– by Matthew Delaney –
This March, the Centrepieces Creative Writing group proudly took part in Neurodiversity Celebration Week. Over the course of several weeks, the group dived into several specially-made writing activities designed to promote awareness, empathy and understanding for neurodiversity and those who live with neurodiversity.
One of the activities was a story picture prompt involving a Martian visitor who’d got lost (probably somewhere near Saturn…) and had found themselves in the bustling centre of London. Our writers were asked to write from the perspective of the Martian, exploring how they might interpret the unknown environment. Emphasis was placed on sensory detail and emotions. Everyone was then invited to read their entries to the group. But the real challenge came via a secret second challenge, given after the group had read their stories out. Now that everyone had heard other people’s stories and understood the context, writers were then asked to re-draft their stories – specifically changing any word describing or connected to a feeling with a random word. For some reason, vegetables became a resounding winner for most people when searching for random words! Then, everyone was invited to read their revised draft. The activity sought to raise awareness and understanding for neurodiversity by exploring how differences in processing information for the neurodiverse can, at face-value, complicate or confuse wider understanding by others. The key to this activity was for the writers to be aware of the original context of the stories so that they could reflect on how the two versions varied, and how that could apply to other everyday experiences between those who experience neurodiversity and those who don’t. Overall, this activity was well-received and those present all shared how interesting it had been.
Another key activity the group did over a couple of weeks was a collaborative visual piece exploring perspectives on neurodiversity, particularly “how it feels” (the neurodiverse experience), and “how it’s seen” (by wider society) – contrasting the two perspectives.
One of our writers, Lesley E, said – “I have really enjoyed taking part in the Neurodiversity activities in the Creative Writing group. It has made me see and understand things in a different way”.
Thank you to all of our writers who took part and explored this during our celebration of Neurodiversity.