Liam Benton
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Kathleen Ignatoski
Research Mentor School/College/Department: University of Michigan / Medicine
Program:
Authors: Liam Benton, Team HOPE Members , Kathleen Ignatoski, PhD
Session: Session 3: 11:00 am – 11: 50 am
Poster: 77
Abstract
The University of Michigan has a lack of awareness of the support available for its neurodivergent students, faculty, and staff. As of January 2024, there is no database or compilation of all the resources for neurodivergent students, faculty, and staff. As such, our project seeks to promote a more inclusive environment for the neurodivergent population by compiling all of the resources across all campuses and inviting collaboration between campuses. In order to accomplish our goal, we sought to learn from the work done by peer universities as well as businesses on this topic. To begin, we first compiled a list of universities and businesses who had published their policies on neurodiversity and what each university or business was doing specifically to aid their respective neurodivergent communities. Following that, emails were sent out to the heads of the neurodiversity programs for each university or business which asked to meet to discuss how we could work together to further our analogous programs. Following a productive meeting with the University of Melbourne, our project evolved into a neurodiversity symposium, dedicated to connecting various efforts around the University of Michigan to aid the neurodivergent community as well as discuss ways that we as an inter-university community can aid each other and support the world-wide neurodivergent population.
