Coaching Neurodiverse Athletes

Coaching Neurodiverse Athletes – Book

Organized sports change lives. They shape confidence, social skills, resilience, physical literacy, and lifelong well-being. Yet nearly 20% of athletes are neurodiverse, and most sports systems—practice structures, rules, evaluation methods, communication styles—were built around neurotypical assumptions.

The result?
Neurodiverse athletes don’t leave sports because they lack talent.
They leave because the system wasn’t built with them in mind.

Coaching Neurodiverse Athletes exposes this preventable attrition and offers a clear, actionable blueprint for change. This book gives coaches, educators, and program leaders the evidence-based tools to redesign their coaching inputs so athletes experience better outcomes—not only in performance, but in belonging, retention, and long-term success.

Through research-backed insights and practical methods, you will learn how to:

• Understand why organized sports matter so deeply for neurodiverse athletes

Explore the cognitive, emotional, physical, and developmental benefits—benefits that become even more essential for athletes who think and learn differently.

• Identify where exclusion happens—not from ability, but from coaching habits

Uncover the hidden barriers created by pacing, communication styles, sensory environments, evaluations, and “one right way to learn.”

• Apply inclusive coaching strategies without lowering standards

Learn how to support, stretch, and challenge neurodiverse athletes while maintaining high-performance expectations.

• Redesign programs, practices, and team systems to increase retention

Shift from “fitting athletes into the system” to “building systems that work for more athletes.”

Whether you’re a coach, athletic director, teacher, therapist, or parent, this book will transform how you understand your athletes—and how they understand themselves. It is a practical, strengths-based guide that shows exactly how better coaching environments create better athlete outcomes.

When we change the coaching input, we change which athletes stay, grow, and succeed.
This book shows you how.