Cultivating a Global Understanding of Neurodiversity: Challenges and Opportunities for Speech-Language Pathologists

Purpose: Neurodiversity, a concept predominantly rooted in Western, English-speaking cultures, is rapidly gaining global traction. The article aims to advance culturally sensitive, contextually grounded, and ethically informed neurodiversity-affirming clinical practices and advocacy worldwide. Through this article, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are encouraged to deepen their understanding and appreciation of neurodiversity by recognizing how diverse cultural, historical, and social contexts around the world shape neurodivergent individuals' experiences every day. Ultimately, the article seeks to move beyond a Western-centric neurodiversity paradigm by highlighting the profession's colonial legacies, demographic limitations, and knowledge gaps, especially as they relate to the Global South. Conclusions: Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, my positionality as a multilingual and multicultural SLP, and narratives of lived experiences of neurodivergent individuals, this article identifies existing challenges and opportunities for SLPs in achieving the aforementioned aims. Four key considerations, including (a) deepening our understanding of marginalization, (b) becoming keenly aware of differing cultural expectations and how these may influence the lives of neurodivergent people, (c) stepping away from careless commercialization of neurodiversity-affirming models of service delivery, and (d) engaging in bidirectional knowledge exchange are discussed alongside specific strategies to support SLPs in becoming globally conscious and culturally informed service providers.