A Rough Guide to Neurodiversity, Me and My Team: Free Clean Coaching Resource
In the late 1990s, Caitlin Walker founded Training Attention, a company that soon began attracting organisations and individuals committed to improving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). These clients weren’t just interested in surface-level representation—they wanted to create environments where people with a wide range of neurocognitive styles could truly thrive. Some of these early stories are captured in Caitlin’s first book, From Contempt to Curiosity: Creating the Conditions for Groups to Collaborate.
As interest in her work grew, a number of coaches wanted to learn the approaches she had developed—especially her use of Clean Language and Systemic Modelling. But Caitlin realised something important: not every coach needed to master the full methodology. What they needed was a simple, accessible tool that would help them gain 80% of the benefit with just 20% of the training.
This tool had to do more than raise general awareness. It needed to help coaches work effectively with neurodivergent clients—such as those identifying as ADHD, autistic or dyslexic—while avoiding assumptions. Labels alone aren’t enough. Two clients with the same diagnosis might have entirely different experiences, preferences, and ways of processing the world.
Rather than offering cultural generalisations about what it means to “be” X, Y or Z, Caitlin set out to create a coaching tool that encourages exploration of:
Individual neurodivergent patterns
The coach’s own cognitive preferences
The broader systems of exclusion that may be invisible to those not affected
The result was the Rough Guide to… tool: a simple yet powerful Clean Coaching process that helps clients map how they function at their best, and what gets in the way. The client co-creates a personalised “Rough Guide” to themselves—something they can use to understand and communicate their needs, navigate differences with others, and advocate for themselves more confidently in the workplace, in education, or at home.
The process often begins with questions such as:
“When you’re working (or learning) at your best, you’re like what?”
“What kind of environment supports you to work at your best?”
“What happens in environments where you’re more likely to be at your worst?”
From there, the coach can help the client to explore key themes such as:
Organisation: “Organisation, for you, is like what?”
Creativity: “When you’re at your most creative, you’re like what?”
Decision-making: “Making decisions at your best is like what?”
The tool is adaptable, versatile, and deeply respectful of difference. It can be used in one-to-one coaching, within teams, between managers and direct reports, or in classrooms and communities—anywhere people want to understand themselves and each other better.
So far, the Rough Guide to… has been successfully used in businesses, universities, international NGOs, classrooms, with young people unable to attend school, and within the health service.
If you’d like to try it out, you’re warmly invited to download, use, adapt, and share the tool. All we ask is that you credit the pioneering work of David Grove, who developed Clean Language, and Caitlin Walker, who created Systemic Modelling.