A neurotypical translator at the front door, and the risk of losing control

Dwayne Fernandes offered the panel a structure, and the rest of the session tested it. Speaking from the audience at the Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Sydney in June 2024, Fernandes introduced himself as being from Minds at Play and said he and the colleague sitting beside him had been nodding along because the panel was describing them exactly. He then began to set out some of the rules they had put in place as the business grew.

Minds at Play, he said, came from ground up thinking about a problem and then solving it in an unusual way, such as playing Dungeons and Dragons to help drive social growth for people on the spectrum. As it grew, the business had to move quickly and efficiently, but it could not be driven by the neurodivergent founder alone. He said he was finding out he might be autistic. They set a rule of three votes, with a neurotypical person among them. If two say yes, that is the direction, and the rule, they said, keeps them setting sensible directions and checking them. At the front door of the business they have a neurotypical person translating the neurodivergent thinking back into neurotypical terms for the wider audience. The business moves at the speed of light, they said, but if the person at that door cannot understand them, the audience on the other side will not understand them either. The support around a business cannot all be neurodivergent, they said. A listing on SSI’s Ignite small business site names Fernandes as the owner of Minds at Play, describes it as a disability owned small business, and says it runs role playing game sessions meant to give children, young people and adults with disabilities a safe setting for a positive social experience.