This article aims to help both normalize working with neurodiverse students as well as share some of the strategies I use when counselling neurodiverse students. The goal is to highlight how our school counselling role as advocates and certain intervention principles can make a big difference with neurodiverse students. This article does not aim to give specific treatment or discussion of each learning challenge or type of neurodiversity, but more a base set of ideas and guidelines which can be helpful when working with any neurodiverse student.
As high school counsellors, we have the opportunity to keep learning from our students. One area where students have taught me a great deal is in how to support neurodiversity in practical ways. Like many school counsellors, I am familiar with the broad categories and language of neurodiversity, including autism, dyslexia, giftedness, ADHD, ADD, and dysphasia. However, working directly with neurodiverse students has taught me that effective support is often less about applying abstract theory, and more about adapting the recipe in front of us. In cooking, when we do not have the exact ingredients or measurements a recipe calls for, we can either stop or adjust. Thus, we substitute, change the process, and still work toward a meaningful result. Supporting neurodiverse students requires a similar approach. Our role is not to decide that a student cannot succeed because they do not fit the original recipe. Our role is to help them recognize the ingredients they already have, identify what supports or substitutions are needed, and build a path toward success that fits who they are. In this article, I aims to share some of the principles I find helpful when supporting neurodiverse students, while keeping in mind that as school counsellors we are also advocates for all our students needs to succeed at school, including the neurodiverse. I will first describe how our advocacy role and thinking long term are beneficial to supporting neurodiverse students. I then hope to share three principles I use to generally align my counselling interventions to support neurodiverse students. I also think it is important to be transparent about the perspective I bring to this article. I am neurodiverse myself — or “neuro-spicy,” as one of my friends likes to say — and that shapes the way I understand learning, support, flexibility, and advocacy. Because of this, I write not only from training and experience working with students, but also from my lived experience. My hope is that this perspective adds depth to the ideas that follow, while keeping the focus on how we, as school counsellors, can support each student in building a recipe for success that fits who they are in all their neurodiversity.
School Counsellors are Advocates
It is important to highlight that as school counsellors working with neurodiverse students, our role as advocates is essential. It is through advocacy that we focus on identifying the students learning and education needs behind their challenges, or support teachers experiencing struggles in adapting class content to neurodiverse students (Berynets et al., 2025). It is through our counselling interventions that we can provide education and skills training to our neurodiverse students on how to self-advocate for their needs, so that when they leave high-school and enter post secondary studies or the workforce, they have the skills and resources they need to survive the transition to adulthood (Jones & Durodoye, 2022). When in this advocate role, our counselling interventions can also take on the task of supporting the student’s understanding and integration of their neurodiverse identity from passive awareness to realization, and finally acceptance (Jones & Durodoye, 2022).
Thinking Long-Term
Even though neurodiverse students are generally well supported in Canadian schools, it is sometimes hard to stay focused on offering long term strategies which will help the student develop their own skillset rather than a simple fix for the moment. For example, I notice that when speaking with parents, often the focus is on short-term technological tools and supports. This is good and necessary of course, but sometimes the long-term skill development conversation is forgotten or put to the side. It is important that as school counsellors, we remember there is a need for neurodiverse students to develop practical strategies which help them to learn and function to the best of their ability long-term to prepare them for life after high school (Jones & Durodoye, 2022). Developing these strategies in each student requires a more catered, individual, long-term and hard-working approach to student support, which is exactly within the role of school counsellors to advocate for and encourage.
Principles for intervention
Apart from advocacy and thinking long-term, there are many ways we can assist our neurodiverse students in our counselling interventions. So much so, that it would probably take a thick textbook chapter to get through a good portion of them – or at least the ones I find helpful. That said, without providing an exhaustive list of interventions, I have noticed some principles that I keep in mind to guide my counselling sessions with neurodiverse students. The three principles I mention here allow me to focus on the student while reminding me what I must keep in mind to ensure I am adequately supporting their needs.
- Infuse compassion: So many of our neurodiverse student can experience moments where they are misunderstood. Or they can get emotionally trapped by feeling they have to fit a label of what their neurodiversity is described as on social media and other sources – and not always the most accurate sources for complex and nuanced realities. Thus, I find infusing compassion focused interventions such as reflexive listening, validation of the student experience, psychological education, and exploring the reality of “tricky brains” to be important (Gilbert, 2013). Infusing compassion is not about being soft or over emotional, it is about exercising empathy towards our students’ challenges parried with our ethical response to address them through our interventions (Gilbert, 2013). In addition, by encouraging our students to develop self-compassion in the face of their neurodiversity rather than self-criticism, we are supporting not only their self-esteem and acceptance of who they are, we are providing them with skills that will serve them throughout their life (Gilbert, 2013).
- Offer grounded encouragement: While offering validation and normalization of our neurodiverse students is often helpful, offering positive platitudes and exaggerated compliments tend to backfire. Many neurodiverse students already spend so much energy focusing on themselves, whether it is to develop certain skills, learn a concept which is challenging, monitor how they are coming across, or because they are afraid they do not fit in and want to be “normal like the other students.” Because of this, encouragement that is too general, inflated, or disconnected from their actual experience can feel false or place the focus back on the student’s identity rather than on practical growth. I find it more helpful to offer specific, grounded feedback by naming the strategy they used, the effort they put in, the problem they solved, the skill they are developing, or the way they advocated for themselves in a given situation. This way, we are still validating the student, but we are also helping them build confidence without relying on inflated praise, and keeping the focus on skills, agency, realistic self-understanding, and real successes.
- Remember flexible interventions: Because we can often transition from counselling back and forth between neurodiverse and neurotypical students on any given day, I find it helpful to remember to be flexible and adaptable in my interventions with neurodiverse students. Whether it is speaking slowly, enunciating clearly, using person-first language, using lots of visual aids, having shorter fifteen-minute check-in style sessions rather than longer thirty-minute sessions, keeping a pile of stress balls nearby, or asking the student to repeat what they learned or understood, flexibility matters. Remembering to be flexible and sensitive to my students’ neurodiverse needs is essential to starting to counsel on the right foot.
Conclusion
Supporting neurodiverse students as school counsellors can be a challenge at times, yet it can also be a source of growth and great joy. This article explored some of the principles I have found helpful when counselling neurodiverse high school students. Through advocacy, thinking long term, infusing compassion, offering grounded encouragement, and remembering to use flexible interventions we can all better support our neurodiverse students in our own schools. I hope this article inspires you as you continue to support neurodiverse students in your own school counselling work.
Bibliography
Berynets, K., Porter, L., Peluso, D. C., & Stella, M. (Éds.). (2025). School Counselling in Canada; A Comprehensive Guide. Toronto: Canadian Scholars.
Gilbert, P. (2013). The Compassionate Mind. London: Robinson.
Jones, B., & Durodoye, B. (2022). Child And Adolescent Counseling: An Integrated Approach. Danvers, MA: Springer Publishing Company.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Justin Bertrand, M.A., is an Educational Counsellor working in Quebec’s high school sector. He brings over 10 years of counselling experience in diverse settings and is passionate about an integrated approach that helps students navigate educational pathways, personal growth, and career development.
