Autism-Informed Mindfulness

Within Canada, there remains a continuing need for neurodiversity-affirming and community-informed programs and interventions for autistic adults. Over the past year, we—a late-diagnosed autistic adult practicing mindfulness and a mindfulness teacher interested in autism with extensive involvement in the autism community—have co-delivered mindfulness sessions to autistic adults, including self-diagnosed and formally diagnosed persons, using a synchronous virtual format. The manualized intervention outlined in this paper was initially designed and implemented by Lunsky and colleagues (2022). In this experiential commentary, we reflect on our experiences delivering this program and why collaborative partnerships like this are important for those intending to work with autistic individuals in clinical and therapeutic settings. Specifically, we highlight the tools and strategies we implemented within our formal and informal mindfulness practices to ensure that participants had their social and sensory needs met throughout the duration of our six-week program. Additionally, we discuss what we learned while co-facilitating autism-informed mindfulness and our recommendations for fellow practitioners moving forward.