School-Based Narratives of Misrecognition Among Black Youth with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

Background and Purpose: School is often one of the earliest sites where neurodevelopmental differences become visible to others, yet Black youth with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDDs) frequently encounter educational responses shaped by racialized assumptions about behaviour before those differences are meaningfully recognized. Existing scholarship has documented disproportionate discipline and inequitable educational experiences for Black youth, but less is known about how Black youth with NDDs themselves describe these early school encounters or how they understand their significance over time. This study examines how Black youth with NDDs narrate school-based experiences of misrecognition prior to, alongside, and following diagnosis.

Methods: This paper draws on preliminary constructivist grounded theory analysis of 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Black youth with NDDs in Canada, ages 16 to 21. Participants were recruited through online flyers and national community agencies; all identified as Black, and the sample included mostly females (70% female, 30% male), with varied neurodevelopmental profiles, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, dyspraxia, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and learning disabilities. Interviews explored diagnosis, school experiences, and everyday institutional encounters across social contexts. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed through iterative coding and constant comparison, through which school emerged as a recurring analytic site where participants located early experiences of misinterpretation, discipline, and behavioural reading in relation to how neurodevelopmental difference was understood in Black youth.

Results: Early analysis positioned school as the primary setting in which participants described behavioural meaning being assigned to them by others, often through racialized expectations attached to neurodevelopmental difference. Participants described being disciplined more harshly than peers, labeled as disruptive, and positioned negatively within classroom environments before their needs were meaningfully understood. Several participants described educational encounters in which behavioural correction occurred more readily than inquiry into what they were experiencing, shaping early perceptions of themselves as problematic within school settings. Participants also described bullying, exclusion, and uneven access to support, particularly when their differences did not align with “expected” behavioural norms. Across narratives, school experiences often remained central in how diagnosis was later understood, including whether diagnosis offered explanation, validation, uncertainty, or shame.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings contribute to scholarship on educational inequity by showing how Black youth with NDDs make sense of school responses that often precede formal recognition of neurodevelopmental difference. The findings suggest that school responses often shape meaning before formal supports are in place, with implications for how diagnosis is later understood and negotiated. Within school-based practice, this highlights the importance of recognition processes that move beyond behavioural interpretation alone, particularly where social workers are involved in advocacy and support planning for Black youth. The findings also suggest that early school encounters deserve closer social work attention when racialized assumptions influence how behaviour is interpreted and when those interpretations affect whether neurodevelopmental difference is understood in ways that open or delay access to support.