Vision

• Promote access to equitable and inclusive opportunities for neurodivergent and autistic individuals through understanding and specialized supports
• Contextualize disability from a neurodiversity perspective 
• Investigate intersections of autism and other identities, such as gender, class, race/ethnicities, and sexuality
• Take a strength-focused approach to providing universally designed supports and remove socially constructed barriers to enhance quality of life 
• Build education to employment pipelines
• Foster self-awareness, self-efficacy, and self-esteem

Goals

(1) PROMOTE PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH

• Include the voices of neurodivergent and autistic individuals from across the lifespan as co-researchers 
• Establish a community forum featuring research by neurodivergent and autistic scholars and their allies
• Encourage researchers to use participatory research methods through synchronous and asynchronous sharing of resources and recommended practices
• Highlight participatory scholarly research that has the potential to impact policy and practice

(2) CONDUCT RESEARCH TO INFORM PRACTICE

• Foster conversations around research that aims to identify and address research to practice gaps around neurodiversity and autism
• Learn from the voices of various stakeholders (including autistic individuals, families, professionals, employers, and community members) to better understand the needs in the field
• Conduct neurodiversity and autism focused research that seeks to improve the well-being of autistic and neurodiverse people as defined by them 
• Promote intervention research that is applicable to home, school, work and community settings