Children with neurodevelopmental conditions - such as ADHD, autism or acquired brain injury - are overrepresented in youth justice systems worldwide. Through its ‘spiral model’, this book explains how failures to accommodate neurodiversity across education, health, social care and justice turn difference and unmet need into vulnerability to criminalisation and draw children ever deeper into systems of control.
Crucially, the book also maps how this spiral can be interrupted and reversed, calling for a fundamental transformation in how public services understand and respond to neurodivergent children - placing recognition, support and rights at the heart of a radically different approach.
