Blezzing Dada is a Dublin-based, award-winning Black-Irish mental health writer, content creator, and activist. Her work centres on the intersection of mental health, race, disability, and social justice, drawing on her lived experience to advocate for greater awareness and inclusion. A recognised youth changemaker and community leader, she has contributed to national and international media and is actively involved in initiatives that promote collective care, education, and transformative social change.

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Emily McPhillips is an autistic advocate and second-year Social Care student with a strong passion for supporting others. As an aspiring social care worker, she is committed to raising awareness and making a meaningful difference through her lived experience and advocacy. 

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Gráinne Warren is a fully accredited play therapist specialising in neurodivergence, including ADHD. She provides therapeutic support for children and families, as well as parent guidance, clinical supervision, and workshops for Autistic and ADHD adults. Her work is grounded in both professional expertise and lived experience, with a strong focus on wellbeing and authentic connection. 

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Emer Maguire is an award-winning science communicator and BBC presenter, as well as a conference MC, TEDx speaker, and musical comedian. She has worked and performed internationally, collaborating with organisations including the BBC, National Museums NI, and the British Council. Known for her engaging and dynamic style, she is passionate about making communication accessible, entertaining, and impactful. 

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Karen Shortt is an experienced AuDHD special education teacher based in Ireland, with 15 years’ experience working in St Anne’s School in Ennis. 

She began her career teaching in Autism classes following an adapted primary curriculum, and later taught in post-primary Autism classes delivering Level 1 and Level 2 Learning Programmes. 

She now teaches at post-primary level within the same school, delivering Level 2, Level 3 and LCA programmes, supporting students with a wide range of additional needs.

Karen is a passionate advocate for neuroaffirming, trauma-informed practice. Her work centres on student voice, relational pedagogy and understanding behaviour as communication. She is particularly committed to improving educational experiences for autistic students and those with mild general learning disabilities, ensuring their needs, rights and voices are recognised within the system.

Karen has delivered training to educators and SNAs, contributed to professional development with DCU, and is actively involved in initiatives such as NCSE Create, promoting meaningful student voice through the Lundy Model. She also participated in and was awarded the Féilte Bursary, collaborating with mainstream and higher education partners to promote inclusive practice and amplify student voice. She has also recently trained in facilitating Talking Mats with students to further support accessible communication and participation, and has contributed as a collaborator with the NCCA by providing feedback on the development of the new Senior Cycle Level 1 and Level 2 Learning Programmes. In addition, Karen is a licensed Cothú trainer with Ausome Training, supporting parents to understand and respond to their child’s needs through a neuro-affirming, autistic-led approach.

Through her work, Karen continues to challenge outdated practices and advocate for more compassionate, inclusive and responsive approaches in education.

Jessica is a Speech and Language Therapist in private practice, providing assessment and intervention for children and adults with a range of communication needs. She also works in autism assessment alongside a Clinical Psychologist and has a strong interest in early intervention and supporting neurodivergent children and their families. 

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Marge is a highly experienced paediatric Speech and Language Pathologist with over 50 years in clinical practice, education, and research. She is the director of the Communication Development Center in Madison and is widely known for her work in Natural Language Acquisition and gestalt language development. Through her research, publications, and international teaching, she has supported clinicians and families worldwide in understanding and fostering authentic language development in Autistic individuals. 

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CJay Smith (she/ they) is an Assistive Technology and Communications Specialist and a leading advocate for neuroaffirming, accessible practice across education, community, and family settings. As a partially sighted dyslexic AuDHDer, CJay brings lived experience alongside professional expertise, grounding their work in respect, autonomy, and real-world impact rather than deficit-based models.

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Alexandria Zachos is a speech-language pathologist, educator and founder of Meaningful Speech. She specialises in gestalt language processing, echolalia, and child-led, neurodivergent-affirming approaches to communication.

After recognising gaps in traditional training, Alexandria’s work focuses on helping parents and professionals better understand how children naturally develop language, and how to support authentic, meaningful communication in ways that truly work.

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Sorcha Rice is an AuDHD occupational therapist whose work is shaped by both professional experience and her own lived experience of school burnout.

Her work focuses on helping adults understand behaviour as communication from the nervous system — particularly in relation to autonomy, regulation and safety. She is especially passionate about supporting children and young people who experience a strong drive for autonomy, and about reframing behaviour in ways that move away from compliance and toward connection.

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Kristy Forbes is an Australian-based educator with a focus on Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). Drawing on her lived experience as an autistic person with ADHD and a PDA profile, as well as being a school-avoidant individual who now home educates her own neurodivergent children,

Kristy offers unique insight into the challenges faced by PDA individuals and their families. Combining her background in education, behavioural support, and family advocacy with personal experiences of trauma, burnout, addiction, homelessness, and systemic misunderstanding, she provides compassionate support through her programs, webinars, and public speaking, all aimed at empowering and understanding those with PDA and related trauma. 

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Nicole Casey is a pediatric speech-language therapist and founder of The Child-Led SLP. Her work focuses on child-led, neurodivergent-affirming approaches that prioritise connection, autonomy, and authentic communication.

Nicole is particularly passionate about supporting gestalt language processors and helping adults better understand communication in all its forms — creating spaces where children feel safe, respected, and able to connect in ways that are meaningful to them.

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Davida Hartman is a Principal Educational and Child Psychologist, Adjunct Professor in UCD School of Psychology, and co-founder and Clinical Director of The Children’s Clinic.

With over 25 years of experience working with neurodivergent children, young people and adults, Davida is widely recognised for her work in neurodiversity-affirmative assessment and support. She is also the founder of The Adult Autism & ADHD Practice, providing strengths-based, respectful identification for adults.

An author, lecturer and advocate, Davida is passionate about creating more inclusive, neurodivergent-affirming systems and ensuring that autistic voices are centred in how services are designed and delivered.

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Siobhán Uí Dhálaigh is an Autistic and ADHD primary school teacher, trainer and founder of NeuroNurturing. Her work centres on supporting teachers, parents and schools to better understand neurodivergent children through a strengths-based, neurodivergent-affirming lens.

Drawing on both lived experience and her work in Irish classrooms, Siobhán is passionate about creating environments that feel safe, responsive and supportive. Through her training and courses, she helps others move toward approaches grounded in understanding, regulation and connection.

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Baisat Alawiye is a primary school teacher, speaker and founder of Minority Teachers Ireland. Her work centres on equity, diversity and inclusion in education, supporting schools to create more inclusive and representative environments for all students.

Drawing on her own lived experience and work within Irish schools, Baisat is passionate about amplifying underrepresented voices and challenging systemic barriers within education. She delivers workshops and talks that support educators to reflect, learn and move toward more inclusive, culturally responsive practice.

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Christine Doyle is an autistic psychotherapist and speaker whose work centres on the lived experience of late-identified autistic and ADHD (AuDHD) adults, particularly women and AFAB individuals.

Drawing on both professional experience and her own late identification, Christine creates spaces for reflection, understanding and “unlearning” — supporting people to make sense of identity, burnout, masking and belonging.

Through her work, writing and Unlearning Autism platform, she brings forward often-missed perspectives, helping others move toward more compassionate, neurodivergent-affirming ways of understanding themselves and those they support.

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Ali Battye is a speech and language therapist with over 20 years of experience supporting autistic and neurodivergent children and young people. She specialises in gestalt language processing and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and is known for her child-led, neurodivergent-affirming approach to communication.

Ali is the author of several books, including Who’s Afraid of AAC? and Navigating AAC, and provides training and supervision to therapists, educators and parents.

Her work centres on building communication through connection, trust and meaningful interaction, supporting children’s natural ways of expressing themselves across speech, movement, AAC and play.

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Jane O’Neill is an autism class teacher with a background in early childhood education, dedicated to child-led, play-based, neurodiversity-affirming practice. Her work centres on the belief that respect, consent, and autonomy must sit at the heart of every educational environment.

Jane challenges behaviourist frameworks within schools and care settings and is a passionate advocate for the abolition of ABA in educational spaces. She works to create learning environments where autistic children are supported through their interests rather than shaped by compliance-driven models.

Through her teaching and advocacy, Jane is committed to protecting childhood, centring autistic voices, and ensuring that neurodivergent learners are understood, respected and empowered.

Nessa Hill is a founding member, and CEO of Neurodiversity Ireland, national charity supporting neurodivergent children and their families. Nessa is a practising barrister, specialising in civil litigation and public law and is late-identified AuDHD and PDA. Nessa is mother of 2 AuDHD PDA girls. 

Nessa sits on the Autism Innovation Strategy Oversight Board and is an active member of the Children's Rights Alliance, with a particular interest in child protection, the justice and care systems and intersectionality of marginalisation. Nessa sits on the DPO Monitoring Group with focus upon the Inclusive Education Pillar of the National Strategy for Human Rights of Disabled Persons 

Nessa is passionate about pursuing educational reform, advocating for the practical, systems-level change that is needed to bring about an education system that is inclusive of all types of learners. 

I am a special education teacher, IEP case manager, writer, and researcher working at the intersection of neurodiversity, language development, disability justice, and systems change. My work is grounded in neurodiversity-affirming practice, with particular expertise in autism, adhd, gestalt language processing, inclusive pedagogy, and support for complex learners across educational settings. In the classroom, I focus on designing meaningful, relational, and academically rigorous supports that move beyond compliance-driven models and make room for different ways of processing, communicating, and learning. Alongside my work as an educator, I am a published writer and interdisciplinary researcher whose work bridges lived experience, historical analysis, and practical application. I write extensively on autism, gestalt processing, disability, education, language, power, and institutional systems—translating complex ideas into frameworks that are both intellectually rigorous and usable for practitioners, families, and communities. My professional approach is shaped by a commitment to challenging deficit-based assumptions and tracing how educational, clinical, and social systems often misread difference as disorder. I am especially interested in how language, policy, and practice can either constrain or liberate neurodivergent people—and in building alternatives rooted in dignity, access, and relational understanding. I bring a rare combination of classroom expertise, advanced academic training, systems-level analysis, and public-facing communication. Whether through teaching, writing, research, curriculum development, or professional collaboration, my goal is the same: to help create more humane, effective, and deeply responsive systems for neurodivergent learners and the people who support them. Areas of focus include: • Special education and IEP development • Autism and neurodiversity-affirming practice • Gestalt language processing and non-linear learning • Inclusive curriculum and instructional design • Disability justice and systemic critique • Professional writing, public scholarship, and interdisciplinary research I welcome opportunities for collaboration in education, writing, speaking, consulting, and research.

​Fergus is a science educator, writer and Autistic community organiser. They co-founded AMASE (Autistic Mutual Aid Society Edinburgh) in 2017, and remain part of its committee. They have an essay in the recent anthology of Autistic non-fiction, Someone Like Me, and also chapters in three recent books about neurodiversity and education. They have written widely on these topics, as well as on science, philosophy and politics. They started Weird Pride Day (which is the 4th of March) in 2021, and run the Weird Pride Day site as well as monotropism.org

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Sorcha Rice, AuDHD PDA’er and Senior Occupational Therapist

What if behaviour isn’t something to manage — but something to understand? 

This talk explores how the nervous system communicates through behaviour, helping you recognise how regulation needs, sensory experiences and overwhelm shape what we see on the surface. 

You’ll leave with a different way of understanding behaviour — one that moves away from control and toward connection, safety and support. 

Panel Discussion: Davida Hartman, Katie Kremin, Blezzing Dada, Emily McPhillips and Eva Burke

Labels can be powerful — helping us feel validated, understood and supported. 

But they are only part of the picture. 

Recent discussion about labels has been reductive, outdated and tending towards controversy.  

This panel invites a deeper conversation about how we use labels to create understanding, whilst also holding a more holistic view of overlapping identities, experiences and needs.   

Jessica McGrath, Senior Speech and Language Therapist and Alex Zachos, Meaningful Speech

Communication is not one-size-fits-all. 

This session explores gestalt language processing as a valid and meaningful way of developing language — where communication emerges through scripts, phrases and lived experiences. 

Together, we’ll reframe echolalia and scripting as connection, processing and expression.  This panel will share insights on how to support each child’s natural way of communicating, including GLP play and GLP thinking.  

CJay Smith

“Different Builds” is a reflective spoken word piece that uses the language and metaphors of technology to reframe neurodivergent experience. It explores AuDHD, dyslexia, and other neurodivergent identities as differences in design rather than dysfunction, challenging deficit-based narratives while affirming neurodiversity as natural human variation. The piece centres identity, communication, autonomy, and inclusion grounded in respect and belonging.

Panel Discussion: Alex Zachos, Meaningful Speech,Marge Blanc, Grainne Gestalt Mum, CJay, Ali Battye and Jessica McGrath SLT

This panel creates space to listen to lived experience and deepen our understanding of gestalt language processing. 

Together, we’ll explore communication through scripts, phrases and meaning-making — and what it means to support this in ways that feel safe, respectful and affirming. 

Sorcha Rice, AuDHD PDA’er and Senior Occupational Therapist

PDA isn’t just about lowering demands. 

This session explores a strong drive for autonomy through a nervous system lens — looking at what demand can feel like from the inside, and why it can trigger responses of threat, overwhelm or shutdown. 

Rather than focusing only on reducing demands, we’ll shift toward understanding what the nervous system needs — and explore practical ways to support safety, trust and regulation in both home and classroom environments. 

A 30-minute space to ask questions, reflect and explore what this looks like in real life. 

This is an opportunity to bring your own experiences, challenges or scenarios — and think together about supportive, practical ways forward. 

Panel Discussion: Kristy Forbes, Grainne Warren, Nessa Hill and Sorcha Rice

This panel brings together four PDAers — Kristy Forbes, Sorcha Rice, Gráinne Warren and Nessa Hill — each sharing their own lived experience. 

Together, they offer insight into what a strong drive for autonomy can feel like from the inside, exploring themes of safety, regulation, identity and support. 

A powerful opportunity to listen, reflect and deepen understanding through lived experience. 

Nicole Casey, The Child-Led SLP

What does compliance-based practice really look like — and how do we begin to move away from it? 

In this session, Nicole draws on her experience across school and clinical settings to explore how these approaches show up, and how we can shift toward child-led practices that feel more respectful, responsive and connected. 

Jane O’Neill, Autism Class NS Teacher and Karen Shortt, Special School PP Teacher

Curious about how a child-led classroom works in a school system built upon expectations, structure and curriculum demands? 

Karen explores a day in the life of a child in school in Ireland, identifying compliance, pressures and behaviourist approaches and shares, from recent research and practice her insights into how to centre the view and voice of students, at all times.  

Jane shares her experience as an autism class teacher, offering practical insight into how we can support autonomy, regulation and engagement in ways that are both realistic and meaningful.  

Together, Karen and Jane will impart their wealth of experience and advice for educators who are curious about moving from compliance towards connection.  

Panel Discussion: Fergus Murray, Siobhán Uí Dhálaigh, Karen Shortt and Baisat Alawiye

Our policy makers and leaders have long pondered what inclusive education really means.  

Beyond ideology and terminology, this panel brings together different perspectives to explore what works and what needs to change, to create an inclusive education system.  

An opportunity to reflect, question and engage in an open Q&A around real experiences in education.   

Panel Discussion: Nicole Casey, Jessica McGrath, Jane O’Neill and Sorcha Rice

What does it really mean to move away from compliance-based approaches? 

This panel explores how these practices show up in everyday settings, and what it looks like to shift toward support that prioritises autonomy, regulation and connection. 

A thoughtful discussion grounded in both lived experience and professional practice.