The Design Honours program at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) connects to progressive education models that build on theories of learning as play and self-mastery (Rousseau [1762], 1979), learning through self-paced play (Fröbel, 1896), self-directed learning (Parkhurst, 1921), and First Nations’ principles of relationality (UNSW Art & Design, 2023). Committed to the structural advantages of student-centred education and government policies in the 1970s that encouraged diverse education models (Karmel, 1973), the legislated integration of children with special needs into mainstream schools in 1990 (NSW Parliament, 1990), and strengths based education that emphasises capacities rather than deficits (Chickering & Reisser, 1993), Moline’s 2020 major revision of the three courses comprising the Design Honours program for the UNSW School of Art & Design, Faculty of Art Design and Architecture (ADA) has led to student research projects that have been subsequently selected for national and international exhibitions and three UNSW University Medals in Design.
As background, since the 1990s, inclusive education has promoted full student participation in Australian public schools. Following the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), Australian universities adopted the legal mandate for non-discriminatory and inclusive education for all students regardless of background and support needs by the 2020s. UNSW’s earlier initiative of establishing the UNSW Disability Innovation Institute (2017), which seeks interdisciplinary solutions to challenges faced by people with disability, and the Disability Inclusion Action Plan (2022-2025) that maps out the removal of barriers that students and staff with disability face in tertiary education, along with membership of the international collaboration Disability Matters, funded by the Wellcome Trust, inform the ongoing revisions of the Design Honours program.
This report discusses neurodiversity and opportunities in tertiary education in the context of the restructured UNSW Design Honours program. Drawing on a collective 47 years of experience in teaching and supervising the research of neurodivergent students, we emphasise the design of inclusive and flexible program structures rather than special conditions for diverse groups.
We contextualise this approach within progressive education models of the past 100 years in Australia that have focused on empowering students and enriching their education through holistic frameworks. While the legal obligation of all Australian universities to remove barriers for students with disabilities has meant the establishment of diversity and inclusion policies, the Design Honours program in the School of Art & Design, ADA, UNSW has implemented these policies through a major restructure of the program in 2020 and 2021 and iterative direct engagements, such as staff and student forums that identified initiatives for greater inclusivity and accessibility in 2023. These initiatives included a dedicated Design Honours studio, discursive lectures and student presentations, and informal social interactions outside the studio, such as celebratory lunches after important milestones throughout the year.
Most importantly, the restructured Design Honours program emphasised relational learning, in which students defined their positionality within relevant discourses on topical issues such as neurodiversity and cross-generational communication.
Design Honours drew on UNSW initiatives such as Diversified, which aims to empower students and academics to shape learning environments and improve support for neurodivergent identities, including autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, dyspraxic, Torettes, OCD or Epilepsy, and those with learning differences, mental health conditions, or other cognitive variances (Diversified, 2022) and celebrations such as the Diversified Festival in 2023 and 2024 (UNSW Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, 2024; 2023). The program renewal also drew on the relational learning model embedded in the School of Art & Design’s Cultural Learning resources (2023) which focused students’ attention on how First People’s knowledges can inform socially engaged creative works that address social, environmental, and technological change. When contextualised in the year-long lecture series within a pluriversal framework, described by design anthropologist Arturo Escobar (2018; 2020) as a world within many worlds, and an ethos committed to inclusive social justice that ‘recognizes the diversity of people’s views on planetary well-being and their skills in protecting it’ (Kothari et al. 2019), students have expanded their commitment to action research for social justice that is inclusive of diverse perspectives. As a result of these initiatives, among the 103 Design Honours research projects produced between 2020 to 2024, just over half have focused on action research that reduces inequality related to neurodiversity, mental health awareness, cultural and gender identities and overall well-being.
Several have focused on mental health and neurodiversity interventions for inclusive design in Australian communities. Design Honours student Catherine Saint negotiated the mental health impacts of the COVID19 pandemic for young adults living in Western Sydney by initiating large-scale scavenger hunts in Parramatta (2020) (Fig.1), while Sarah Barlow’s communication through jewellery of her lived experiences that challenged the stigma and misconceptions of invisible disability and chronic illness (IDACI) (2021) was selected for exhibition in ‘Emerging Contemporaries’ at the Craft and Design Centre, Canberra the following year (Fig.2). Natalie Youie’s design justice project sought to counter the stigma of an OCD-related condition, dermatilomania, through wearables targeting the fashion industry (2022). This project was proudly supported by Youie’s Design Honours cohort who modelled the jewellery for social media (Fig.3).
In 2023, a participant in the course forums on relational learning, Max Booker, designed the ‘Neuropharmacy’ project, a speculative storefront showcasing tools that translated sensory experiences, such as sound levels and spatial dimensions, into data visuals that communicated the probability of sensory overload for neurodiverse people (Fig. 4).
Embracing the twin lenses of neurodivergence and relationality in design research has led to a range of powerful student works in the Design Honours program and informed revisions to the research training course common to all Masters coursework programs at UNSW Art & Design. Supporting our students in exploring and expressing their lived experiences of neurodiversity through relational approaches to learning, continues and extends the long tradition of inclusive, progressive education in the creative arts in Australia.
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Associate Professor Katherine Moline researches the dynamics between technology and society at UNSW Arts, Design and Architecture (ADA). Her research is exhibited at the National Facility for Human Robot Interaction (2024-2025) and published in The International Journal of Transgender Health (2025) and Design for Health (2023) and was recognized in an Award for Research Excellence by ACUADS (2024).
Chantelle Baistow is a Lecturer and PhD candidate at UNSW Arts, Design and Architecture (ADA). Her background in interactive design and digital craft informs her socially engaged approach to exploring the remediation of coal ash dams in NSW in collaboration with industry and community. Her research has been recently published in the ACUADS Conference Proceedings (2024).
Dr Scott Brown is a Lecturer at UNSW Arts, Design and Architecture (ADA) using interactive technologies and human-centred design approaches to working with neurodiverse populations. His focus on inclusive practices for co-design informs his roles as ADA Director of Sector Engagement (Health), and Lead for assistive technology research in the School of Art & Design’s Creative Robotics Lab.
Main image: Natalie Youie, UNSW Bachelor of Design Honours, 2022, Perfect Imperfection: wearables and media campaign for the destigmatization of skin picking disorders (detail). Image provided courtesy of the designer.