Neurodivergence and The Church
Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2025 8:16 am
I thought this article was interesting.
This is another example of the Church failing to lead on something important. The Church should be the example of how to include neurodiverse worshippers, but it isn’t. Others are leading the way. Why? How does the Church conduct worthiness interviews for neurodiverse members? What training do local Church leaders receive about delivering worship services for the neurodiverse? How does a neurodiverse member (assuming they’ve been allowed to be baptised) attend the Temple? Temples don’t cater for the neurodiverse, they are de facto excluded regardless of worthiness. Why?
Maplewood, N.J. • Incense. Organ blasts. Forced hugs and handshakes.
For folks who struggle to process sensory input, houses of worship can quickly feel anything but holy.
That was the case for Lark Losardo’s son Percy, who in 2017 began attending Catholic Mass with his family at age 7. Percy, who is autistic, was often overwhelmed by the Brooklyn church’s open space, noise and crowds. At first, when he needed to move around or stim (engage in repetitive actions to self-regulate), he’d leave the service with a parent. Eventually, partly because of the barriers to attending as a family, they stopped coming altogether.
Then, in 2020, the Losardos moved to Maplewood, New Jersey. After watching online services at a nearby Catholic parish called St. Joseph during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lark Losardo learned in 2024 that the parish was opening a sensory room equipped with regulation tools, including a weighted blanket, touch pillow, ear defenders and a sound machine. Thanks to that room, today Percy is back in the pews, using the room to regroup whenever needed.
“It speaks volumes,” Lark Losardo told Religion News Service. “Not everyone needs this space, but just having it there sends a very clear message.”
At St. Joseph’s, the Rev. Jim Worth said the new sensory room, which opened in December, is a natural extension of the parish’s faith values. To him, the room is evidence that inclusion — a principle Worth linked to Catholic social teaching — isn’t just given lip service.
“When you put intentionality behind something,” Worth said, “it makes a world of difference.”
This is all good, forward thinking stuff. Catering for the needs of a diverse congregation so that all can feel welcome and so families don’t have to make a choice between attending church services or staying together as a family“This sensory room has really changed everything for us,” said Pavitra Makam, a St. Joseph parishioner and mother of two neurodivergent kids. “Being able to worship together has been the biggest thing for our family.”
According to Rebecca Barlow, a regional disability specialist in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, adding a sensory room to a house of worship doesn’t automatically make it accessible to those with sensory needs.
“It’s just one piece of a bigger machine that you’re trying to build,” said Barlow, disability specialist for the Desert Ridge Stake in Mesa, Arizona.
The first step to building that machine, Barlow said, is asking disabled individuals and their families what it would take to make church feasible for them. When she first became a disability specialist roughly five years ago, feedback was invaluable. “The biggest thing was listening. The parents of these children know what they need,” said Barlow, who is also the parent of a child with autism.
So the Church with hundreds of billions of dollars stashed away, led by Jesus Christ and God, can’t even put a little bit of effort and finance to producing a properly fitted out sensory room in a Chapel. Instead an individual has to cobble it together.Based on the families’ input, she created a sensory room in her meetinghouse with new donated items. Knowing it would be used by kids who could become aggressive, she removed hard chairs and chalkboard lips that could pose safety risks. She also filled the room with the usual sensory items, added light-blocking curtains and included a night-light that projected a calming light pattern.
This is another example of the Church failing to lead on something important. The Church should be the example of how to include neurodiverse worshippers, but it isn’t. Others are leading the way. Why? How does the Church conduct worthiness interviews for neurodiverse members? What training do local Church leaders receive about delivering worship services for the neurodiverse? How does a neurodiverse member (assuming they’ve been allowed to be baptised) attend the Temple? Temples don’t cater for the neurodiverse, they are de facto excluded regardless of worthiness. Why?
Once again it’s a lone member with gumption and drive making things happen on their own initiative, that progresses the Church. With word of mouth pushing the ideas forward and wider. Why aren’t The Brethren funding this? Why aren’t they leading this? It’s another example of the members leading.Barlow says the seven wards in her regional stake now have their own disability specialists and sensory rooms, and she routinely takes calls from Latter-day Saints across the country and the globe seeking to set up sensory rooms of their own.
“It feels like we’re seeing a cultural shift toward understanding and accepting and integrating people with disabilities,” said Barlow. “If we want to follow Christ, if we want to emulate him, if we want to be his disciples … they need to be foremost in our mind.”
