The Strengths-based Approach to Neurodivergence
There's a moment that almost every parent of a neurodivergent child knows by heart. You open another report. You scan another assessment. And there it is again — the long, careful list of everything your child can't do. The areas of concern. The flags. The deficits. You read it. You nod along. And inside, something quietly aches. Because the child on that page is not the child you know.
The one who builds, hyperfocuses, notices what no one else notices. The one with the fierce sense of fairness, the wild creative leaps, the empathy that fills the room.
Neuroadvantage by Andrew Fuller is the book that finally turns the page on the deficit story.
Why this book matters
There are plenty of books about neurodivergent kids. Most of them focus on what's missing — the gaps, the struggles, the strategies for coping. What makes Fuller's book different is the lens itself. Drawn from more than thirty years of clinical work with neurodivergent children and their families, Neuroadvantage argues that we've been telling only half the story.
Fuller's premise is simple but profound: every neurodivergent brain is unevenly wired. About 60% of a neurodivergent brain is well-myelinated — the fast, well-connected circuitry where remarkable strengths sit. The other 40% is where genuine support is needed. Both are true. Both matter. But we've spent decades building systems that only ever assess the 40%.
When you start to see the other 60%, everything shifts.
What the book covers
The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 focuses on parenting — twelve foundational lessons for raising a neurodivergent child without losing yourself in the process. Sleep, routines, screens, nature, kindness to yourself, the difference between what you say and what you do. Fuller is warm and practical here in a way that feels lived rather than theorised.
Part 2 takes you through the executive functions — planning, concentration, working memory, impulse control, cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation — and shows how each one looks in neurodivergent kids, why it works the way it does, and how to build on what's already strong. There are chapters on anxiety, on arguments and defiance, on the spectrums of thinking that shape every neurodivergent child differently. And running through every chapter is the same thread: find their strengths first.
One of the most useful tools in the book is free. Fuller points readers to mylearningstrengths.com, where you can map your child's profile across eight distinct learning strengths. It's a starting point that flips the typical assessment conversation on its head — and one many parents say they wish they'd had years earlier.
For parents: a book that gives you back the other 60%
If you've ever felt like every conversation about your child becomes a list of what's wrong — this book will feel like coming up for air.
Fuller writes from a place of deep respect for parents. He's not asking you to fix your child. He's asking you to see them more fully — and to see yourself more gently. His twelve lessons of parenting neurodivergent kids include some of the most permission-giving sentences you'll read in any parenting book: "Your child is not the perfect child. You are not the perfect parent. Love yourself and them anyway."
There's a whole chapter on anxiety — because every neurodivergent child carries some — and how to move through the body before you try to move through the mind. Walk. Hum. Breathe. Co-regulate first. Conversation later. Fuller maps the progression from attached to approachable to activated to agitated to avoidant to attacking, and shows what helps at each stage. It's the kind of framework that becomes a quiet anchor on the hard days.
"It's not whether people are smart. It's how they are smart."
— Andrew Fuller
For teachers: the difference between testing the 40% and seeing the 60%
If you take one thing from this book into a classroom, let it be this question: are we only ever testing the 40%?
Fuller's argument is that traditional schooling is brilliantly designed to find what neurodivergent kids can't do — and almost completely blind to what they can. The child who can't sit still might be a body-intelligent thinker who learns through movement. The child who can't decode quickly might have spatial reasoning that would astonish a working architect. The child who blurts and interrupts might have a justice radar so finely tuned that the rest of the room hasn't caught up yet.
None of this is a free pass on the hard skills. The 40% still needs scaffolding. But Fuller's approach reorders the work. Map strengths first. Build on what's strong before fixing what's hard. Use visual schedules, rhythm and ritual to calm anxious nervous systems. Name a strength out loud — every single day. Help students learn how they learn best, not just what they're being asked to learn.
Strengths grow when seen. Fuller's whole book is a quiet, careful invitation to start seeing.
What we love most
Fuller's voice is what makes this book sit differently on the shelf. He's an Australian clinical psychologist who speaks the same language as schools and parents here, without the slick American confidence or the heavy academic European frame. The science is plain-English. The kid stories are real and recognisable. And every chapter ends in something you can actually do tomorrow — a question to ask, a noticing practice, a small ritual.
The book also refuses to soften reality. Fuller acknowledges the exhaustion, the social isolation, the heartbreak of watching your child be misunderstood. He doesn't pretend a strengths lens will erase any of that. He just argues, quietly and convincingly, that you cannot raise a child well by only ever staring at their gaps. The other 60% deserves the light too.
The bottom line
Every neurodivergent brain is wired for an advantage.
The work is to find it. Name it. Grow it.
Your child is not a deficit list. They are a strengths map waiting to be read. Neuroadvantage won't make the hard parts of raising or teaching a neurodivergent child disappear — but it will hand you the other half of the story. The half that gets your child up in the morning. The half the reports keep missing. The half that, once you can see it, you'll never quite stop seeing again.
Spot it. Name it. Grow it. And when the deficit story tries to creep back in, remember: there are sunflowers on the cover for a reason. 🤍