Why we made it
Re-Storying Autism is an Autistic-led video course and workbook that David Gray-Hammond and I created together for parents, carers, family members and Autistic people themselves. We are both Autistic, ADHD and multiply neurodivergent, and we are also parents, carers and professionals.
The course grew out of years of community work, consultancy, research and lived experience, and out of a shared frustration that so many families are handed a story of deficit at the point of diagnosis. We wanted to offer something kinder and more accurate in its place: a way of understanding Autistic experience from the inside, so that support can begin with dignity, safety and connection.
What the course explores
The course is made up of seven modules and sixty-three short lessons, with around four and a half hours of video and a free workbook of more than 350 pages.
It begins with how Autistic people actually experience the world, drawing on monotropism, the idea that Autistic attention tends to gather deeply around fewer interests at a time (Murray et al., 2005), and on the double empathy problem, which reframes communication difficulties as a mutual mismatch between differently wired people rather than a flaw located in the Autistic person (Milton, 2012).
From there it moves through identity, language and disability models, the eight senses and the emotional landscape of the bodymind, Autistic play and ways of learning, burnout and overload, trauma and the emotional environment, and finally what we can all learn from Autistic community and culture.
The six-point framework
Running through every module is a six-point framework that looks at (Gray-Hammond & Edgar, 2026):
- How Autistic experience is understood
- The sensory and emotional landscape
- Identity and the cost of masking
- Environment and relational safety
- Power and institutional harm
- Connection and meaning
Rather than isolating the individual as the problem, the framework recognises that distress tends to emerge between people, environments and systems, and so that is where support needs to look too.
Who it is for
Re-Storying Autism is for parents, carers and family members of Autistic children, teenagers and adults, and for Autistic people who are diagnosed, self-identified or still wondering. It is for anyone who wants language for Autistic experience that is neither medicalised nor moralised, and for people who are tired of being told to manage, optimise or fix.
It is not designed for anyone hoping to change, cure or normalise an Autistic person, and it does not teach behavioural compliance. You do not need to arrive feeling confident or settled. Curiosity, and enough safety to reflect, is plenty.
How it works
Every lesson has both the video and the full workbook text, so you can watch, read or do both. Reflection prompts save privately as you go, you can mark lessons complete and pick up exactly where you left off, and there are no deadlines, streaks or scores.
We built in reading options such as font choice, text size, dark mode and a calm mode, because learning should feel safe for the bodymind as well as the mind. You can try a free preview lesson before deciding, and there is a growing collection of free guides on topics such as monotropism, sensory overload, stimming, co-regulation, low-demand approaches and Autistic burnout.
Re-Storying Autism is a collaboration between Autistic Realms and NeuroHub Community Ltd. It offers education and understanding rather than medical or therapeutic advice. Current pricing, the full lesson list and answers to common questions are all on the course website.
A sister course
You might also like our other course, Building a Positive Autistic Identity, which is written directly for Autistic people. You can find both courses together on NeuroHub Horizons.
References
Gray-Hammond, D., & Edgar, H. (2026). Re-storying autism: A framework for families, parents, and carers. Reimagining support for Autistic people. NeuroHub Community.
Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008
Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361305051398