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Why Standard Coaching Models Do Not Always Work for Neurodivergent Clients


I want to ask coaches something that I think is worth sitting with.

If an estimated 15 to 20% of the population is neurodivergent, and the coaching models most of us trained in were built before neurodiversity was even part of the professional conversation, what does that mean for the clients currently sitting in front of us?

I am not saying the models are wrong. GROW is a genuinely elegant framework and I use elements of it myself. But it carries assumptions. And when those assumptions do not match how a client’s brain actually works, the whole session can quietly fall apart in ways that are hard to name.

What the standard coaching Models Assume

GROW assumes that a client can move through goal setting, reality checking, exploring options and committing to action in a fairly linear way. It assumes a reasonable level of self-awareness that can be accessed on demand. It assumes that when you ask someone “what has worked for you in the past?”, they can retrieve the answer.

For a client with ADHD, that last one alone can derail an entire session. Working memory can be challenging for many. A client might know the answer exists somewhere but genuinely cannot find it in the moment you are asking. Time perception challenges mean that connecting to a future goal can feel abstract and almost impossible to hold onto. And the classic coaching closer, “so what will you commit to doing by next week?”, can feel both motivating and deeply anxiety-inducing for someone whose relationship with time, planning and follow-through is fundamentally different to what the question assumes.


Autistic clients bring a different set of considerations. Coaching relationships are built partly on subtle social dynamics, on reading tone, on understanding implication. For clients who communicate literally and think concretely, that dynamic can feel genuinely confusing. Open questions with no parameters can feel impossible to answer. Metaphors without grounding can land as noise.

And almost all standard coaching is verbal. Two people talking. For clients who do not process well in real-time verbal conversation, who need visual anchors, written prompts, or simply more time to think before they speak, the standard session format is already a barrier before you have even started.

The Language Problem

There is a world of difference between a coach who responds to a missed homework with “what got in the way?” and one who says “that sounds like it might have been task paralysis, does that feel familiar?” The first question is neutral but it puts the responsibility on the client to explain something they may not yet have language for. The second names it, and in doing so, it changes something.

The vocabulary of neurodivergent experience, words like rejection sensitive dysphoria, task paralysis, demand avoidance, time blindness, is not clinical jargon. For many clients it is the first time anyone has given a name to something they have lived with their whole life. When a coach can do that, it does not just make the session more productive. It shifts how a client sees themselves.

What a lot of coaches do inadvertently, and I do not think any of them mean to, is use language that quietly reinforces shame. Framing forgotten homework as a commitment issue. Treating inconsistent output as low motivation. Expecting a client to just do the thing without understanding why that is harder for some people than it is for others. This is not poor coaching. It is coaching that was trained without neurodiversity in the room.

What Actually Makes a Difference

A neurodivergent client should feel genuinely seen. Not fixed. Not coached at. Seen.

That means validating their experience before moving to action. It means naming things they have felt but not been able to articulate. It means being warm and completely non-judgemental about lateness, about homework that did not happen, about the session where nothing moves forward because the week was too much. Those are not failures. They are information.

Traditional coaching models place a high value on non-directiveness and minimal coach self-disclosure. I understand why. But for a lot of neurodivergent clients, that approach can feel cold at exactly the moment when connection matters most. Adapting pace, offering something visual to anchor the conversation, sharing a relevant experience with a client’s permission, these are not departures from good coaching. They are good coaching, adapted for the brain that is actually in the room with you.

A Question I Think Every Coach Should Ask Themselves

The models we trained in were built for neurotypical ways of thinking. A significant proportion of our clients are neurodivergent. Many of them have never told us, either because they do not have a formal diagnosis, or because they do not yet feel safe enough to say it.

That means there are very likely people in our client lists right now who are working harder than they should have to just to meet us where we are, rather than the other way around.

Coach should have some grounding in neurodiversity. Not to become a specialist, but to become a better, more ethical, more genuinely useful practitioner. The coaching profession prides itself on meeting clients where they are. That commitment has to include understanding that where they are, neurologically, may be somewhere our training never fully prepared us for.

If any of this has resonated, or made you wonder about the clients you may already be coaching without fully realising it, that is exactly the place I built this course to meet you.

Coaching Neurodivergent Individuals: Building Awareness and Confidence…

…is a self-paced course for coaches, mentors and people leaders who want to move beyond good intentions and into genuinely informed practice. It takes the two challenges I have written about here, the assumptions baked into our standard models and the language we use without realising its weight, and turns them into practical skills. Inside, you will learn how to:

  • Recognise where a model like GROW needs flexing, and adapt it to the brain actually in the room with you

  • Name neurodivergent experiences in a way that builds trust rather than reinforces shame

  • Create the conditions in which a client feels genuinely seen rather than fixed

  • Adapt your pace, format and language for clients who process differently

  • Build a foundation of confidence so you can coach neurodivergent clients well, without needing to become a specialist

You can work through it all at your own pace, in your own time, built from real coaching practice rather than theory.

References

  1. CIPD (2024). Neurodiversity at Work. https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/guides/neurodiversity-work/

  2. Whitmore, J. (2017). Coaching for Performance: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

  3. International Coaching Federation (2023). ICF Global Coaching Study. https://coachingfederation.org/research/global-coaching-study

  4. Doyle, N. (2020). Neurodiversity at Work: A Biopsychosocial Model and the Impact on Working Memory. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00615

 
 
 

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