How Can Art Therapy Support Neurodivergent Clients?

As a neurodivergent artist, I have always been drawn to art therapy. After all, art is how I learned to make sense of the world. Drawing, coloring, painting, writing, and comic-making helped me process big feelings, cope with life’s challenges, and explore facets of my identity.

Personal experience aside, emerging research suggests that art therapy may offer neurodivergent clients additional ways to communicate, express emotions, connect with others, and explore their experiences. While much of the research has focused on children, a growing body of research is beginning to explore art therapy with neurodivergent adults, including adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (Harpazi et al., 2025; Power et al., 2023).

The research uses terms like autism, ADHD, and intellectual disability more often than the broader term neurodivergent. Because neurodivergent people have diverse experiences and needs, research about one population shouldn't automatically be applied to everyone.

With that in mind, what can art therapy offer neurodivergent folks?

Communication Beyond Words

Talk therapy can be a great fit for many people. But sometimes, putting complicated experiences into words is difficult, exhausting, or simply isn't the most natural way to communicate.

Art therapy offers another option.

Drawing, painting, collage, writing, movement, and other creative processes can provide additional ways to express thoughts and experiences. You might create an image of something you can't quite put into words, use colors to explore an emotion, or make a collage about different parts of your identity.

The artwork doesn't have to “speak for” you. Instead, you and your therapist can explore what the artwork means to you.

Research with adults with autism and intellectual disabilities highlights art therapy’s potential to support nonverbal communication and connection. A South Africa-based study by Du Preez (2026) found that art therapy helped participants engage in non-verbal expression, interpersonal connection, and emotional regulation.

Making Space for Emotions

Sometimes we know we're feeling something before we know what it is.

Artmaking can give us time and space to slow down and explore those experiences. Creating something can help us look at a difficult feeling from a little more distance, making it easier to understand or talk about.

A systematic review by Power et al. (2023) found that art therapy with adults with learning disabilities experiencing mental distress was used to support communication, emotional expression, emotional insight, and social connection.

You don't have to find the “right” words before you begin. Sometimes the creative process can help you discover the words along the way.

Exploring Sensory Experiences

Artmaking is also a sensory experience.

The texture of clay, the repetitive movement of drawing, the pressure of a pencil, or the colors and sounds of different materials can all become part of the creative process.

Everyone experiences sensory input differently. A material that feels calming to one person might feel overwhelming to another. That's why a neurodiversity-affirming art therapist won't assume that a particular material or activity will work for everyone.

Instead, you can explore together:

What feels good? What feels overwhelming? What helps you stay present? What do you want more—or less—of?

The goal isn't to find the “right” sensory experience. It's to learn what works for you.

Choice, Agency, and Autonomy

One of my favorite things about art therapy is the amount of choice it can offer:

You might choose:

• What you want to create

• Which materials you want to use

• Whether you want to work abstractly or realistically

• Whether you want to talk while you create

• Whether you want to share the meaning of your artwork

These choices can be part of the therapy.

A neurodiversity-affirming approach recognizes that you are the expert on your own experience. Your therapist isn't there to decide how you should communicate, regulate, or create. Instead, you can work together to discover what feels useful and meaningful for you.

This also means that art therapy doesn't have to be about measuring whether someone is behaving “better.” Power et al. (2023)

A neurodiversity-affirming approach asks a different question:

What does this experience make possible for you?

Exploring Identity

For many neurodivergent adults, understanding neurodivergence can become part of understanding themselves.

You might be exploring a recent diagnosis, masking, disability, relationships, belonging, or the ways you've learned to navigate a world that doesn't always fit your needs.

Art can provide a space to explore these experiences without having to create a perfectly organized story.

You might make a collage about different parts of yourself, create a comic about your diagnosis journey, or make an image representing something you don't yet have words for.

There doesn't have to be a “right” interpretation. Your artwork belongs to you, and you get to decide what it means.

What About ADHD?

Research specifically examining art therapy with adults with ADHD is still limited. More research is needed before we can make strong claims about specific outcomes.

However, emerging research is beginning to explore how creative approaches can support adults with ADHD in exploring identity, self-perception, and agency (Fried, 2025).

In practice, art therapy can also be flexible. Depending on your needs, your therapist might incorporate movement, shorter creative activities, visual structure, novelty, or choices about materials and directives.

These aren't universal “ADHD techniques.” They're simply examples of ways therapy can be adapted to the individual.

What Does Neurodiversity-Affirming Art Therapy Mean?

Most importantly, neurodiversity-affirming art therapy isn't aboutfixing your neurodivergence.

Therapy doesn't have to be about becoming more “normal” or learning to hide the parts of yourself that make you different.

Instead, therapy can focus on what you want.

Maybe you want to understand your emotions.

Maybe you want to process trauma.

Maybe you're exploring your identity after a late diagnosis.

Maybe you want to build self-compassion around parts of yourself you've spent years criticizing.

Or maybe you simply want a therapeutic space where you don't have to spend the entire session masking.

Art therapy can offer more than one way to participate in therapy. You might talk, draw, paint, write, work with clay, make a collage, or simply experiment with different ways of expressing yourself.

You don't have to be “good at art.”

You don't have to know what your artwork means.

You don't have to find the perfect words.

You can simply show up as yourself and see what becomes possible.

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References

du Preez, J. (2026). Art therapy as effective communication for emotional regulation in adults with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. South African Journal of Arts Therapies. https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/sajat/article/view/4578

Fried, D. (2025). Art therapy and ABR: Exploring ADHD roles in a neurodivergent case study. Art Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2025.2518778

Harpazi, S., Regev, D., & Snir, S. (2025). ‘Being attentive’: Art therapy for adults with intellectual disabilities. International Journal of Art Therapy, 30(4), 170–179. https://doi.org/10.1080/17454832.2024.2347898

Power, N., Harrison, T. L., Hackett, S., & Carr, C. (2023). Art therapy as a treatment for adults with learning disabilities who are experiencing mental distress: A configurative systematic review with narrative synthesis. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 86, Article 102088. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2023.102088

Do Materials Matter in Art Therapy?

When it comes to making art, there is one question you’ll see asked the most online. Potential clients, art hobbiests, and professional artists alike all have all wondered: “What art supplies do I need?”

Which begs the question—Do materials matter in Art Therapy?

Unfortunately, the answer is not so simple. To sum it up—yes AND no!

Here are some reasons that materials and supplies DO matter in art therapy, whether in-office or at home:

• Different materials have different properties—it’s much easier to control pencil strokes than flowing watercolor paints.

  This doesn’t mean that quality of your supplies is everything! We’ll get to that a little later.

• SOMETIMES quality matters, depending on what your goal is! Trying to mix paint colors yourself? Because of how paint pigments work, very cheap paints may produce muddier, less vibrant colors compared to student- or artist-grade paints.

• CONTEXT MATTERS! Does your space have good ventilation? No? Skip the oil paints and go for a medium with little to no fumes, like watercolor or acrylic paints.

• On a budget? When working with an art therapist, they can help you choose materials that won’t break the bank, including free digital tools.

Why materials DON’T matter for Art Therapy to be successful:

• ANY material has the potential to be therapeutic—even foraged supplies like fallen leaves and acorn husks.

• WHAT you are using matters much less than HOW you are using it.

• Focusing too much on getting “the best” supplies can backfire—your expensive pens and paper may become too precious to “waste”, stopping you from using them. And in this day and age, there will always be something newer and “better” out there, making it impossible to choose the perfect supplies.

Hopefully this answered some questions about materials in Art Therapy. If you are interested in learning more about starting your Art Therapy journey, follow the link below to get in touch!

Click here to get started with a free, 15-minute consultation.