Episode Guide
Neurodivergent Networks with Leah Blankenship
”Neuro Emergent” Episode 3 (August 27, 2025)
Episode Highlights
• Leah Blankenship founded the Neurodiversity Alliance as a senior at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She is currently a Ph.D. student in neuroscience.
• Before launching the Neurodiversity Alliance at UO, Leah attended an Autism Campus Inclusion workshop hosted by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Details: autisticadvocacy.org/aci.
• Leah will be part of a panel discussion on “Autism from a Neuroscience Perspective” from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 4, at Caffe Pacori, 255 Wallis St., Eugene. Presented by Neurodiversity Innovation Centers for Excellence in Neuroscience (niceinneuro.org).
News Feature (1:12–6:57)
Disability Rights Oregon is in it for the long haul
President Gerald Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act on November 29th, 1975, which means we are coming up on the 50th anniversary of special education as we know it.
Updated in 1990 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or I-D-E-A, this federal law guarantees all children in the United States the right to a “Free Appropriate Public Education.”
In other words, kids with Down syndrome, profound autism or other disabilities can’t be excluded from public schools, nor can they be merely warehoused or baby-sat — even if their disabilities come with behavior issues that can be disruptive in the classroom.
But in recent years, school districts in Oregon have been getting around the law by putting hundreds of students on shortened school days, reducing their instruction time to as little as one hour per day.
Advocates for these children won an important victory last month when a federal appeals court ruled their class-action lawsuit against the state had been wrongly dismissed by a district court judge in 2024.
To gain a better understanding of this complicated issue, I recently sat down with Tom Stenson, Deputy Legal Director of Disability Rights Oregon, at their office in downtown Portland.
“It’s one thing to have a law, it’s another thing to actually enforce it,” Stenson said.
“The law is very clear that the state has to actually actively manage the school districts and know what they’re doing and know whether they’re abiding by the law.
“The Oregon Department of Education is not just supposed to write checks. It is supposed to make sure that the money is being spent in a way that protects children with disabilities, so that their rights are being respected.”
Featured Interview
Leah Blankenship, founder, Neurodiversity Alliance at UO
Mouse Models of Autism (8:14–12:15)
“Autism is a human condition that’s very associated with our social behavior and the way that we interact with each other socially. And also, a lot of the way autism is perceived as a disability is tied to societal expectations of behavior rather than always being associated with those inherent neural differences that come with being autistic.”
Battling Misinformation (12:15–20:05)
“The first person that was ever diagnosed with autism passed away only two or three years ago. Autism is still a very new condition as far as psychiatry is concerned, and so just from that perspective alone, we should be expecting autism rates to still be increasing.”
Neurodiversity Alliance: Challenges and Opportunities (20:05–31:56)
“We take a very broad definition of neurodiversity in our organization. There’s a really excellent book called Neuroqueer Heresies by Dr. Nick Walker, and we’ve taken some of our definitions from that book. Essentially we define neurodiversity as any way of being that’s different than the societal standard of normal. … We include traumatic brain injury, we include depression and anxiety, personality disorders and everything. So there’s a really awesome variety of students in this group with so many different experiences and perspectives.”
Diagnosis and Disability (31:56–39:43)
“We are a social species. We are meant to have community and connection with people, and when you feel like that’s something that you just don’t get to have but you don’t know why, it’s horrific. Which is why it frustrates me when people say, ‘My kid was diagnosed, but I don’t want them to know. I don’t want it to change their opinion of themselves.’ And it’s like, ‘They know. Your kid knows that there’s something different about them, whether or not they have a name for it.’”
The Double Empathy Problem (43:29–47:32)
Host: “It’s only the fault, quote-unquote, of the autistic person because we’re the minority. If 95% of us were autistic, then it would be a very different world.”
Leah: “It would be like, ‘Why do you keep trying to make eye contact with me? You’re so weird!’”
Host: “‘That’s so aggressive! Keep your eyes to yourself!’”
Leah: “Exactly, exactly. Or, ‘Why don’t you just say what you mean? You’re just avoiding everything. What is that about?’”
Building Neurodiverse Communities (47:32–52:07)
“I’ve had students come up and tell me, ‘Every friend I’ve made so far has been from this club.’ And how cool is that?”
- KBOO