Towards a Neuro-Inclusive Assessment of Presentation Skills: Empowering Authentic Presenters

Presentation skills are often considered important academic and transferable skills. Hence, many academic programs include the acquisition of such skills as one of their intended learning outcomes. However, existing research indicates that the way these skills are typically assessed may impose an unfair burden on neurodivergent students, even when these students, like others, see the importance and value of the assessment of presentation skills.
In this paper, we make a number of suggestions for how to teach, practice, and assess presentation skills in a way that aims to be more neuroinclusive. Our suggestions are based on the ongoing development of a neuroinclusive innovation in the assessment of presentation skills for a course in the Bachelor Programme of Philosophy at Tilburg University. This innovation is informed by the growing literature on neuroinclusive and neurodivergence-affirming educational practices. Our paper first provides some background on neurodivergent students, neuroinclusion in higher education, and the Universal Design for Learning approach. We then introduce the context that motivated us to implement this particular innovation (the why) and describe the process for doing so (the how). Then, we present some of the ways we aim to make the assessment of presentation skills more neuroinclusive (the what). Our ultimate goal is to contribute to building a more neuroinclusive and less ableist university and promote better educational practices overall.