Yasmine Salisbury, Richard Foster, Siobhan Hill, Gillian Buck
9 min
This study explores how higher education institutions can transition from an individualized, reactive model of disability support to a social model of inclusion that embeds neurodiversity throughout the learning environment. The researchers utilized a 'Students-as-Partners' approach, recruiting four social work students with lived experience of neurodiversity to work as paid co-investigators. Using a participatory action research (PAR) framework and critical storytelling, the team aimed to move beyond the consumerist 'student voice' model, positioning students as active co-producers of curriculum, assessment strategies, and institutional resources.
The partnership resulted in significant practical outcomes for the social work department. The student partners identified key barriers—such as sensory overload in physical spaces, rigid assessment formats, and inaccessible academic language—and co-developed a comprehensive 'toolkit' of strategies. These strategies were shared with staff via illustrated flashcards and training sessions, advocating for changes like frequent movement breaks, clearer communication, and flexible seating arrangements. Furthermore, the collaboration directly influenced policy, leading the department to pilot a new, flexible assessment model where students can choose how to present their portfolios (e.g., written reflection versus spoken presentation), providing more autonomy and allowing students to leverage their individual strengths.
This project demonstrates that meaningful inclusion in social work education requires more than just reactive, individual adjustments for students with diagnosed disabilities. By empowering neurodivergent students as paid partners and co-researchers, the university fostered a more egalitarian environment that challenged existing power dynamics. The study highlights that when students are given the agency to identify systemic barriers and suggest solutions, they produce highly practical pedagogical enhancements that benefit the entire student cohort. This approach provides a replicable, strengths-based template for other social work programs seeking to dismantle ableist structures in higher education.
To improve inclusion in one social work teaching department, a ‘Students-as-Partners’ project employed four social work students with lived experience of neurodiversity to work in partnership with staff on pedagogical design. The student partners’ role was to evaluate teaching and learning through neurodivergent lenses and co-design strategies to enhance provision. Higher education can often adopt an individualized, adaptive approach to difference , rather than a social approach to inclusion where whole courses and environments are designed with neurotypical and neurodivergent learners in mind. ‘Neurodiversity’ offers social work education a constructive new paradigm for understanding learning experiences and for considering individuals’ strengths alongside challenges . Using a reflective, critical storytelling approach , this article weaves published research findings with the experiences of three student partners and one staff partner, to reflect on and analyze a Students-as-Partners neurodiversity pilot. We conclude that educational designs which actively include the perspectives and ideas of neurodivergent students can deepen understanding of individual challenges and strengths and facilitate the co-creation of more inclusive teaching and assessment strategies.
Alex: What did the students notice when they looked at the module?
Sam: Reading and listening dominated. The team wanted a broader mix: talking ideas through, investigating resources, practising, making things, and building knowledge together. The contribution wasn’t simply more support for consuming the same material. It was a proposal to change how learning happened.
Alex: That describes the redesign process. How did it become research evidence rather than a project report?
Sam: Through collaborative reflection and co-authorship. The authors drew on participatory action research, where people affected by an issue help investigate it and pursue change. Here, the experiential evidence came from partners’ written reflections, woven together with published research.
Alex: Who contributed those reflections? If only enthusiastic participants wrote the article, that affects how I would read it.
Sam: The authorship included three student partners. The other author was the staff coordinator. All student partners were invited, but one chose not to co-author. So this is an account from people directly involved in creating the partnership, not an independent evaluation.
Alex: And how much control did students have over the final account?
Sam: Partners wrote or recorded reflections between meetings. The academic partner assembled them into an article and returned drafts for comments and edits. They also openly discussed unequal power, offered supervisory drop-ins, and formed a student peer-support group for raising concerns collectively.
Alex: Let’s make the barriers concrete. What was getting in the way of learning?
Sam: One partner described complex assignment language and densely packed lectures as overwhelming. Another highlighted assessment waiting times, inconsistent access to sensory resources, and support offered online when they preferred face-to-face contact. These accounts locate difficulties across communication, environments, and services.
Alex: That also cautions against treating a particular format as universally accessible. Did the article find conflicting preferences?
Sam: It discusses that through the literature alongside a student’s experience of losing a physical library. Digital access may suit some learners, while others prefer browsing shelves. The authors recommend both physical and digital provision where possible, rather than assuming a single format solves inclusion.
Alex: What did they give teaching staff that could actually be used?
Sam: Students presented a training session called “How we Learn” and produced illustrated toolkit cards. The advice included breaking tasks into manageable steps, communicating plainly, allowing processing time, and considering noise, lighting, seating, and quiet spaces.
Alex: Those recommendations can become a long wish list. Was there guidance specific enough to shape a teaching session?
Sam: The toolkit suggested short movement breaks after thirty to forty minutes. It also recommended written or visual instructions, time for notes, recaps, and opportunities to check understanding. These are proposed strategies supported by reflections and cited research—not effects tested within this project.
Alex: Assessment seems a harder institutional change than adding breaks. What happened there?
Sam: The reviewed human growth and development module previously offered a written essay. It now offers a portfolio with a choice of written reflections or spoken presentations. Students answer the same set questions about the human life course, but can choose how to present their answers.
Alex: So the choice concerns expression, while the questions remain shared. How does the portfolio address the difficulty of a large assignment?
Sam: Students build it through short themed reflections over five weeks, then connect their learning to future anti-oppressive practice. That means practice concerned with challenging oppression. The authors describe this as breaking a complex task into smaller pieces, while giving students more autonomy.
Alex: That is a documented design change. Do we know whether students subsequently learned more, achieved higher marks, or experienced fewer barriers?
Sam: This article does not establish those outcomes. Its strongest evidence is that student contributions informed actual changes, and that participating partners reported benefits. Those included confidence, stronger peer relationships, and feeling able to explain difficulties they had previously assumed others understood.
Alex: Then the contribution is a worked example of shared design, not an effectiveness estimate. How far beyond this department should we carry it?
Sam: Cautiously. The reflective team was entirely white and based in northern England. They did not examine how their differing identities or intersecting experiences shaped the work. The authors call for wider perspectives, including attention to ethnicity, gender, nationality, and socioeconomic circumstances.
Alex: Even a useful design can fail without resources. What conditions did the authors think made this project possible?
Sam: Paid roles, training, supervision, and flexibility around health and caring commitments. They also stress relationship building and balancing structured tasks with student leadership. Meanwhile, unclear responsibility for funding sensory tools or quiet spaces could delay implementation. A toolkit alone does not remove those constraints.
Alex: Who should read the full document, and where would you send them first?
Sam: Social work educators, assessment designers, and researchers planning student partnerships. Start with “Enablers of inclusive social work teaching” for the toolkit and assessment redesign. Then read the Methods and Conclusion to understand whose reflections support the account and where its reach stops.
Alex: And what should everyone else remember when they next ask students for feedback?
Sam: This case suggests that lived experience can shape real course decisions when students have paid roles and room to lead. It does not yet show better educational outcomes. The distinction to remember is simple: listening to students is not the same as sharing the design.
Alex: Keep that distinction in mind.