Kate Boot Neurodivergent Advocacy and Therapeutic Services

22/07/2026

The longer I practise, the less interested I become in asking, “What’s wrong with this person?”

And the more curious I become about asking, “What makes this response make sense?”

The autistic people I work alongside continue to teach me that burnout, masking, sensory overwhelm and emotional exhaustion rarely appear without context.

Some days we wrestle.
Some days we rest.
Some days we discover that the parts of ourselves we’ve been fighting were never the enemy.

Maybe healing begins not when we win the battle, but when we realise we don’t have to keep fighting ourselves.

15/07/2026

Sometimes you can learn a lot about a therapist by the questions they ask.

Language shapes relationships. It shapes power. It shapes whether someone feels believed, understood and able to disagree.

These are some of the phrases I find myself returning to most often in my own practice.

Which phrase resonated with you most?

What else would you add to this list?

12/07/2026

I wonder whether we sometimes underestimate just how much formulation belongs within speech and language therapy.

Not because we’re trying to become psychologists.

But because communication never exists in isolation.

Every interaction is shaped by context, sensory experiences, relationships, predictability, identity, motor differences and countless other factors.

Understanding those interactions isn’t separate from speech and language therapy.

For me, it is speech and language therapy.

I’d love to know how others think about formulation in their own practice.

03/07/2026

02/07/2026

Last weekend reflecting heavily with & has really left me processing a lot ever since 💭

One idea I’ve found myself returning to is this…

This shift has changed almost every part of how I practise.

Working with more and more neurodivergent adults has taught me that the most important question isn’t always “What skills does this person need?” Often, it’s “What has this person had to do to survive until now, and what has that cost them?”

Not because I’ve stopped believing in growth, learning or developing new skills. Far from it. Many of the people I work alongside actively choose to work towards goals that help them navigate a world that isn’t always designed with them in mind.

The difference is that I no longer start with, “What needs to change?” I start with, “How does this make sense?”

That’s why formulation has become such an important part of my work as a speech and language therapist. Before we decide what support might help, we first seek to understand the person’s experiences, relationships, environment, identity, strengths, and the wider systems shaping their lives.

For me, that’s what neurodiversity-affirming practice looks like. Not assuming what a “good” outcome should be, but working together to understand whether the goals we’re pursuing genuinely belong to the person.

💭 I’d love to know what this brings up for you. What questions have changed the way you think about therapy, support, or even yourself?

06/03/2026

I’ll be honest, my first internal reaction was a little bit like…
oh gosh, am I in trouble? Typical me really…

However, the more I’ve sat with the question this week, the more I realise how interesting it actually is.

Because I don’t experience it as a “leap”.

When you work alongside autistic people, sensory processing, communication, identity, regulation, power, and systems aren’t separate topics. They’re intertwined.

Communication is happening through bodies, through nervous systems, through environments, through lived experience.

So for me it’s never felt like stepping outside speech and language therapy.

If anything, it’s felt like stepping outside the narrow frame that much of our training historically sits within; where communication is often taught as something separate from sensory experience, identity, power, and context.

Those connections simply weren’t part of the conversation when myself and many others were trained.

Practising how I do has felt more like following the person’s experience to where it actually leads.

Maybe the question isn’t why some of us have made the leap.

Maybe it’s whether our professional frameworks have been too narrow for the realities people are living with.

19/12/2025

Working at the pace of trust has been sitting with me this week.

Mid week I started a client session naming what I anticipated may have been feeling like “a lot” or change, expectation and/or pressure for them, of late. They know I’m AuDHD. I said “I see you” and “I’m also aware how I’m here now, also asking you to give me more than you have to give”. I named the potential harm. The client, lent forwards reaching out their hand to hold mine momentarily and said “thank you, Kate, I really appreciate you saying that”. One further hand squeeze and we proceeded into their session, together.

It left me thinking; trust isn’t something you can demand, fast-track, or assume. Especially when someone is neurodivergent and has lived through trauma, trust is rarely a starting point. It’s something that emerges after safety, clarity, and consistency have been experienced — often many times over.

What I keep noticing is how easily systems confuse compliance with trust. Or silence with agreement. Or “going along with the plan” with feeling safe. For many neurodivergent people, those things are survival strategies, not signs of connection.

Working at the pace of trust means slowing down when everything feels urgent. It means explaining things clearly and more than once. It means being honest about uncertainty, repairing when things land badly, naming systems harm and recognising that nervous systems remember whole experiences, not just outcomes.

And it means understanding that when someone starts asking more questions, disagreeing, setting boundaries, or taking longer to respond, this often isn’t disengagement. It can be a sign that they finally feel safe enough to be real!

I also found myself speaking to the fact that trust can’t be extracted through pressure, withheld information, or raised stakes in meetings this week, too. Suggesting that this doesn’t build safety, it builds masking, increases uncertainty and damages professional or therapeutic relationships.

Working at the pace of trust isn’t inefficient. It’s ethical.
And for many people, it’s the difference between surviving support and actually being supported.

💜