Fostering the Creativity of Neurodivergent Individuals
This is a book chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Creativity and Education, edited by Jen Katz-Buonincontro and Todd Kettler and published by Oxford Academic.
Abstract
It is a long-held misconception that neurodivergent people are not creative. Those who teach and work with this population have witnessed and nurtured their creativity. The Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education provides arts education programs for disabled people of all ages in which arts educators foster their neurodivergent students’ creativity through creative approaches to teaching. For example, they might empower their students to determine curriculum and activities, place students at the center and follow their lead, or engage in imaginative play. Through classroom vignettes and the words of teachers, this chapter illuminates these and other ways that creative teaching fosters the creativity of neurodivergent individuals, providing a powerful counternarrative to the misconception that neurodivergent individuals are not creative.