FIE Writing Support provides students with individualised guidance to help them develop confidence, independence, and effective approaches to academic writing. Alongside our core writing support, FIE offers a specialist strand:
Neurodiversity-Affirming Educational Support
Our Neurodiversity-Affirming Educational Support strand provides personalised educational consultations for college students who want to understand and develop approaches to learning, writing, organisation, and academic study that work with their individual strengths.
The support is designed for students who identify as neurodivergent, are exploring their own neurodivergence, or experience barriers with traditional approaches to academic study. A formal diagnosis is not required.
What does the support include?
A consultation can focus on the areas that are most relevant to each student, including:
- Getting started – overcoming the barriers that can make beginning an assignment difficult
- Planning and organisation – breaking assignments and larger projects into manageable stages
- Executive functioning – developing practical approaches to prioritising, sequencing, initiating, and completing academic tasks
- Academic writing – finding personalised ways to generate ideas, structure arguments, draft, revise, and edit
- Reading and research – developing approaches to reading, extracting information, note-taking, and managing sources
- Time and workload – creating realistic approaches to deadlines, competing demands, and workload
- Focus and attention – exploring environmental and practical strategies that support concentration
- Study and revision – developing approaches that reflect the student's preferred ways of processing and retaining information
- Self-advocacy – supporting students to identify and communicate what they need to access their education effectively
- Reasonable adjustments – helping students understand and prepare for conversations about appropriate educational support and adjustments
A neurodiversity-affirming approach
Our approach recognises that there is no single “right” way to learn, write, organise, or study.
Rather than focusing on correcting perceived deficits, consultations explore the student's strengths, preferences, needs, environment, and existing strategies. Together, we identify practical adaptations that can make academic work more accessible, sustainable, and manageable.
The focus is on working with the student's brain, rather than asking the student to work against it.
How does this complement Writing Support?
The Neurodiversity-Affirming Educational Support strand sits alongside FIE's existing Writing Support.
Writing Support can focus directly on the academic writing task; for example, developing an argument, structuring an essay, improving clarity, or working through a draft.
Neurodiversity-Affirming Educational Support takes a broader view of the learning process, exploring how a student approaches academic work and what might help them plan, initiate, organise, sustain, and complete that work. Students may therefore benefit from either strand individually or from a combination of both.
Student-led and collaborative
Consultations are informal, collaborative, and tailored to the individual student.
Students can bring a specific assignment or academic challenge or use the consultation to explore patterns in their learning and identify strategies that may work better for them.
There is no expectation that students arrive with clearly defined difficulties or solutions. The consultation provides space to explore what is happening and develop practical next steps together.
Our aim
The aim of this strand is to help students:
understand themselves as learners, recognise their strengths, reduce unnecessary barriers, and develop sustainable approaches to academic study.
This is educational support rather than diagnostic or therapeutic provision. Where a student may benefit from specialist assessment, clinical support, or formal disability-related provision, they can be supported to identify appropriate next steps within their college or university.
