Recommended Reads: Early July 2025

Hello, my friends. I haven’t been feeling as creatively generative as I usually do, what with… everything going on in the world these days… but have still been doing plenty of reading, so this issue is packed full of recommended neurodiversity-related reads from across the Substack universe.

Enjoy!

I’ve been beating the “autistic assessments are broken” drum for a while, and I love hearing other people’s thoughts on why that is and why it matters:

Here’s my piece on the subject, in case you missed it:

Why aren't autistics writing the autism assessments?

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January 27, 2024

There’s a lot of differences between the way neurotypical brains and autistic brains work, but one really well-known difference is the way that autistics process information: we tend to take information at face value, or literally.

If you’ve ever been told you’re “too much” (too loud, too talkative, too serious, too anything) then this next piece from IFS & Neurodiversity will probably resonate with you.

If you’re not familiar with IFS, here’s some helpful context for this next read: IFS stands for “Internal Family Systems,” which is a psychotherapy approach that views someone’s mental system or self as made up of a “family” of distinct sub-selves or parts)

Here’s another great piece to combat the “too much” accusations. This piece is quite a long read, but it’s a detailed exploration and celebration of autistic joy and euphoria in such a refreshing way:

I loved this piece from David Gray-Hammond, and especially loved this quote from the intro:

In the face of a world that has long pathologized, misunderstood, and silenced us, Autistic people are forging new ways of producing and disseminating knowledge. We are building something deeper than a support network or advocacy movement. We are growing a rhizome; a decentralized, perpetually expanding, anti-hierarchical web of community-driven knowledge that refuses to be contained by academic journals, diagnostic manuals, or institutional gatekeeping.

If you’re still in the early phases of self-discovery or late-diagnosis, you could use this piece as an inspiration list for ways to accommodate yourself and better honoring your sensory limits:

The below quick read from Autistic Ang is a great complement to the above as well, and if you’re a paid subscriber to Ang’s substack you should also check out their awesome script guide.