Blog

Why neurodiversity needs acceptance, not just celebration

At Creased Puddle, we champion neurodiversity in all its forms – embracing the strengths, challenges, and lived experiences of neurodivergent individuals. While awareness initiatives like Neurodiversity Celebration Week have played a role in bringing neurodiversity into the mainstream, we feel that Neurodiversity Acceptance Week is a more meaningful and impactful approach. Here’s why:

Beyond celebration, the need for true acceptance

Celebrating neurodiversity is so important – it highlights the talents and perspectives of neurodivergent people and encourages organisations to recognise the value we bring. However, celebration alone can feel surface-level if it isn’t accompanied by real, systemic change. At Creased Puddle we love to help change within organisations by improving education around Neurodiversity.

Neurodiversity Acceptance Week shifts the focus from simply recognising differences to actively accepting, accommodating, and valuing neurodivergent people in all spaces. It’s about moving from awareness to action – ensuring that workplaces, schools, and communities are built to support and include neurodivergent individuals, not just acknowledge them for a week.

The problem with “celebration” without structural change

One of the key issues with framing neurodiversity purely as something to be celebrated is that it risks glossing over the very real barriers and struggles that many neurodivergent individuals face.

Workplace barriers

Many neurodivergent people still struggle with inaccessible hiring processes, inflexible work environments, and a lack of reasonable adjustments.

Education challenges

Schools are often not equipped to support neurodivergent students in ways that allow them to truly thrive.

Medical and social struggles

From misdiagnosis and lack of support to social stigma, many neurodivergent individuals experience daily challenges that require more than just celebration – they require understanding, accommodations, and systemic change.

Without addressing these barriers, celebration can feel performative – a way to acknowledge neurodivergent people without making real efforts to support them.

Acceptance means making space for the whole experience

Neurodiversity is not just about strengths – it’s about the full lived experience of neurodivergent individuals. Acceptance means recognising that neurodivergent people:

  • Have unique talents and ways of thinking that benefit workplaces and society.
  • Often need adjustments and accommodations to work and live in ways that suit them best.
  • Experience challenges, from sensory sensitivities to executive functioning difficulties, that need to be understood and supported.

True acceptance means making space for both the positives and the challenges – not just celebrating neurodivergent “success stories” but also ensuring support is there for those who are struggling.

What acceptance looks like in practice

If we truly want to move towards neurodiversity acceptance, we need to go beyond performative gestures. That means:

Listening to neurodivergent voices

Creating safe spaces where neurodivergent individuals can share their experiences and shape policies that affect them.

Providing meaningful accommodations

Ensuring that workplaces, schools, and public spaces are designed with neurodivergent differences in mind.

Challenging stereotypes

Moving away from harmful narratives that either portray neurodivergent people as ‘superhuman geniuses,’ traits as ‘supervisors’ or as ‘defective’ – All of these extremes miss the reality of neurodivergent life.

Embedding long-term change

Encouraging organisations to not just “celebrate” for a week but commit to lasting, systemic changes that make inclusion the default, not an afterthought.

A call to action

Neurodiversity Acceptance Week is about creating real, sustainable change—not just for one week, but all year round. It’s about moving past just acknowledging neurodivergent people to actively building a world that includes, supports, and values us.

At Creased Puddle, we are committed to driving real change, creating inclusion, and ensuring long-term support for neurodivergent individuals, while empowering organisations to better support their customers, clients and service users. Neurodiversity Acceptance Week is about building communities that understand what neurodiversity really is, and creating real change for the future.

Join us this March between 17th – 23rd March for a week of improving the acceptance of Neurodiversity, we’ll be linking our events using the hashtag #ndacceptanceweek.

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Let’s make acceptance, not just celebration, the priority.