This course provides yoga therapists with key information from emerging areas of biomedical research to help determine additional techniques for working with people who have neurodivergent body-mind orientations, and for understanding the social context of neurodivergence. The course also offers practical tools for yoga therapists who also have this orientation, to support their own health, well-being, and self-care.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will be able to discuss current thinking around the etiology and neurobiology of autism, including its neurobiological aspects.
- Participants will be able to discuss the neurodiversity model, and how it addresses outdated models of autism such as the core deficit model and theory of mind
- Participants will be able to convey understanding of the social context of ADHD, specifically relating to racial inequity and ableism.
- Participants will be able to discuss several ways in which autism and other forms of neurodivergence are forms of gain similar to Deaf Gain, both to the individual and to the collective.
- Participants will be able to discuss how therapeutic tools from the traditions of yoga, mindfulness, and fascial manipulation can alleviate symptoms of nervous system hyperarousal that can accompany neurodivergence.