The Unseen Link: Race, Neurodiversity, and Why Recognition Matters
On September 30, Canadians mark Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It is a day to honour the children who never returned from residential schools, to stand with survivors, and to confront the ongoing legacies of colonial harm. It is a day of memory, but also of responsibility. Remembering without acting risks keeping the past alive in the very systems we claim to reform.
One of the ways this legacy persists is in the intersection of race and neurodivergence. Indigenous and racialized children who are autistic or have ADHD are disproportionately overlooked, misdiagnosed, or punished. Their needs are too often misinterpreted as misbehaviour, their struggles reframed as deficiencies of character rather than signs of difference. The result is a pattern of exclusion that echoes the same forces of erasure and control that residential schools once enforced.
The colonial education system was built on a demand for conformity: silence the language, suppress the culture, punish the child who does not fit. Although classrooms today look different, the residue remains. The child who fidgets, who blurts out answers, who needs to move or stim, is often seen as disruptive. The Indigenous or Black child, in particular, is more likely to be labeled defiant or aggressive for behaviours that would be excused in their white peers. Emotional dysregulation, a hallmark of ADHD and autism, is met with punishment rather than support. These are not neutral oversights. They are patterns rooted in a history of interpreting difference as disorder, and disorder as something to be controlled.
Aisha’s story illustrates this. Bright, creative, and full of curiosity, she loved stories and drawing. Yet from the first grade onward, her teachers focused on what they saw as shortcomings. She was “too talkative,” “scattered,” and “unmotivated.” Her doodling, which helped her regulate during lessons, was written off as laziness. As she grew older, her direct speech was judged as rudeness, her meltdowns punished instead of understood. By middle school, she was more familiar with the principal’s office than with any support system. It was not until high school, after her parents fought for an external assessment, that the truth became clear: ADHD, autism, and anxiety. The diagnosis offered language and a framework, but it came after years of internalized shame and lost opportunities.
Stories like Aisha’s are far too common. Eli, a Indigenous boy, was suspended multiple times for “aggression” when his so-called outbursts were actually sensory overload in noisy classrooms. Nina, a South Asian teen, lived with selective mutism and intense anxiety, but teachers dismissed her as “just shy.” Malik, a Black autistic youth, struggled with executive functioning. When he failed to complete assignments, he was labeled lazy and punished, rather than supported with strategies that could have helped him succeed. These children were not only missed, they were actively harmed by systems that misread their needs through the lens of bias.
The clinical consequences of being unseen are profound. Without recognition, shame becomes identity. “I am lazy. I am bad. I am broken.” Punishment compounds distress, leading to cycles of trauma and nervous system dysregulation. Mental health challenges like depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation rise sharply in undiagnosed neurodivergent youth. Opportunities narrow as suspensions, disengagement, and school pushout set in. Some turn to substances or self-harm to cope. For racialized and Indigenous children, these struggles are compounded by systemic racism, leaving them carrying multiple, overlapping burdens that schools and clinics too often refuse to address together.
Intersectionality matters deeply here. Girls and AFAB youth mask symptoms, presenting as high achievers until the strain becomes unbearable. Indigenous and Black students are disciplined more harshly for the same behaviours as their white peers. Immigrant families may struggle against stigma or language barriers when advocating for their children. Low-income families face long public waitlists or the impossibility of paying for private assessments. Without an intersectional lens, many children fall through the cracks, left to internalize the failure of systems as their own.
This is why diagnosis, when done thoughtfully and culturally safely, is not a label to limit but a key to liberation. Diagnosis reframes the narrative from “you are the problem” to “you experience the world differently.” It opens doors to accommodations, disability supports, and resources. It empowers families to advocate with confidence. It allows youth to see their creativity, energy, and directness not as flaws but as facets of their neurodivergence. For racialized and Indigenous children, a diagnosis can be life-altering. It can mean the difference between a trajectory of shame and one of resilience.
Reconciliation demands that we act on these truths. In mental health and education, this means committing to culturally responsive assessments that are designed with input from the communities most affected. It means training educators and clinicians to see ADHD and autism beyond stereotypes. It means replacing punishment with restorative, trauma-informed supports. It means embedding Indigenous knowledge systems into our understanding of wellness and learning. It means creating equitable access to assessments, so that no family is excluded because of cost or geography.
Orange Shirt Day reminds us that every child matters. But those words must be lived, not just worn. Every child deserves to be recognized in their fullness, not reduced to a stereotype or silenced by misinterpretation. Every child deserves support instead of shame, validation instead of punishment, belonging instead of exclusion.
To honour September 30 is to commit to this work. To see that the struggles of neurodivergent, racialized children in our schools today are not accidents, but continuations of histories we must dismantle. To recognize that the harm of being unseen is generational, and that healing begins with recognition, compassion, and systemic change.
Every child deserves more than survival. They deserve to know, in word and deed, that they truly matter.