reliance on technology assumes access to power, connectivity, and functioning devices. Active response planning must include low-tech communication options such as whiteboards, printed cards, laminated visuals, and pen-and-paper alternatives.

Responder training is decisive. Communication access during active response is not intuitive under stress. Training must explicitly address neurodivergent communication differences and emphasize patience, clarity, and flexibility. Studies of crisis communication training show that responders who are trained to slow interactions and adapt communication styles report fewer escalations and greater cooperation. This training protects responders as well as civilians.

It is also essential to recognize that neurodivergent responders themselves may experience communication access needs during active response. Emergency workers are subject to the same cognitive and sensory stressors as the public. Systems that allow multimodal communication and reduce unnecessary verbal load support the entire response workforce and reduce errors.

Finally, communication access must be understood as ongoing, not a one-time event. During active response, conditions change rapidly. Instructions may evolve. Neurodivergent people need explicit cues about when information has changed, what still applies, and what no longer does. Without this clarity, people are forced to constantly reassess, increasing cognitive load and anxiety.

When communication access is prioritized during active response, disaster systems become more predictable, humane, and effective. Neurodiversity justice insists that safety instructions must be usable by people under extreme stress, not only by those who process information quickly and calmly.

Reflection prompts

How do our responders interpret silence, delayed responses, or alternative communication?

What communication modes are available when power, connectivity, or speech fail?

How do we signal clearly when instructions change during active response?

Section 20

Intake, Triage, and Executive Function Barriers

Intake and triage are often described as neutral administrative processes. In disaster contexts, they are anything but. These systems determine who receives shelter, medical care, food, financial assistance, and recovery support. For neurodivergent people, intake and triage are among the most disabling points in the disaster cycle because they concentrate cognitive, emotional, and administrative demands at the exact moment capacity is lowest.

Research on executive function consistently shows that stress, sleep deprivation, trauma exposure, and uncertainty significantly impair task initiation, working memory, sequencing, and decision-making. These impairments are well documented across populations during disasters. Neurodivergent people, particularly autistic people and ADHD people, often experience sharper declines because executive function differences are already present at baseline. When intake systems assume intact executive function, they systematically exclude.

Disaster intake commonly requires people to stand in long lines, answer rapid questions, recall detailed information, complete forms, make decisions about eligibility categories, and produce documentation. These tasks are often presented simultaneously and without clear prioritization. Cognitive science research shows that when multiple demands compete for attention under stress, performance drops and error rates increase. For neurodivergent people, this often results in incomplete applications, inconsistent answers, or withdrawal from the process entirely.

Triage processes also rely heavily on verbal self-advocacy. People are expected to describe needs clearly, accurately, and succinctly in unfamiliar environments. Neurodivergent communication styles may not align with these expectations. Autistic people may struggle to summarize needs under pressure or may provide too much detail. ADHD people may have difficulty organizing responses. People experiencing shutdown or dissociation may be unable to speak at all. Research on emergency medical triage shows that patients who cannot communicate effectively are more likely to be deprioritized, even when need is high.

Administrative burden compounds these barriers. Studies on social program access consistently show that complex application processes disproportionately exclude disabled people. Disaster aid systems often replicate these barriers at scale, requiring repeated applications across multiple agencies with different criteria and timelines. Each additional step increases the likelihood of attrition. For neurodivergent people managing overload, medication disruption, or loss of support networks, the cumulative burden can be insurmountable.

Intake systems also frequently demand emotional regulation as a prerequisite for access. People who appear distressed, confused, or disorganized may be perceived as unreliable or difficult. Research on bias in service provision shows that staff under pressure are more likely to rely on heuristics, disadvantaging people who do not present calmly. This dynamic punishes neurodivergent people for the very responses that disaster environments provoke.

Neurodiversity justice requires redesigning intake and triage to reduce executive function demands rather than expecting people to perform competence under crisis. This includes simplifying initial intake to the minimum information necessary for immediate support, with additional documentation collected later. Staged processes reduce cognitive load and increase completion rates without compromising accountability.

Assisted intake is a critical access strategy. Research on navigation support demonstrates that one-on-one assistance significantly increases access to benefits for disabled people. In disaster contexts, trained navigators can help people understand questions, organize information, and complete forms without judgment. Importantly, assistance must be offered proactively rather than requiring people to request help, as many neurodivergent people avoid asking due to prior negative experiences.

Visual supports and clear structure also reduce executive burden. Step-by-step guides, checklists that show progress, and clear explanations of what happens next help people orient themselves. Studies in human-centered design show that reducing uncertainty improves task completion and reduces stress. For neurodivergent people, knowing where they are in a process and what remains is particularly stabilizing.

Time flexibility is another key factor. Rigid deadlines and one-time opportunities disproportionately exclude people whose capacity fluctuates. Disaster aid programs that allow extensions, reapplications, or follow-up appointments reduce attrition and increase equity. Research on administrative flexibility shows that small adjustments in timing can have large effects on access for disabled populations.

Finally, intake and triage redesign must include staff support. Workers operating under disaster conditions face their own cognitive overload and burnout. Systems that reduce complexity, clarify criteria, and provide decision support tools reduce reliance on snap judgments and improve fairness. Neurodiversity justice recognizes that humane systems support both those seeking help and those providing it.

When intake and triage are treated as access points rather than gatekeeping mechanisms, disaster systems become more effective and just. Reducing executive function barriers does not slow response. It prevents people from falling through cracks that were designed into the process.

Reflection prompts

Which intake steps require the highest cognitive load under stress?

How do our triage processes privilege certain communication styles over others?

What supports could we add to help people complete intake without requiring calm, speed, or self-advocacy?

Section 21

Protecting Neurodivergent Responders and Volunteers

Neurodivergent people are not only recipients of disaster response. We are also embedded throughout the disaster workforce as emergency managers, healthcare workers, dispatchers, analysts, logistics coordinators, shelter staff, volunteers, mutual aid organizers, and community leaders. Research on workforce demographics suggests that autistic people and ADHD people are overrepresented in high-intensity, problem-solving, and crisis-oriented roles. Disaster systems already rely heavily on neurodivergent labor, often without recognizing it or designing conditions that make that labor sustainable.

Disaster response places extraordinary demands on cognition, regulation, and sensory tolerance. Long shifts, sleep deprivation, constant noise, moral stress, and rapidly changing priorities are common. Research across occupational health shows that these conditions degrade executive function, increase error rates, and accelerate burnout for all workers. Neurodivergent responders, whose regulation may already be sensitive to sensory overload or unpredictability, are at heightened risk of exhaustion, shutdown, and long-term burnout when systems are not designed with access in mind.

Despite this, disaster workforce culture often valorizes endurance, stoicism, and self-sacrifice. Needing breaks, quiet, clarity, or flexible communication is frequently framed as weakness or lack of commitment. This culture disproportionately harms neurodivergent responders and discourages disclosure of access needs. Studies on disability disclosure in emergency and healthcare professions show that fear of stigma and retaliation leads many disabled workers to mask until they reach crisis.

Neurodiversity justice reframes responder protection as an operational necessity. Burned-out responders make more mistakes, escalate more quickly, and leave the workforce sooner. Protecting neurodivergent responders improves safety, continuity, and institutional memory across disaster cycles.

Protection begins with predictable structure. Clear roles, written task lists, defined priorities, and regular updates reduce cognitive load. Research in high-reliability organizations shows that clarity and predictability reduce error under pressure. For neurodivergent responders, explicit expectations reduce the need for constant interpretation and self-monitoring.

Sensory access matters for staff as much as for shelter residents. Providing quiet break spaces, reducing unnecessary alarms or announcements in staff areas, and allowing the use of sensory regulation tools such as headphones or sunglasses can significantly reduce overload. Occupational studies demonstrate that even brief access to low-stimulation environments improves recovery and performance.

Scheduling flexibility is another critical factor. Long, unbroken shifts exacerbate executive dysfunction and emotional exhaustion. Allowing shorter shifts, predictable rotations, and recovery time between assignments reduces burnout and preserves capacity. Research on shift work shows that fatigue-related errors increase exponentially after extended hours. Disaster systems that plan for rest are more resilient than those that plan for heroics.

Communication practices also require adjustment. Neurodivergent responders may process information differently under stress. Providing written briefings, visual dashboards, and clear handoff notes reduces reliance on memory and verbal exchange. Studies on cognitive aids in emergency response show that written supports improve accuracy and reduce stress for all responders, with disproportionate benefit for those with executive function differences.

Psychological safety is essential. Neurodivergent responders must be able to request clarification, breaks, or task adjustments without fear of punishment or stigma. Research on team performance consistently links psychological safety to better outcomes, innovation, and error reporting. In disaster contexts, where conditions change rapidly, the ability to speak up is a safety issue.

Importantly, protecting neurodivergent responders also means protecting volunteers. Mutual aid volunteers and spontaneous responders often lack formal training or institutional support but face similar stressors. Neurodivergent volunteers may be especially vulnerable to burnout and secondary trauma. Providing clear roles, mentorship, rest opportunities, and debriefing supports reduces harm and increases sustainability.

Post-disaster support is often overlooked. Neurodivergent responders experience high rates of delayed burnout, depression, and trauma symptoms following prolonged response efforts. Occupational health research shows that post-event decompression and follow-up reduce long-term disability and workforce attrition. Disaster systems that treat recovery as part of the job, rather than as a personal matter, retain experienced responders and honor the labor that made response possible.

Protecting neurodivergent responders is not a special accommodation. It is an acknowledgment of reality. Disaster systems depend on diverse cognitive strengths, sustained attention under pressure, pattern recognition, and deep commitment. When systems design for the access needs of neurodivergent responders, they protect the entire workforce and strengthen collective response.

Reflection prompts

How does our disaster workforce culture treat requests for rest, clarity, or sensory relief?

Which aspects of response work create the highest burnout risk for neurodivergent staff and volunteers?

What structural changes could reduce reliance on masking and endurance as measures of commitment?

Section 22

Accessing Emergency Aid Without Administrative Harm

Emergency aid is meant to stabilize people after disaster. For many neurodivergent people, it does the opposite. Complex eligibility rules, fragmented systems, rigid timelines, and punitive verification processes create administrative harm that prolongs crisis and deepens instability. Research on administrative burden consistently shows that disabled people are less likely to successfully access benefits when processes are complex, even when eligibility is clear. In disaster contexts, where capacity is already compromised, these barriers become decisive.

Emergency aid systems often prioritize fraud prevention and efficiency over usability. Applications require detailed documentation, precise timelines, repeated disclosure of traumatic experiences, and navigation across multiple agencies. Each requirement may appear reasonable in isolation. Together, they form an obstacle course that disproportionately excludes people with executive function differences, communication disabilities, cognitive fatigue, or trauma-related shutdown.

Neurodivergent people are particularly vulnerable to administrative harm because disaster conditions intensify the very challenges these systems ignore. Executive function declines under stress. Memory is disrupted. Initiation becomes harder. Attention fragments. Research on ADHD and stress shows significant increases in task paralysis and abandonment when demands are unclear or overwhelming. Autistic research demonstrates that uncertainty and repeated demands for explanation increase anxiety and withdrawal. Emergency aid systems often rely on persistence as a proxy for need, rewarding those who can repeatedly follow up and penalizing those who cannot.

Aid systems also frequently require people to perform coherence. Applicants are expected to tell consistent, linear stories across forms, interviews, and agencies. Neurodivergent communication styles may be nonlinear, detail-heavy, or inconsistent under stress. Trauma research shows that memory fragmentation after crisis is common. When systems treat inconsistency as suspicion rather than as a normal response to disaster, neurodivergent people are more likely to be denied assistance.

Timing rules create additional harm. Strict deadlines, one-time application windows, and immediate documentation requirements assume stable access to technology, time, and support. Disaster research shows that displaced people often spend weeks or months stabilizing before they can engage with bureaucratic processes. Neurodivergent people, especially those who have lost routines, medication access, or support networks, may need even longer. Systems that do not allow for late entry, extensions, or reapplication systematically exclude those most impacted.

Neurodiversity justice reframes emergency aid as a public health intervention rather than a compliance test. The goal is stabilization, not screening for worthiness. This requires redesigning systems to reduce administrative load and increase completion rates without sacrificing accountability.

One evidence-based strategy is staged access. Initial aid should require minimal information and provide immediate support. Additional documentation can be collected later, once people are more regulated and supported. Studies of benefit access show that reducing initial requirements dramatically increases uptake and reduces downstream costs associated with prolonged instability.

Navigation support is another critical intervention. Research across healthcare and social services demonstrates that assisted navigation significantly improves outcomes for disabled people. In disaster contexts, trained navigators can help neurodivergent people understand eligibility, complete applications, track deadlines, and communicate with agencies. Importantly, navigation should be offered proactively rather than contingent on self-advocacy.

Aid systems must also offer multiple modes of access. Phone-only systems exclude people with auditory processing differences, speech anxiety, or trauma. Online-only systems exclude people without reliable internet or with digital access barriers. In-person-only systems exclude people who cannot tolerate crowded or sensory-hostile environments. Multi-modal access is not redundancy. It is equity.

Verification processes require particular scrutiny. Disaster aid often demands proof that has been destroyed by the disaster itself. Neurodivergent people may also have difficulty locating or organizing documentation even when it exists. Flexible verification methods, sworn statements, and inter-agency data sharing reduce harm without increasing fraud risk. Research on disaster recovery consistently shows that overly rigid verification delays recovery and increases homelessness and institutionalization.

Finally, aid systems must recognize cumulative burden. Neurodivergent people often apply for multiple forms of assistance simultaneously: housing, food, medical care, income support. Each system has its own rules and interfaces. Without coordination, people are forced to repeat the same tasks across systems, multiplying cognitive load. Integrated case management and data sharing, when done ethically, reduce repetition and increase access.

Emergency aid that causes harm is not neutral. It is a design failure. Neurodiversity justice demands aid systems that assume fluctuating capacity, value completion over compliance, and prioritize stabilization over suspicion. When aid is accessible, recovery accelerates. When it is not, disaster becomes chronic.

Reflection prompts

Which steps in our aid systems require the most persistence, repetition, or self-advocacy?

How do our verification and deadline rules interact with stress, trauma, and executive function decline?

What changes would increase aid completion without increasing harm?

Section 23

Medication Continuity and Assistive Supports as Stabilization Infrastructure

Medication, assistive technology, and regulation tools are often framed as secondary needs in disaster response, addressed after shelter, food, and basic medical care. For neurodivergent people, this framing is inaccurate and dangerous. Medication continuity and access to assistive supports are foundational to stability, communication, and safety. When they are disrupted, the risk of medical crisis, psychiatric escalation, and long-term harm increases sharply.

Research following major disasters consistently documents widespread interruption of prescription access, particularly for psychiatric and neurological medications. Abrupt discontinuation of stimulants, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, and anti-anxiety medications is associated with withdrawal symptoms, cognitive impairment, emotional dysregulation, sleep disruption, and increased risk of hospitalization. For autistic and ADHD people, these effects often compound existing sensory overload and executive function strain, leading to rapid loss of capacity. These outcomes are predictable and preventable.

Disaster systems frequently place responsibility for medication continuity on individuals, advising people to maintain surplus supplies, carry documentation, or plan ahead with providers. This advice ignores systemic constraints. Insurance policies often prohibit early refills. Pharmacies may be closed or destroyed. Electronic records may be inaccessible. Housing displacement increases the risk of loss or theft. Executive function demands increase precisely when capacity decreases. When systems fail to plan for these realities, medication disruption is not an accident. It is a design failure.

Medication continuity must be treated as a core disaster function. This includes establishing emergency refill protocols, coordinating with pharmacies and healthcare systems across jurisdictions, and authorizing temporary substitutions when exact medications are unavailable. Research in disaster medicine shows that streamlined emergency refill policies reduce emergency department utilization and prevent secondary crises. Clear guidance to responders that psychiatric and neurodevelopmental medications are essential, not optional, is critical to implementation.

Documentation requirements require particular scrutiny. Disaster response often relies on proof of prescription or diagnosis that may no longer exist. Neurodivergent people are disproportionately harmed when access depends on paperwork rather than clinical judgment. Flexible verification methods, including patient attestation and inter-system data sharing, reduce harm without compromising safety. Studies of emergency prescription access show that flexibility during disasters improves outcomes and reduces long-term costs.

Assistive supports extend beyond medication. Communication devices, sensory regulation tools, mobility aids, visual supports, and other assistive technologies are often central to daily functioning for neurodivergent people. Loss of these supports can render people unable to communicate needs, navigate environments, or regulate distress. Research on assistive technology disruption demonstrates significant declines in independence and increased risk of institutionalization following disasters when replacements are delayed.

Disaster shelters and response sites should anticipate the need for assistive supports rather than treating them as exceptional requests. This includes providing charging access and backup power for devices, space for storing equipment safely, and policies that allow people to keep assistive items with them at all times. Confiscation or separation from assistive tools, even temporarily, can trigger crisis and escalate situations unnecessarily.

Sensory regulation supports deserve explicit recognition. Items such as noise-reducing headphones, sunglasses, weighted objects, fidgets, and visual timers are often dismissed as comfort items. Research in sensory processing shows that these tools significantly reduce physiological stress and support regulation. In disaster environments, where sensory input is intense and unavoidable, access to regulation tools can prevent shutdown, panic, and behavioral escalation. Treating these supports as legitimate access needs rather than personal preferences is a matter of safety.

Supply chains for assistive supports should be integrated into disaster logistics. Just as shelters stock first aid supplies and basic medical equipment, they should stock common regulation tools and communication aids. These items are low-cost relative to the downstream costs of crisis intervention, emergency medical response, or law enforcement involvement. Evidence from inclusive disaster response models shows that small investments in access supports reduce overall system strain.

Importantly, medication continuity and assistive supports also protect responders and staff. When neurodivergent people are stabilized, communication improves, cooperation increases, and escalation decreases. This reduces workload and risk for everyone involved. Neurodiversity justice recognizes that access is not a zero-sum resource. It is a force multiplier.

Treating medication and assistive supports as stabilization infrastructure requires a cultural shift. It asks disaster systems to recognize that cognitive and neurological stability are as essential as physical safety. When systems plan for this reality, they prevent predictable harm and support faster recovery.

Reflection prompts

Which medications and assistive supports are most critical for stability in our community?

How do our current policies handle lost prescriptions, devices, or documentation?

What supplies or protocols could we add now to prevent secondary crises during disasters?

Section 24

Food, Sleep, and Regulation Needs

Food and sleep are often treated as basic logistics in disaster response, addressed through calorie counts, distribution schedules, and bed capacity. For neurodivergent people, food and sleep are not interchangeable commodities. They are tightly linked to regulation, cognition, medication effectiveness, and emotional stability. When disaster systems ignore how food and sleep interact with neurodivergent needs, they create secondary crises that are often misinterpreted as behavioral or psychiatric problems.

Research across neuroscience and public health shows that sleep deprivation significantly impairs executive function, emotional regulation, and sensory processing. Even short periods of disrupted sleep increase irritability, anxiety, impulsivity, and difficulty with attention and decision-making. For autistic people, studies demonstrate heightened sensory sensitivity and reduced stress tolerance after sleep loss. For ADHD people, sleep disruption is associated with increased inattention, emotional lability, and risk-taking. Disaster environments routinely produce sleep deprivation through noise, lighting, crowding, fear, and lack of privacy.

Shelter design and operations often exacerbate sleep disruption. Constant lighting, overnight announcements, shared sleeping spaces, and unpredictable schedules prevent restorative rest. Research on shelter utilization shows that lack of sleep is a major reason people leave shelters early or avoid them entirely. For neurodivergent people, the inability to sleep can rapidly escalate distress, leading to shutdown, meltdowns, or withdrawal. These responses are then often pathologized rather than recognized as consequences of deprivation.

Food access presents similar challenges. Disaster food provision frequently prioritizes shelf stability and mass distribution over suitability. While these priorities are understandable, they can have unintended consequences for neurodivergent people. Many autistic people have sensory sensitivities related to taste, texture, smell, or temperature. ADHD people may struggle with appetite regulation under stress. People taking certain medications require food at specific times or with specific nutritional content. Research on nutrition and regulation shows that inconsistent meals and blood sugar fluctuations worsen cognitive and emotional instability.

When neurodivergent people cannot eat available food due to sensory or medical needs, they may go without eating for extended periods. This increases irritability, reduces medication effectiveness, and exacerbates regulation challenges. Disaster systems often misinterpret food refusal as noncooperation or pickiness rather than as a predictable sensory response. Studies in disaster shelters have documented higher rates of dehydration, hypoglycemia, and medication nonadherence among disabled residents when food options are limited.

Neurodiversity justice reframes food and sleep as regulation infrastructure. Systems must be designed to support basic physiological stability, not merely survival. This does not require perfection or unlimited choice. It requires flexibility, predictability, and respect for bodily needs.

Sleep support can include designated quiet hours, reduced overnight lighting, limits on unnecessary announcements, and physical separation between sleeping and high-traffic areas. Even modest interventions, such as providing earplugs, eye masks, or partitions, significantly improve sleep quality. Research on disaster shelters shows that improved sleep reduces conflict, improves mood, and increases shelter retention.

Food support requires recognizing that one-size-fits-all provision is insufficient. Offering a small range of options with varied textures and flavors increases the likelihood that neurodivergent people can eat something. Allowing people to save food for later, eat at flexible times, or prepare simple foods when possible supports regulation. Clear labeling of ingredients and allergens is also essential for safety and trust.

Predictability matters for both food and sleep. Regular meal times, posted schedules, and advance notice of changes reduce anxiety and cognitive load. Neurodivergent people often rely on routine to regulate under stress. When systems provide no structure, people must constantly monitor and adapt, increasing exhaustion. Research on routine and regulation shows that predictability is protective even in unstable environments.

Hydration is another often-overlooked factor. Dehydration exacerbates fatigue, headaches, and cognitive impairment. Ensuring easy access to water without barriers or rationing reduces physiological stress. For people taking stimulant medications or experiencing high sensory stress, hydration is particularly important.

Importantly, food and sleep needs intersect with dignity. Being forced to eat food that causes distress or to sleep under constant surveillance communicates that comfort and regulation are luxuries. Neurodiversity justice insists that dignity is not suspended during disasters. Systems that support basic regulation communicate that people are valued, not merely managed.

Supporting food and sleep needs also benefits disaster staff and volunteers. Responders experience the same physiological stressors and are prone to the same regulation challenges. Improving food quality, rest opportunities, and predictability reduces burnout and errors across the system. Designing for neurodivergent needs strengthens collective capacity.

When disaster systems fail to support food and sleep, they create conditions where distress is inevitable. When they do support these needs, they reduce secondary crises and increase resilience. Regulation begins with the body. Disaster planning that ignores this reality undermines its own goals.

Reflection prompts

How do our shelters and response sites support or undermine sleep quality?

What food options are realistically usable for people with sensory, medical, or medication-related needs?

How predictable are our schedules, and how do we communicate changes?

Section 25

Housing, Displacement, and Neurodivergent Risk

Recovery begins and ends with housing. For neurodivergent people, housing stability is not only a material concern. It is a cognitive, sensory, and regulatory foundation. When disasters disrupt housing, neurodivergent people face disproportionate risk of prolonged displacement, homelessness, institutionalization, and loss of autonomy. These outcomes are not random. They are the result of recovery systems that treat housing as a commodity rather than as a prerequisite for stability and participation.

Research on post-disaster recovery consistently shows that disabled people take longer to return to stable housing and are more likely to experience repeated displacement. Neurodivergent people are especially vulnerable because recovery housing systems often assume flexibility, rapid decision-making, tolerance of unfamiliar environments, and the ability to navigate complex administrative processes. These assumptions exclude people whose functioning depends on predictability, sensory safety, proximity to supports, and routine.

Temporary housing solutions frequently introduce new barriers. Congregate settings, hotels, trailers, or shared housing may be loud, crowded, and unpredictable. For autistic people and people with sensory processing differences, these environments can be intolerable. Sleep disruption, loss of regulation, and increased anxiety are common. Studies following disaster displacement have documented increased psychiatric crises and service utilization among disabled people placed in unsuitable temporary housing. When people leave these placements due to distress, they are often labeled as noncompliant rather than recognized as responding to environmental harm.

Location matters as much as structure. Recovery housing is often far from original neighborhoods, healthcare providers, schools, workplaces, and support networks. For neurodivergent people, relocation away from familiar environments and routines significantly increases cognitive load and stress. Research on relocation trauma shows that displacement disrupts regulation and increases the risk of long-term instability, particularly for people with cognitive and psychiatric disabilities. When recovery systems prioritize speed over continuity, they trade short-term efficiency for long-term harm.

Housing eligibility and placement processes introduce additional risk. Recovery programs often require rapid choices among limited options, with penalties for refusal. Neurodivergent people may need more time to assess sensory conditions, accessibility, proximity to supports, and feasibility of routines. When refusal is treated as defiance or ingratitude, people are pressured into placements that undermine stability. Evidence from housing policy research shows that forced or mismatched placements increase turnover, program exits, and eventual homelessness.

Neurodiversity justice reframes housing as stabilization infrastructure. Recovery systems must assume that neurodivergent people require environments that support regulation, communication, and routine in order to recover. This does not mean luxury or individualized solutions for every person. It means offering options, flexibility, and informed choice.

Preventing long-term displacement requires prioritizing return to community. Programs that support repairs, rent assistance, and in-place recovery reduce disruption and preserve support networks. Studies on disaster recovery show that people who can remain in or near their original communities recover faster and with fewer secondary harms. For neurodivergent people, maintaining proximity to known environments and people is particularly protective.

When relocation is unavoidable, recovery systems should incorporate neurodivergent access considerations into placement decisions. This includes assessing sensory environment, privacy, noise levels, and predictability, as well as proximity to healthcare, transportation, and support networks. Allowing people to visit or receive detailed information about placements before committing reduces distress and improves outcomes. Research on housing stability demonstrates that informed choice is one of the strongest predictors of sustained tenancy.

Housing recovery must also guard against institutionalization. Disasters often accelerate pathways into congregate care, psychiatric facilities, or nursing homes when community supports collapse. Disability rights research documents increased institutional placement of disabled people after disasters, often framed as temporary solutions that become permanent. Neurodivergent people are at particular risk when distress is medicalized rather than understood as a response to displacement. Recovery systems must treat community-based housing as the default and institutional placement as a last resort.

Economic factors compound these risks. Neurodivergent people are disproportionately low-income and more likely to experience employment disruption after disasters. Recovery housing that is unaffordable once temporary assistance ends sets people up for future displacement. Long-term stability requires aligning housing recovery with income support, employment accommodations, and benefits access. Research on housing insecurity shows that stability depends on coordinated supports, not housing alone.

Housing recovery is also a site of dignity. Being shuffled between placements, subjected to inspections without consent, or denied autonomy over one’s living space reinforces the message that disabled people are problems to be managed. Neurodiversity justice insists that recovery must restore agency as well as shelter.

When housing recovery fails, disaster never ends. For neurodivergent people, stable, suitable housing is the difference between recovery and chronic crisis. Designing housing recovery systems that account for neurodivergent needs is not an add-on. It is central to disaster justice.

Reflection prompts

How do our recovery housing options support or undermine regulation and routine?

Where do our policies prioritize speed over suitability or choice?

How do we prevent temporary displacement from becoming permanent instability?

Section 26

Case Management That People Can Actually Use

Case management is often positioned as the solution to complex recovery systems. In practice, it frequently becomes another layer of administrative burden that neurodivergent people are expected to navigate. When case management relies on frequent appointments, phone calls, fragmented referrals, and shifting requirements, it reproduces the same access barriers as the systems it is meant to coordinate. For neurodivergent people recovering from disaster, this can turn assistance into another source of harm.

Research on post-disaster recovery consistently shows that continuity and trust are among the strongest predictors of successful outcomes. Yet recovery systems often cycle people through multiple caseworkers due to funding structures, staffing shortages, or program silos. Each transition requires retelling traumatic experiences, re-explaining needs, and rebuilding rapport. Trauma research demonstrates that repeated narrative demands increase distress and avoidance, particularly for autistic people and people with psychiatric disabilities. For neurodivergent people, losing a trusted case manager can result in disengagement from recovery services altogether.

Cognitive load is a central but often invisible barrier. Case management frequently assumes that people can track appointments, remember instructions, prioritize tasks, and follow up independently. Executive function research shows that these capacities are significantly impaired after disaster exposure. ADHD research highlights increased task paralysis and working memory deficits under stress, while autistic research documents heightened difficulty with planning and prioritization when routines are disrupted. When case management requires people to self-manage coordination, it fails the people who need it most.

Neurodiversity justice reframes case management as a shared cognitive task rather than an oversight function. The purpose of case management is not to monitor compliance. It is to reduce complexity. This requires systems that take on coordination work instead of outsourcing it to individuals in crisis.

Effective case management for neurodivergent people prioritizes continuity. Whenever possible, people should have a single, consistent point of contact across housing, benefits, healthcare, and social services. Research in social services demonstrates that single-case-manager models reduce attrition, increase benefit uptake, and improve satisfaction among disabled clients. Consistency builds trust, reduces repetition, and allows case managers to develop a deeper understanding of individual needs.

Communication modality is equally important. Many case management systems default to phone calls, which can be inaccessible for neurodivergent people with auditory processing differences, speech anxiety, or trauma. Offering text, email, written summaries, and visual checklists increases access and reduces miscommunication. Studies of patient navigation programs show that written follow-up significantly improves task completion and reduces missed appointments.

Predictability supports engagement. Clear schedules, advance notice of appointments, and written agendas reduce anxiety and cognitive load. Neurodivergent people often disengage when interactions feel unpredictable or punitive. Case management that explains what will happen, why it matters, and what comes next supports regulation and trust. Research on trauma-informed care shows that predictability increases participation and reduces dropout.

Flexibility is essential. Recovery does not proceed at a uniform pace. Neurodivergent capacity fluctuates based on health, housing stability, medication access, and sensory environment. Case management systems that enforce rigid timelines or penalize missed steps exacerbate harm. Evidence from disability services shows that flexible pacing and second chances increase long-term success without increasing cost.

Documentation practices also matter. Case notes, action plans, and requirements are often written in technical language that clients cannot access. Providing plain-language summaries of goals, deadlines, and next steps supports understanding and reduces reliance on memory. Neurodiversity justice treats accessible documentation as part of service delivery, not as an optional courtesy.

Importantly, case management must avoid pathologizing disengagement. When neurodivergent people miss appointments or fail to follow through, this is often interpreted as lack of motivation. Research on executive dysfunction and trauma shows that avoidance is a common response to overwhelming systems. Case management that responds with outreach, problem-solving, and adjustment rather than punishment keeps people connected.

Case managers themselves need support. High caseloads, unclear roles, and inadequate training increase burnout and reduce effectiveness. Supporting case managers with clear protocols, supervision, and realistic expectations improves outcomes for clients and staff alike. Neurodiversity justice recognizes that humane systems require humane working conditions.

Case management that people can actually use is not about doing more paperwork. It is about doing less harm. When systems reduce cognitive load, maintain continuity, and build trust, recovery becomes possible. When they do not, disaster extends indefinitely.

Reflection prompts

How often do people have to retell their story in our recovery systems?

Which case management tasks assume intact memory, organization, and follow-through?

What would change if coordination work belonged to the system rather than the individual?

Section 27

Preventing Institutionalization and Forced Segregation

Disasters do not merely disrupt lives in the moment. They alter trajectories. For neurodivergent people, one of the most dangerous long-term impacts of disaster is the increased risk of institutionalization and forced segregation. When community supports collapse and recovery systems are poorly designed, placement in psychiatric facilities, nursing homes, group homes, or other congregate settings is often framed as the only available option. Research across disability rights, disaster recovery, and public health shows that this drift toward institutionalization is predictable, preventable, and deeply harmful.

Institutionalization after disaster is rarely the result of increased impairment. It is the result of lost housing, disrupted care networks, inaccessible temporary placements, and systems that interpret distress as incapacity. Studies following major disasters have documented spikes in nursing home admissions and psychiatric hospitalizations among disabled people, particularly those who were previously living independently or with minimal support. Once placed, people often struggle to exit, even when the placement was described as temporary.

Neurodivergent people are especially vulnerable to this pathway. Autistic people experiencing sensory overload, loss of routine, or medication disruption may exhibit distress responses that are misinterpreted as psychiatric emergencies. ADHD people facing prolonged instability may be labeled as unable to manage daily life. Elders with cognitive disabilities may be deemed unsafe without community supports that were never restored. In each case, the environment is treated as fixed, and the person is treated as the problem.

Forced segregation is often justified through narratives of safety and care. In practice, congregate settings frequently increase risk. Research on institutional environments documents higher rates of abuse, neglect, medication overuse, and loss of autonomy compared to community-based supports. For neurodivergent people, institutional settings are often sensory-hostile, rigid, and punitive, exacerbating distress rather than resolving it. These harms are magnified when placements are made under crisis conditions without informed consent.

Neurodiversity justice rejects institutionalization as an acceptable default response to disaster. Community living is not a privilege to be suspended during emergencies. It is a right. Recovery systems must be explicitly designed to preserve community-based living and to interrupt pathways that funnel neurodivergent people into segregated settings.

Preventing institutionalization begins with housing policy. When recovery housing options are limited to congregate models or unsuitable placements, institutionalization becomes inevitable. Recovery systems must prioritize funding and policies that support in-place recovery, scattered-site housing, and flexible supports. Research on community-based housing shows that even modest supports can prevent institutional placement and reduce long-term costs.

Care continuity is another critical factor. Loss of in-home services, personal care assistance, or community supports often triggers institutional referral. Disaster recovery plans must include strategies for restoring and stabilizing these services quickly. Treating support restoration as secondary to physical rebuilding delays recovery and increases risk. Evidence from long-term services research shows that rapid reestablishment of community supports reduces hospitalizations and institutional admissions.

Decision-making processes require scrutiny. During disasters, determinations about capacity and safety are often made quickly, by unfamiliar professionals, and without meaningful input from the person or their community. Neurodivergent communication differences and distress responses are frequently misread as incapacity. Neurodiversity justice requires that capacity assessments be contextual, time-limited, and rights-respecting, recognizing that crisis does not equal incompetence.

Choice and consent are central. Many post-disaster placements occur without genuine consent, framed as the only option available. Research in disability rights law shows that lack of alternatives undermines the validity of consent. Recovery systems must ensure that people are informed of options, supported in decision-making, and allowed to refuse placements that are harmful. Supported decision-making models provide a rights-based alternative to substitution and guardianship, even under crisis conditions.

Preventing segregation also requires addressing risk aversion. Institutions are often seen as safer because liability is centralized. Community-based solutions are perceived as risky because responsibility is shared. Research on risk management in social services shows that this bias leads to overly restrictive placements that prioritize institutional protection over individual well-being. Neurodiversity justice calls for risk to be managed through support and design, not confinement.

Importantly, institutionalization is expensive. Studies comparing community-based supports to institutional care consistently show that community living is more cost-effective when long-term outcomes are considered. Disasters that push people into institutions create financial burdens that persist long after recovery funds are exhausted. Preventing institutionalization is not only a moral imperative. It is fiscally responsible.

Disasters test whether systems are committed to disability rights under pressure. When recovery defaults to segregation, it reveals that community living was conditional all along. Neurodiversity justice insists that rights do not disappear in emergencies. Recovery systems must be designed to keep neurodivergent people in community, with support, dignity, and choice.

Reflection prompts

Where in our recovery systems do people get routed into congregate or institutional settings?

What community-based alternatives are underfunded or underdeveloped?

How do we ensure that distress under crisis is not misinterpreted as permanent incapacity?

Section 28

Trauma, Grief, and Non-Coercive Mental Health Support

Disasters are traumatic events. They involve threat, loss, disruption, and prolonged uncertainty. For neurodivergent people, disaster-related trauma is often compounded by prior experiences of institutional harm, medical coercion, family separation, and punishment for distress. Recovery systems that fail to recognize this layering of trauma frequently cause additional harm by pathologizing normal responses and responding with control rather than care.

Research across trauma psychology shows that responses such as hypervigilance, withdrawal, irritability, shutdown, difficulty concentrating, emotional numbness, and sleep disruption are common after disasters. These responses are not signs of pathology. They are adaptive reactions to overwhelming events. Neurodivergent people may express these responses differently due to differences in communication, sensory processing, and emotional regulation. When systems interpret difference as disorder, support quickly turns into surveillance or coercion.

Grief in disaster contexts is also complex and cumulative. Neurodivergent people often grieve not only losses of people, homes, and routines, but also loss of safety, trust, and identity. Autistic research has documented profound distress associated with loss of familiar environments and predictable structures. ADHD research shows increased emotional dysregulation and impulsivity following major life disruptions. These experiences are frequently invisible to recovery systems that focus narrowly on diagnosable symptoms rather than lived impact.

Mental health responses to disaster often default to clinical and coercive models. Crisis lines, involuntary evaluations, psychiatric holds, and forced medication changes are common, especially when people present with visible distress. Research in disaster mental health shows that coercive interventions increase trauma symptoms, reduce trust in systems, and discourage future help-seeking, particularly among disabled people. For neurodivergent people with histories of psychiatric trauma, these responses can be retraumatizing.

Neurodiversity justice insists on non-coercive, consent-based mental health support. Support must be voluntary, accessible, and grounded in respect for autonomy. This does not mean ignoring risk. It means recognizing that distress does not equal danger and that support is most effective when people feel safe and in control.

Peer support plays a critical role. Research on peer-led mental health interventions demonstrates reduced hospitalization, improved engagement, and greater satisfaction compared to clinician-only models, particularly for marginalized populations. Neurodivergent peer support offers validation, shared language, and strategies rooted in lived experience. After disasters, peer spaces often provide the first and most trusted form of emotional support. Recovery systems should fund and integrate these supports rather than treating them as informal or secondary.

Trauma-informed care must be truly trauma-informed, not trauma-labeled. This means assuming that people have been harmed by systems as well as by events, avoiding practices that replicate powerlessness, and prioritizing choice, collaboration, and transparency. Research shows that trauma-informed approaches reduce escalation and improve outcomes when they are implemented structurally rather than as individual attitudes.

Non-coercive mental health support also requires accessibility. Traditional therapy models often rely on verbal processing, eye contact, and emotional articulation that may not align with neurodivergent communication styles. Offering multiple modalities, including written, asynchronous, somatic, creative, and movement-based supports, increases access. Flexibility in pacing and expectations allows people to engage when capacity permits.

Cultural context matters. Neurodivergent people who are also marginalized by race, gender, sexuality, or immigration status face additional barriers to mental health support and greater risk of coercion. Disaster recovery systems must recognize intersectional risk and partner with community-based providers who are trusted and culturally responsive. Research on disaster recovery consistently shows better outcomes when supports are delivered through trusted community channels.

Importantly, mental health support must not be contingent on compliance with other recovery requirements. When access to housing, aid, or services is conditioned on participation in mental health treatment, support becomes coercive. Neurodiversity justice rejects this linkage. Care must be available without threat of penalty or loss of resources.

Long-term support is essential. Disaster trauma does not resolve on a predictable timeline. Neurodivergent people may experience delayed or prolonged impacts as routines, supports, and environments remain unstable. Recovery systems that end mental health support prematurely contribute to chronic distress and disability. Research on long-term disaster recovery shows that sustained, flexible support reduces long-term costs and improves quality of life.

Healing after disaster is not about returning people to a pre-disaster baseline. It is about supporting people to rebuild lives under new conditions. Neurodiversity justice recognizes that grief and trauma are not failures to recover. They are human responses to loss. Systems that honor this reality create space for healing rather than enforcing premature closure.

Reflection prompts

How do our recovery systems interpret distress, and where do they default to coercion?

What non-clinical and peer-led supports are available after disasters?

How do we ensure that mental health support is accessible, voluntary, and culturally responsive?

Section 29

Embedding Neurodiversity Justice Into Policy and Governance

Neurodiversity justice cannot live solely in frontline practice. If it is not embedded in policy, governance, and institutional authority, it will remain vulnerable to erosion during crisis, leadership changes, or budget pressure. Disaster systems often rely on individual champions to advance disability inclusion. When those individuals leave or when emergencies escalate, access disappears. Research on organizational change consistently shows that lasting equity outcomes require structural integration, not goodwill.

Policy is where values become enforceable. Disaster policies determine who has authority, how decisions are made, what is funded, and which outcomes are measured. When neurodiversity justice is absent from policy language, it becomes optional in practice. Agencies may express commitment to inclusion while maintaining procedures that criminalize distress, segregate disabled people, or impose administrative harm. Embedding justice into policy shifts inclusion from aspiration to obligation.

Governance structures must explicitly include neurodivergent people. Advisory roles without decision-making power are insufficient. Neurodivergent people should hold voting seats on disaster planning committees, recovery boards, and oversight bodies. Research in participatory governance shows that shared decision-making improves policy relevance and accountability, particularly for marginalized communities. When neurodivergent people are absent from governance, predictable harms are reframed as unforeseen complications rather than design failures.

Authority matters as much as representation. Disability integration roles must have the power to pause or revise policies that create harm. Without authority, integration functions become symbolic. Agencies should define clear lines of accountability, including who is responsible for identifying access barriers, who has the authority to mandate changes, and how disputes are resolved. Neurodiversity justice requires that access concerns carry weight equal to operational or legal concerns.

Policy integration also requires clarity of scope. Neurodiversity justice should be explicitly included across preparedness, response, and recovery policies rather than isolated in disability annexes. Research on emergency planning shows that siloed disability plans are more likely to be overlooked during crisis. When access considerations are embedded throughout core policies, they are more likely to be implemented under pressure.

Budgetary governance is a critical lever. Values are revealed in budgets. Agencies must allocate dedicated funding for neurodiversity justice initiatives, including community partnerships, training, accessibility infrastructure, and evaluation. Reliance on discretionary or grant-based funding creates instability and inequity. Research in public administration shows that earmarked funding increases implementation fidelity and sustainability.

Policy must also address enforcement and accountability. Clear standards for accessible communication, sheltering, and response should be paired with monitoring mechanisms and consequences for noncompliance. Without accountability, access commitments remain rhetorical. Neurodiversity justice is advanced when agencies track outcomes such as shelter avoidance, escalation incidents, aid attrition, and institutionalization rates and use this data to drive policy revision.

Interagency governance is another essential dimension. Disaster response involves multiple agencies with overlapping mandates. When neurodiversity justice is unevenly implemented, people encounter wildly different experiences across systems. Coordinated governance structures that align standards and share accountability reduce fragmentation and harm. Research on disaster coordination shows that aligned policies improve response efficiency and reduce duplication.

Policy development processes must themselves be accessible. Drafting timelines, consultation formats, and decision procedures should allow neurodivergent participation without requiring masking or unpaid labor. Transparent documentation of how community input influenced policy builds trust and reduces skepticism. Neurodiversity justice is undermined when policies claim community engagement without evidence of impact.

Embedding justice into governance also requires preparedness for backsliding. Disasters create pressure to suspend safeguards in the name of urgency. Policies should include explicit statements that disability rights and access standards remain in force during emergencies. Research on emergency powers demonstrates that rights protections are most vulnerable during crisis. Neurodiversity justice insists on preemptive protection.

Ultimately, policy and governance determine whether neurodiversity justice survives contact with reality. When justice is embedded structurally, it guides action even when individuals are exhausted, frightened, or overwhelmed. When it is not, harm becomes routine. Disaster systems that commit to governance-level change move from managing risk to reducing it.

Reflection prompts

Where in our policies does neurodiversity justice have enforceable authority, and where is it merely aspirational?

Who has the power to halt or revise practices that create access harm during disasters?

How do our budgets reflect our stated commitments to disability and neurodiversity justice?

Section 30

Procurement, Contracting, and Vendor Accountability

Disaster systems do not operate alone. They rely on vendors, contractors, nonprofit partners, and private entities to deliver shelters, communications, technology, transportation, food, housing, and recovery services. Procurement and contracting decisions therefore shape access as much as frontline policy. When neurodiversity justice is absent from contracts, it disappears in practice, regardless of agency intent.

Research in public administration and disability policy consistently shows that accessibility requirements are most effectively implemented when they are embedded into procurement standards rather than retrofitted after harm occurs. When vendors are selected based solely on cost, speed, or capacity, access is treated as optional. Neurodivergent people then experience the consequences through inaccessible shelters, unusable communication platforms, and services that escalate distress.

Procurement processes often privilege scale over suitability. Large vendors with standardized models may be favored even when their services are poorly aligned with neurodivergent access needs. Smaller neurodivergent-led or disability-led organizations are frequently excluded due to rigid bidding requirements, insurance thresholds, or administrative complexity. This reproduces inequity while limiting innovation. Research on inclusive procurement demonstrates that flexible contracting mechanisms increase participation by community-based providers and improve service relevance.

Neurodiversity justice requires that accessibility be a core performance criterion, not a supplemental expectation. Contracts should specify requirements for accessible communication, sensory-safe environments, non-punitive practices, and disability-informed training. These requirements must be measurable and enforceable. Vague language about “considering special needs” is insufficient and unenforceable.

Vendor accountability also requires clarity about consequences. When contractors fail to meet access standards, agencies must have mechanisms to require correction, impose penalties, or terminate contracts. Without consequences, accessibility commitments become symbolic. Research on contract compliance shows that enforcement is a stronger driver of behavior change than guidance alone.

Training requirements are another critical lever. Vendors providing shelter management, security, call center services, transportation, or case management should be required to train staff in neurodivergent access and de-escalation. This training should be ongoing and evaluated, not a one-time orientation. Evidence from workforce training studies shows that repeated, scenario-based training improves retention and application of skills under stress.

Procurement must also address technology. Disaster response increasingly relies on digital platforms for alerts, registration, aid applications, and information sharing. Technology vendors often prioritize functionality for average users, leaving neurodivergent access needs unaddressed. Contracts should require cognitive accessibility, plain language design, multimodal communication, and usability testing with neurodivergent users. Research in human-centered design shows that inclusive design reduces errors and increases adoption across populations.

Food and shelter vendors require particular scrutiny. Contracts for food provision should allow for flexibility in textures, ingredients, and timing to accommodate sensory and medical needs. Shelter contracts should specify requirements for lighting, noise management, space allocation, and decompression areas. These elements are often omitted because they are not traditionally considered infrastructure. Neurodiversity justice insists that they are.

Vendor selection processes must also consider data practices. Contractors often collect sensitive information during disasters. Contracts should include clear limits on data use, sharing, and retention, particularly regarding disability-related information. Research on data governance highlights increased risk of misuse during emergencies when oversight is weakened. Protecting privacy is essential to maintaining trust and access.

Importantly, procurement decisions signal values. When agencies prioritize vendors who demonstrate neurodiversity justice in practice, they shift market behavior. Vendors adapt to requirements that are consistently enforced. Over time, accessibility becomes a competitive advantage rather than a burden. Research on public sector procurement shows that standards-driven markets produce systemic change.

Neurodiversity justice in procurement is not about perfection. It is about leverage. Agencies already wield significant power through contracts. Using that power to require access, dignity, and non-punitive practices transforms disaster systems at scale.

Reflection prompts

Which of our current contracts include enforceable neurodivergent access requirements?

How do our procurement processes exclude neurodivergent-led or disability-led providers?

What accountability mechanisms exist when vendors create harm during disasters?

Section 31

Data, Metrics, and Ethical Evaluation

Disaster systems are driven by data. Metrics determine funding, public narratives, leadership evaluations, and future planning. Yet the data most commonly collected during disasters rarely captures neurodivergent experience or harm. When outcomes are not measured, they are treated as incidental. Neurodiversity justice demands a rethinking of what counts as success and how evaluation is conducted.

Traditional disaster metrics prioritize speed, volume, and throughput. How quickly shelters opened. How many people were evacuated. How many meals were served. How fast debris was cleared. These indicators matter, but they do not reveal whether systems were usable, safe, or equitable. Research in disaster evaluation shows that high-output metrics can coexist with severe harm to marginalized groups. Without disaggregated and qualitative data, inequity remains invisible.

Neurodivergent harms are particularly likely to be erased by conventional metrics. Shelter avoidance due to sensory overload, escalation resulting from communication barriers, aid attrition caused by executive function demands, and post-disaster institutionalization are rarely tracked. When neurodivergent people disengage or are excluded, systems often record success because the interaction ended, not because needs were met. This produces a false picture of effectiveness.

Ethical evaluation begins with recognizing that absence from data does not equal absence of need. Research on disability and disaster consistently shows that disabled people are undercounted in official assessments, particularly when data collection relies on self-report, formal service use, or compliance-based engagement. Neurodiversity justice requires proactive strategies to capture outcomes that are otherwise missed.

Disaggregation is essential. Data should be broken down by disability status, including neurodivergence, while respecting privacy and consent. Aggregated disability categories obscure distinct access barriers and outcomes. For example, evacuation success rates may differ dramatically between people with mobility disabilities and autistic people facing sensory barriers. Without disaggregation, targeted improvements are impossible.

Qualitative data is equally important. Lived experience narratives reveal patterns that numbers alone cannot capture. Research in participatory evaluation shows that qualitative methods identify system failures earlier and more accurately for marginalized communities. Neurodivergent-led evaluation teams can surface harms that external evaluators may overlook or misinterpret. Compensation for participation is essential to avoid extraction.

Evaluation must also examine process, not just outcomes. How decisions were made. Whose input shaped policies. Where access considerations were overridden. Process data reveals whether neurodiversity justice is structurally embedded or dependent on individual discretion. Studies of organizational accountability show that process transparency is a key predictor of sustained equity.

Timing matters. Many neurodivergent harms emerge after the acute response phase, during recovery and long-term stabilization. Short evaluation windows miss delayed impacts such as burnout, loss of services, housing instability, and institutionalization. Longitudinal evaluation is necessary to understand true outcomes. Research on long-term disaster recovery demonstrates that inequities often widen over time when early interventions are inadequate.

Ethical evaluation also requires attention to harm created by data collection itself. Surveys, interviews, and reporting requirements can impose cognitive and emotional burdens. Neurodivergent people may find frequent data requests overwhelming or retraumatizing. Evaluation methods must be accessible, voluntary, and minimally burdensome. Plain language instruments, flexible formats, and opt-in participation reduce harm.

Transparency and accountability are the final pillars. Data must be shared back with communities in accessible formats, along with clear explanations of how findings will be used. When communities provide data without seeing change, trust erodes. Research on community-based evaluation shows that feedback loops increase engagement and improve implementation of recommendations.

Neurodiversity justice reframes evaluation as a tool for harm reduction rather than self-congratulation. Metrics should illuminate where systems failed, not merely where activity occurred. When disaster systems measure what matters to neurodivergent people, they gain the information needed to redesign systems before the next crisis.

Reflection prompts

What neurodivergent harms are currently invisible in our data?

Which metrics reward speed or volume at the expense of access and safety?

How can we involve neurodivergent communities in evaluation without extracting unpaid labor?

Section 32

Training That Changes Behavior, Not Just Awareness

Disaster agencies often respond to access failures by adding training. Too often, that training is informational rather than transformative. Staff are taught definitions, categories, and compliance requirements, but not how to behave differently under stress. Research on organizational training consistently shows that awareness alone does not change practice, especially in high-pressure environments. Neurodiversity justice requires training that reshapes decision-making, response patterns, and institutional reflexes.

Traditional disability trainings frequently emphasize recognition over action. Staff learn to identify autism, ADHD, or disability labels, but not how to redesign interactions, environments, or systems in real time. This approach can backfire. Research in implicit bias and crisis response shows that category-based training can increase stereotyping when not paired with concrete behavioral guidance. Neurodivergent people then face new forms of harm, such as being infantilized, singled out, or pathologized during disasters.

Effective training focuses on what to do, not just what to know. Studies of crisis intervention, de-escalation, and human-centered design demonstrate that behavior changes when training is scenario-based, repetitive, and directly tied to job tasks. For disaster systems, this means training that simulates real conditions: noise, time pressure, incomplete information, and emotional stress. Neurodiversity justice training must prepare staff to apply access principles when capacity is lowest, not only in calm classroom settings.

One key shift is training staff to slow down. Research on decision-making under threat shows that responders default to speed and control when stressed, even when those strategies increase harm. Training must explicitly counter this reflex by practicing pause, choice, and clarification. Simple behaviors such as allowing extra processing time, reducing verbal load, or offering written options can prevent escalation. These behaviors must be rehearsed until they become automatic.

Training should also address misinterpretation of neurodivergent behavior. Autistic shutdown, ADHD impulsivity, or trauma responses are often read as defiance or risk. Studies on use-of-force incidents involving disabled people show that misinterpretation is a primary driver of escalation. Training that uses real-world examples and neurodivergent voices helps staff learn to reframe behavior as communication rather than threat.

Role-specific training is essential. Generic trainings rarely translate into practice because different roles face different pressures. Shelter staff, field responders, call center workers, case managers, security personnel, and leadership all need tailored guidance. Research on workforce development shows that role-specific training increases retention and application of skills. Neurodiversity justice training must address the actual decisions people make in their specific roles.

Training must also be ongoing. One-time sessions are quickly overridden by organizational culture and crisis conditions. Studies of emergency preparedness training demonstrate that skills decay rapidly without reinforcement. Regular refreshers, drills, and after-action reviews that explicitly examine neurodivergent access keep principles active. Embedding access considerations into standard operating procedures reinforces training through practice.

Neurodivergent involvement in training design and delivery is critical. Lived experience provides insight that external experts cannot replicate. Research on co-produced training models shows higher impact and credibility when marginalized communities are involved as paid partners. Compensation is essential to avoid exploitation and to ensure sustained participation.

Evaluation of training effectiveness is often neglected. Agencies may track attendance but not behavioral outcomes. Neurodiversity justice requires measuring whether training reduces escalation, increases shelter retention, improves communication access, or decreases aid attrition. Data linking training to outcomes closes the loop between intention and impact.

Finally, training must be supported by policy and leadership. Staff cannot be trained to act differently if policies punish them for doing so. Research on organizational change shows that behavior shifts only when leadership signals that new practices are expected, supported, and protected. Neurodiversity justice training must be aligned with accountability structures, supervision, and performance evaluation.

Training that changes behavior recognizes a simple truth: under pressure, people do what systems have trained them to do. If disaster systems want humane, accessible response under stress, they must train for it deliberately. Awareness is a starting point. Behavior change is the goal.

Reflection prompts

What behaviors do our current trainings actually reinforce under stress?

How often do staff practice neurodivergent-accessible response in realistic conditions?

How do we know whether training is reducing harm rather than simply increasing knowledge?

Section 33

Leadership, Culture, and Decision-Making Under Pressure

Disasters do not reveal new leadership cultures. They amplify existing ones. Under pressure, organizations revert to their deepest norms about authority, risk, and whose needs matter. For neurodivergent people, leadership culture is often the difference between systems that adapt and systems that escalate harm. Research across organizational psychology and disaster management consistently shows that decisions made by leaders during crisis shape frontline behavior more than written policy ever does.

Leadership under disaster conditions is marked by uncertainty, incomplete information, and time pressure. Cognitive research shows that under these conditions, leaders are more likely to rely on heuristics, hierarchy, and control-based strategies. These instincts are often rewarded in traditional emergency management culture. Speed, decisiveness, and command are valorized, while pause, consultation, and flexibility are framed as weakness. For neurodivergent access, this cultural orientation is dangerous.

Control-oriented leadership increases harm for neurodivergent people in predictable ways. When leaders prioritize uniform compliance, frontline staff are incentivized to suppress difference rather than accommodate it. When leaders frame deviation as risk, neurodivergent behavior is more likely to be escalated or removed. Research on crisis leadership shows that rigid command structures reduce adaptability and increase error rates in complex environments. Neurodiversity justice demands leadership cultures that value adaptation over domination.

Decision-making processes are central. In many disaster systems, decisions affecting disabled people are made without disabled input, justified by urgency. Yet research on participatory decision-making shows that excluding affected communities increases the likelihood of design failure. Neurodivergent people are not an afterthought population. We are a significant portion of the public and the workforce. Leadership that fails to incorporate neurodivergent perspectives during decision-making creates blind spots that manifest as harm.

Psychological safety within leadership teams is another critical factor. Studies of high-performing teams show that leaders who tolerate dissent and encourage questioning make better decisions under pressure. Neurodivergent leaders and staff are often more likely to notice inconsistencies, risks, or unintended consequences. When organizational culture punishes dissent or rewards unquestioning obedience, these insights are silenced. Neurodiversity justice recognizes dissent as a form of care.

Leaders also set the tone for how distress is interpreted. When leadership language frames distress as disruption, frontline responses trend toward enforcement. When leadership frames distress as a predictable response to crisis, staff are more likely to slow down and support regulation. Research on organizational framing shows that leadership narratives directly influence frontline discretion. Words matter, especially during emergencies.

Risk tolerance is another defining feature of leadership culture. Many disaster systems adopt a zero-risk posture toward liability, even when that posture creates human harm. Neurodivergent people are disproportionately harmed by risk-averse policies that favor confinement, removal, or denial of services in the name of safety. Disability rights research demonstrates that excessive risk aversion leads to segregation and coercion. Neurodiversity justice calls for risk to be managed through design and support, not exclusion.

Leadership accountability must be explicit. When neurodivergent harm occurs, it is often attributed to individual error rather than systemic design. This deflection prevents learning. Research on organizational learning shows that systems improve when leaders treat failures as data rather than as personal shortcomings. Leaders committed to neurodiversity justice must be willing to examine how their decisions, priorities, and cultures produced harm and to change course accordingly.

Importantly, neurodivergent leadership itself must be protected and cultivated. Neurodivergent leaders often bring strengths in pattern recognition, systems thinking, ethical consistency, and crisis problem-solving. Yet they are frequently marginalized or penalized for communication styles that diverge from dominant norms. Disaster systems that value neurodivergent leadership build cognitive diversity into decision-making, improving resilience under pressure.

Leadership during disaster is not only about authority. It is about what kinds of humanity systems are designed to recognize. When leaders model patience, curiosity, and respect for difference, those values cascade downward. When leaders model control, speed at all costs, and intolerance for deviation, harm becomes normalized.

Neurodiversity justice insists that leadership culture is infrastructure. It determines whether policies are interpreted with flexibility or rigidity, whether training is applied or ignored, and whether access is protected when it is most inconvenient. Disasters will always test systems. Leadership determines whether those tests produce learning or trauma.

Reflection prompts

How do our leaders talk about risk, compliance, and distress during disasters?

Whose voices are included or excluded from decision-making under pressure?

What leadership behaviors are rewarded, and which are punished, in crisis moments?

Section 34

Legal Frameworks, Rights Protection, and Emergency Powers

Disasters place extraordinary strain on legal systems. States of emergency expand executive authority, suspend normal procedures, and prioritize rapid action. While these powers are often justified as necessary for public safety, history shows that emergency powers disproportionately erode the rights of disabled people. Neurodivergent people are especially vulnerable when safeguards are weakened, oversight is reduced, and urgency is used to justify coercion.

Research across disability law and disaster governance demonstrates a consistent pattern: during emergencies, disabled people experience increased institutionalization, forced medical interventions, loss of due process, and exclusion from services. These harms are not incidental. They emerge when disability rights are treated as conditional rather than fundamental. Neurodiversity justice insists that rights do not disappear in crisis. If anything, they become more essential.

Emergency powers often concentrate decision-making authority in a small number of officials. This centralization can accelerate response, but it also reduces transparency and accountability. Disability rights protections embedded in ordinary administrative processes may be bypassed in the name of speed. For neurodivergent people, this can mean denial of reasonable modifications, removal from shelters, involuntary psychiatric holds, or forced relocation without meaningful recourse. Legal research shows that lack of procedural safeguards during emergencies increases the likelihood of rights violations, particularly for marginalized groups.

One of the most dangerous legal dynamics during disasters is the expansion of involuntary intervention. Distress, confusion, or atypical behavior may be interpreted as incapacity or danger, triggering emergency detention or forced treatment. Studies examining psychiatric interventions during crises show increased use of involuntary holds following disasters, often without adequate assessment or follow-up. Neurodivergent responses to trauma and sensory overload are frequently misclassified as psychiatric emergencies, leading to unnecessary and harmful intervention.

Evacuation enforcement is another high-risk area. Mandatory evacuation orders, enforced by law enforcement, can criminalize people who cannot comply due to disability, lack of transportation, or fear of unsafe shelters. Research on disaster evacuation shows that disabled people are more likely to be penalized or left behind when enforcement is prioritized over support. Neurodiversity justice requires that evacuation be supported, not policed.

Legal frameworks also shape access to services. During disasters, eligibility rules may be tightened, documentation requirements increased, or appeals processes suspended. These changes disproportionately exclude neurodivergent people who face executive function barriers, communication differences, or loss of records. Administrative law research shows that emergency waivers often expand agency discretion while reducing individual protections. Without explicit safeguards, discretion can become discrimination.

Neurodiversity justice demands that disability rights frameworks remain operative during emergencies. This includes adherence to anti-discrimination laws, reasonable modification requirements, and due process protections. Emergency declarations should explicitly affirm that disability rights remain in force. Legal clarity reduces frontline confusion and prevents rights from being treated as optional.

Oversight mechanisms are critical. Independent monitoring bodies, ombudspersons, or civil rights offices should retain authority during emergencies. Research on rights protection during crises shows that oversight reduces abuse and increases compliance. Neurodivergent people must have accessible pathways to report harm and seek redress without fear of retaliation.

Legal preparedness is as important as logistical preparedness. Agencies should review emergency powers statutes, evacuation authorities, and crisis intervention protocols through a disability rights lens before disasters occur. Training for legal counsel, leadership, and responders should include explicit discussion of rights obligations during emergencies. Neurodiversity justice requires that legal teams be proactive, not reactive.

Intersectional risk must also be acknowledged. Neurodivergent people who are also marginalized by race, immigration status, gender, or poverty face compounded legal vulnerability during disasters. Emergency powers have historically been used to justify surveillance, detention, and exclusion of marginalized communities. Disability rights cannot be separated from broader civil rights. Neurodiversity justice situates disability protections within a larger framework of human rights.

Ultimately, emergency powers reveal what systems believe about whose lives are worth protecting when resources are scarce. When rights are suspended for disabled people in the name of efficiency, it communicates that access and autonomy are luxuries. Neurodiversity justice rejects this premise. Rights are not obstacles to effective disaster response. They are guardrails that prevent predictable harm.

Disasters demand speed, but speed without justice produces trauma that lasts far longer than the emergency itself. Legal frameworks that uphold rights under pressure are not a hindrance to response. They are essential to legitimate, humane governance.

Reflection prompts

Which rights protections are most vulnerable during our emergency declarations?

How do our legal frameworks address involuntary intervention during disasters?

What oversight mechanisms remain active when emergency powers are invoked?

Section 35

Community Accountability, Repair, and Redress

No disaster system is harm-free. What distinguishes a justice-aligned system from a harmful one is not the absence of failure, but how failure is acknowledged, addressed, and repaired. For neurodivergent people, harm during disasters is often denied, minimized, or reframed as unavoidable. This response compounds injury by erasing experience and foreclosing accountability. Neurodiversity justice requires a different posture: one that treats harm as actionable information and repair as a core responsibility of governance.

Research in disaster recovery, disability rights, and restorative justice consistently shows that trust is shaped less by whether harm occurs than by how institutions respond afterward. When agencies deny harm or shift blame onto individuals, marginalized communities disengage. Neurodivergent people who experience exclusion, escalation, or coercion during disasters frequently report long-term avoidance of emergency systems, even when future risk is high. This avoidance is rational. Systems that do not repair harm signal that it will happen again.

Accountability begins with acknowledgment. Agencies must be willing to name specific harms experienced by neurodivergent people, including shelter exclusion, sensory harm, escalation, criminalization, aid denial, and forced placement. General statements about “challenges” or “lessons learned” are insufficient. Research on institutional apology shows that specificity and responsibility are critical to credibility. Naming harm does not increase liability. It increases legitimacy.

Community accountability requires that neurodivergent people be involved in defining what harm occurred. Official incident reports often fail to capture lived experience, especially when harm does not fit into existing categories. Participatory review processes, including listening sessions, written testimony, and neurodivergent-led review panels, surface patterns that internal audits miss. Compensation for participation is essential to avoid extraction and to ensure inclusion of those most impacted.

Repair must be material, not symbolic. Apologies without change retraumatize. Repair may include policy revision, staff retraining, contract termination, budget reallocation, or changes to leadership structure. Research on restorative processes shows that communities evaluate sincerity by whether systems change behavior, not language. Neurodiversity justice treats repair as an opportunity to redesign systems, not merely to restore reputation.

Redress mechanisms must be accessible. Complaint processes that require formal language, legal knowledge, or sustained follow-up exclude neurodivergent people. Accessible reporting options, plain language explanations, multiple formats, and assistance with submission reduce barriers. Timely responses matter. Research on grievance systems shows that long delays increase disengagement and distress, particularly for disabled complainants.

Importantly, redress must not require people to prove intent. Neurodivergent harm often results from design, not malice. Systems that require evidence of discrimination or bad faith miss the point. Neurodiversity justice focuses on impact rather than intent. When impact is harmful, repair is warranted regardless of motivation.

Community accountability also includes transparency. Agencies should publicly report on harms identified, actions taken, and timelines for change. Transparency builds trust and allows communities to monitor follow-through. Research in public administration shows that transparent reporting increases compliance with equity commitments over time. Silence erodes credibility.

Repair must extend to individuals as well as systems. Neurodivergent people who experienced harm may need concrete supports to recover, including housing stabilization, replacement of lost supports, mental health resources, or legal assistance. Redress that focuses only on future prevention while ignoring present harm leaves people carrying the cost of system failure. Justice requires addressing both.

Accountability cultures are set by leadership. When leaders respond defensively to criticism, harm is buried. When leaders model humility and responsiveness, systems learn. Neurodiversity justice demands leaders who can tolerate discomfort, hear critique without retaliation, and commit to change under scrutiny. Research on organizational learning shows that these cultures are more adaptive and resilient in future crises.

Finally, accountability must be ongoing. One-time reviews after major disasters are insufficient. Neurodivergent harm occurs across preparedness, response, and recovery cycles. Regular evaluation, community check-ins, and iterative redesign prevent the accumulation of unresolved harm. Repair is not a phase. It is a practice.

Disasters expose systems at their most honest. Community accountability determines whether that honesty leads to repair or repetition. Neurodiversity justice insists that harm is not the end of the story. What comes next is a choice.

Reflection prompts

How do we currently respond when neurodivergent harm is identified?

Who defines what counts as harm in our systems?

What concrete repair mechanisms exist beyond apology or acknowledgment?

Section 36

From Compliance to Care, From Inclusion to Justice

Disaster systems are often judged by how efficiently they move people, supplies, and information. Neurodiversity justice asks a different question: who is still standing when the systems withdraw. For neurodivergent people, survival has too often depended on avoiding formal response, masking distress, or absorbing harm quietly. This guide exists because those outcomes are not inevitable. They are designed.

Across preparedness, response, and recovery, a consistent pattern emerges. When systems are built around speed, compliance, and individual responsibility, neurodivergent people are excluded first and harmed most. When systems are built around clarity, regulation, interdependence, and dignity, safety expands for everyone. The difference is not knowledge. It is values made operational.

Compliance-based models treat access as a box to check and disability as an exception to manage. Care-based models treat access as infrastructure and neurodivergent lives as integral to community survival. Inclusion asks whether neurodivergent people can enter existing systems. Justice asks whether those systems deserve to exist in their current form.

The evidence is unambiguous. Disabled people, including neurodivergent people, experience higher mortality, injury, displacement, institutionalization, and long-term harm following disasters. These outcomes persist across countries, disaster types, and response models. They are not the result of individual vulnerability. They are the result of systemic mismatch. When systems demand speed over sense-making, silence over regulation, and endurance over support, they fail predictably.

Neurodiversity justice reframes disaster work as design work. Communication that is concrete and redundant. Shelters that support regulation rather than suppress it. Field response that de-escalates instead of criminalizes. Aid systems that reduce administrative harm instead of multiplying it. Recovery systems that protect community living rather than funnel people into institutions. Governance structures that embed accountability instead of relying on goodwill. These are not special accommodations. They are evidence-based strategies for resilience under stress.

This guide has emphasized one central truth: neurodivergent needs are not edge cases. They are stress-test cases. Systems that work for neurodivergent people under crisis conditions work better for everyone. Clear communication reduces panic. Predictable environments reduce conflict. Non-punitive response reduces escalation. Accessible aid reduces long-term cost. Community-based recovery reduces institutionalization. Justice is not an obstacle to effectiveness. It is a prerequisite.

Moving from compliance to care requires courage. It requires leaders to slow down when urgency demands speed, to listen when authority demands control, and to redesign when tradition demands repetition. It requires agencies to pay neurodivergent expertise, share power, and tolerate critique. It requires acknowledging that some harms were foreseeable and therefore preventable.

Moving from inclusion to justice requires accountability. It asks agencies to measure what matters, not just what is easy. It asks who was excluded, who avoided services, who was escalated, who was institutionalized, and who never came back. It asks whether repair followed harm and whether change followed apology. Justice is not declared. It is demonstrated over time.

Disasters will continue to occur. Climate instability, public health emergencies, and infrastructure failures guarantee that crisis will remain a defining feature of this century. The question is not whether systems will be tested again. The question is whether they will fail in the same ways.

Neurodivergent people are not waiting to be saved. We are planners, responders, caregivers, organizers, and leaders. We hold knowledge that disaster systems cannot afford to ignore. When our access needs shape design, survival expands outward. When our humanity is treated as non-negotiable, systems become worthy of trust.

This guide is an invitation and a challenge. The invitation is to build disaster systems that do not require masking, endurance, or silence in exchange for safety. The challenge is to abandon the idea that justice can wait until the emergency is over.

Justice is the work of preparedness. Justice is the measure of response. Justice is the condition of recovery.

Anything less is a choice to repeat harm.

Final reflection

If a neurodivergent person encounters your disaster system at their most overwhelmed moment, will it help them stabilize or push them toward crisis?

That answer is not found in your mission statement.
It is found in your design.

End Matter

How to Use This Guide in Practice

This guide was written to be used, not admired. Neurodiversity justice is not a philosophy to reference after harm occurs. It is a framework for daily decision-making before, during, and after disaster. The sections of this guide are intentionally modular. Agencies do not need to implement everything at once to begin reducing harm, but partial adoption should never be used to excuse systemic neglect.

Use this guide as a diagnostic tool. Each section identifies predictable failure points where neurodivergent people are most likely to be excluded, escalated, or abandoned. Agencies should review these sections alongside existing disaster plans, policies, contracts, and training materials to identify where harm is structurally produced. When gaps appear, they are not signs of individual failure. They are signals for redesign.

Use this guide as a planning framework. Preparedness work should incorporate neurodiversity justice before disasters occur, when cognitive capacity and institutional flexibility are highest. Sections on communication, shelter design, procurement, registries, and governance are particularly critical in pre-disaster planning phases. Retrofitting access during active response is harder, more expensive, and less effective.

Use this guide as a training anchor. Rather than adding one more standalone disability training, agencies can integrate these sections into role-specific training, tabletop exercises, and drills. Staff should be asked to identify how their role intersects with neurodivergent access and where their decisions could escalate or stabilize. Training should be iterative, scenario-based, and evaluated for behavioral change.

Use this guide as an accountability reference. After-action reviews and evaluations should explicitly ask how neurodivergent people experienced preparedness, response, and recovery. Where harm occurred, this guide provides a framework for naming it without defensiveness and identifying concrete paths toward repair. Accountability is not about blame. It is about preventing repetition.

Use this guide in partnership. Neurodiversity justice cannot be implemented by agencies alone. Neurodivergent-led and disability-led organizations should be resourced as co-designers, evaluators, and decision-makers. This guide supports shared language and shared expectations across agencies and communities. Partnership without power-sharing is not partnership.

Most importantly, use this guide as a values document. When pressure mounts, when resources are scarce, and when urgency tempts shortcuts, this guide articulates the non-negotiables. Neurodivergent lives are not expendable. Distress is not misconduct. Access is not optional. Rights do not expire in emergencies.

Disaster systems will always face tradeoffs. Neurodiversity justice does not promise ease. It promises clarity. It asks systems to choose care over control, design over discipline, and accountability over denial.

If this guide reshapes even one policy, one shelter layout, one responder interaction, or one recovery pathway, it has done its work. If it becomes part of how decisions are made when no one is watching, it has done more.

The work does not end here. Justice is maintained through repetition, revision, and relationship. Return to this guide after each disaster. Ask what changed. Ask what did not. Ask whose lives improved and whose did not.

Then redesign again.

That is how harm stops being inevitable.

Appendices

Appendix A

Core Neurodiversity Justice Principles for Disaster Systems

This guide is grounded in several non-negotiable principles that should inform all disaster preparedness, management, and recovery work.

Neurodivergent people are not inherently vulnerable. Harm arises from environmental mismatch, inaccessible systems, and coercive responses.
Access is infrastructure, not accommodation. If it disappears under pressure, it was never real.
Distress is communication, not misconduct. Regulation is a prerequisite for safety and cooperation.
Interdependence is normal. Disaster systems must be designed for care networks, not isolated individuals.
Rights do not pause in emergencies. Emergency powers increase the need for safeguards, not their suspension.
Lived experience is expertise and must be compensated, resourced, and given decision-making authority.
Justice is measured by outcomes, not intent.

These principles should be referenced explicitly in agency mission statements, emergency operations plans, training curricula, and contracts.

Appendix B

Common Neurodivergent Access Failures Observed After Disasters

Research across multiple disaster contexts consistently identifies the following patterns of harm:

Autistic and ADHD people avoiding shelters due to sensory overload, crowding, and punitive enforcement
Escalation of neurodivergent distress into law enforcement or psychiatric intervention
Medication interruption leading to withdrawal, hospitalization, or loss of functioning
Aid denial or attrition due to executive function barriers and administrative burden
Family and caregiver separation during evacuation and sheltering
Forced placement into congregate or institutional settings during recovery
Long-term disengagement from emergency systems due to unresolved harm and distrust

These outcomes are not anomalies. They are predictable results of system design choices.

Appendix C

Questions Agencies Should Ask Before the Next Disaster

Preparedness phase
Where does our system rely on speed, compliance, or verbal processing as default?
Which policies assume independence rather than interdependence?
Where is neurodivergent expertise paid, and where is it extracted for free?

Response phase
How do we interpret silence, delay, or atypical behavior under stress?
What happens to people who cannot tolerate our shelters or intake processes?
Where do we escalate instead of regulate?

Recovery phase
Who falls out of aid systems, and why?
Which placements increase long-term instability rather than reduce it?
How do we track and repair harm experienced by neurodivergent people?

These questions should be revisited after every exercise, activation, and disaster.

Appendix D

Recommended Uses of This Guide Across Agency Functions

Emergency management and planning teams can use this guide to audit emergency operations plans and annexes.
Public health agencies can apply it to communication, medication continuity, and recovery stabilization.
Shelter and housing providers can use it to redesign environments, rules, and intake processes.
Procurement and legal teams can embed its principles into contracts and emergency authorities.
Training departments can use it to shift from awareness-based training to behavior-based practice.
Oversight bodies can use it as a benchmark for evaluation and accountability.

Neurodiversity justice is not a standalone program. It is a lens that must cut across all functions.

Appendix E

A Note on Language and Framework

This guide intentionally uses identity-first language and the social model of disability. Neurodivergent people are disabled by systems, environments, and power structures, not by our neurotypes. Where clinical or administrative language is used, it is named as such and contextualized within a justice framework.

This guide does not rely on deficit-based models or charitable framings. It is aligned with disability justice, neurodiversity scholarship, and community-led knowledge production.

Closing Note

If you reached the end of this guide and feel overwhelmed, that response is appropriate. Disaster systems are complex, and redesign requires sustained effort. Neurodivergent people live with the consequences of that complexity every day.

Justice work is not about doing everything at once. It is about refusing to accept harm as inevitable.

Start somewhere. Change something structural. Fund lived expertise. Remove one barrier. Redesign one process. Protect one right under pressure.

Then do it again.

That is how disaster systems stop reproducing harm and start becoming worthy of the people they claim to serve.