Neurodivergence and Alternative Grading, Part 2

Some existing discourse

Note: This post is the second in a three-part series on neurodivergence and alternative grading by Sarah Silverman and Emily Pitts Donahoe. Each post is co-authored and cross-posted to both Sarah’s newsletter Beyond the Scope and Emily’s newsletter Unmaking the Grade. Please consider subscribing to one or both to receive more posts in this series.

In our last post, we shared some of the reasons why we’re interested in the conversation around neurodivergence and alternative grading:

Neurodivergence and Alternative Grading, Part 1

We’ve seen lots of concern from instructors about the possible barriers neurodivergent students might encounter in alternative grading. But we’ve also heard from instructors who believe that traditional grading can present a form of “steep steps” for neurodivergent students and that alternative grading might help.

We had to do some digging to determine what existing data and perspectives on neurodivergence and alternative grading are available

In this post, we’ll review some of the existing discourse around this topic. As we noted last time, research in these areas is still sparse. As far as we know, there is no published large-scale study that examines neurodivergent students’ experiences of alternative grading. Much of what has been written on this topic draws on anecdotes and personal experience—particularly the authors’ own experiences of neurodivergence as a student, teacher, and human being.

The source material for this post came from searches of Google, social media sites such as LinkedIn, X, and Bluesky, and Sarah and Emily’s personal knowledge of articles or other forthcoming research that address neurodivergence and alternative grading. This search method was not intended to be exhaustive but to give us a general picture of some of the existing perspectives on this topic.

The Need for Systems, Structures, and Clarity

One important piece that has been cited by other authors is Karen Costa’s Medium post “Systems Aren’t Scary,” first published in 2022. This post argues against the idea that things like deadlines or checklists are manifestations of “toxic rigor” in the classroom; Costa contends, instead, that they are essential tools for many students. She pursues this argument by relating her experience as a person with ADHD, for whom structures are not just nice to have but a necessary part of day-to-day existence. Far from promoting harmful norms of capitalist productivity, Karen’s systems, structures, and routines allow her to take care of herself, to do her job, and even (perhaps counterintuitively) to make space for joy and creativity.

As a result of these experiences, Costa has complicated feelings about the “ungrading” movement, holding its potential upsides in tension with her concerns that it may lead instructors to abandon the systems, structures, and routines that many ADHD students rely on:

“I worry about Ungrading approaches, and, it gives me hope that there’s such a powerful grassroots effort to reimagine some of the fundamental aspects of formal education. Both are true. I worry that there’s not enough structure in some Ungrading classrooms for our ADHD learners. I also know that structure and openness can coexist. The latter can be built atop the former.”

Costa’s piece was subsequently cited in several other blog posts and articles about alternative grading. Lindsay Masland, for example, layers the concept of “extrinsic motivation” onto Karen’s argument, suggesting that grades may be important extrinsic motivators for many of our neurodivergent students. Masland goes on to argue that there may be other, better extrinsic motivators we could rely on. But she still wonders: “How do we sit in the discomfort that grades both help students and reinforce some potentially problematic ideologies?” She ultimately agrees with Costa that we should structure our courses with “loving systems.”

Jessica Zeller, too, echoes Karen’s call for “loving systems,” as well as her sense that our approaches to “ungrading” may be harmful to some students. She observes that because enforcing due dates or late work penalties becomes impossible under many “ungrading” schemes, some structures that students rely on may “disappear entirely or take a looser shape” in ungraded classes—particularly if it’s the instructor’s first attempt. These changes, as Zeller discovered, are not always beneficial for students or for teachers:

“I thought I was doing the right thing by eliminating structures that seemed oppressive. I’ve since learned that the effects of burning the place down can present problems for students who need anti-oppressive structures, as opposed to no structures at all.”

Importantly, Zeller notes that “Ungrading isn’t inherently pro- or anti-structure,” and that structures are contextual—it’s all in how you implement them. She ends the post by relating her plan to create “more humanistic structures that students can lean on and find space in simultaneously.”

Finally, some similar themes emerge in qualitative interviews with neurodivergent students who have experienced “ungraded” classes. Amy Ernstes’s dissertation research, presented at this year’s Grading Conference, pays special attention to the perspectives of these students. Ernstes found that for some neurodivergent students, the assignment expectations in ungraded classes were less clear than those in traditionally graded classes, causing initial frustration. In her interviews, neurodivergent students also noted that they were more confused about “where they stood” with respect to the final grade in their ungraded course—a complaint alternative graders hear often from neurodivergent and neurotypical students alike.

The Complexities of Labor and Process Reflection

Two authors take a more specifically disability-informed approach to our topic. Kathleen Kryger and Griffin Zimmerman write specifically about an alternative grading method called Labor Based Grading Contracts (LBGCs), most commonly associated with the work of Asao Inoue. The aim of their article is to “articulate the ways in which neurodivergence as a lens can contribute to our field’s understanding and application of classroom assessment practices, especially in the context of labor-based grading contracts (LBGCs).”

One issue these authors raise is that neurodivergent students may be disproportionately affected by the change in rules introduced in a classroom that uses LBGCs. They write that “Students become accustomed to the rhythm of [classroom norms], and this includes internalized understandings of how to labor in ways recognized as academic performance, how that performance is valorized, and how grades are the primary currency exchanged within the broader academic ecology. When we remove these expected systems, we automatically require students to adapt, to (re)orient.”

This adaptation may be more difficult for neurodivergent students, they hypothesize. Though the authors do not provide an explanation of why this might be, we can offer a few possibilities. Some neurodivergent people, such as Autistic people, may rely heavily on pattern recognition or repetition to understand how to behave or interact in a given situation. If a new grading method is being introduced at the beginning of a semester, the effort required to grasp that new system and learn what is “recognized as academic performance” may be extensive, and may not be transferable to other courses.

A second concern, that applies very specifically to LBGCs, is how neurodivergent students’ relationship to labor and time may differ from that of neurotypical students. A core component of LBGCs is that students receive final grades based on the extent of their efforts rather than the (subjective) quality of their products or assignments. Because of this component, students in courses that use LBGCs often track their effort or labor on assignments.

The authors explain how the concept of “time-tracking” works differently for one of them, who is neurodivergent:

“For Griffin, for example, any work is usually divided into either intense ‘flow’ states in which time is not a sense that is easily perceived or, in contrast, choppy, highly fragmented states too divided to be easily tracked with any certainty. Additionally, Griffin’s neurodivergence often manifests in a lack of self-awareness such that being aware of physical and emotional states can take conscious effort, and maintaining schedules or executive functioning is in and of itself labor that requires conscious, dedicated effort. Thus, time-tracking activities ask questions that are not only difficult to answer, they raise anxiety and consciousness around difference and redirect energy and labor away from actions that directly contribute to other necessary tasks.”

We (Sarah and Emily) have both been interested in the topic of “effort-” or “process tracking” for some time, of which “time-tracking” could be seen as one example. Emily even experimented with screen-recording her writing process for a recent blog post to get a sense of how students might experience process tracking. She found, unexpectedly, that the awareness of this tracking—the thought that someone might later see her writing process—actually changed the way she engaged in that process. She was suddenly self-conscious about the way that her writing process would be perceived and judged by others, which caused her to alter it in subtle ways.

Sarah can attest that these kinds of process-tracking measures also affect her work as a neurodivergent individual. Because she tends to work in ways that differ from the “norm,” she sometimes feels that it is risky to reveal aspects of her process to others or that they will have difficulty understanding it. If she’s asked to document a process, she often decides to attempt that process in a more “normative” way, performing the process for others rather than authentically enacting it for herself. We suspect that many neurodivergent students would feel and behave similarly.

Tolerance for Error, and Other Benefits

On balance, the perspectives we have summarized so far surface potential barriers that might be posed for neurodivergent students with alternative grading. However, there are also a fair number of anecdotal reports of how alternative grading supports neurodivergent students. Lisa Wells Jackson, for example, writes that neurodivergent students in her alternatively graded film studies class have told her that “they felt able to focus on their own learning for the first time, without worrying about measuring themselves against neurotypical peers.”

Students interviewed in Amy Ernstes’s research likewise identified many positive aspects of their ungraded courses. They felt it “minimized fear of failure, mistakes, or judgement”; provided “freedom to take risks” and a “sense of agency”; “minimized stress”; and gave them “a sense that the teacher cares about students and their learning.” They also liked that such classes “focus[ed] on learning and improvement”—though some noted that this focus made the course more time-intensive for students, and sometimes more stressful.

Another neurodivergent student, Ian Phillips, writing as part of a collection on alternative grading in two-year college English classes, called their growth-oriented English course a “sanctuary.” They felt it was a “respite” from other high-pressure courses with rigid deadlines and limiting rubrics and that it provided a space to explore without fear of failure. Similarly, in a collaborative blog post between neurodivergent students and an instructor, the students mentioned such benefits of alternative grading as “clarity of expectations” and “reduced anxiety” (contract grading), as well as “flexibility” and “pursuing one’s own goals” (ungrading). One of the students quoted in the piece states plainly that “As a neurodivergent learner, I often encounter unexpected challenges in any given class, so I appreciate having a flexible curriculum.”

This idea, and Ian Phillips’ report of their English class as a “sanctuary,” is related to Sarah’s overall theory of why alternative grading may be specifically beneficial for neurodivergent students: tolerance for error. This is one of the original principles of Universal Design, a framework for the design of spaces and objects aimed at maximum usability by both disabled and non-disabled people. Tolerance for error in this context is defined as “a design that minimizes hazards and adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions.” This is an approach that Jay Dolmage summarizes as “fewer ways to be wrong” and “many ways to be right.” If neurodivergent students are likely to have unexpected challenges during their learning process, a grading system that is robust to this unpredictability could benefit them.

Ernstes’s research provides a prime example of how tolerance for error can benefit instructors as well, including neurodivergent instructors. In her interviews, two neurodivergent students expressed initial dissatisfaction with their ungraded course because of what they perceived to be unclear assignment expectations. At the beginning of the class, these students felt that they didn’t know what the teacher wanted and weren’t getting clear feedback on how to improve. Both students shared their frustrations with their instructor—and by working together with the instructor, both were able to find ways of resolving their difficulties. By the end of the semester, one student even described the course as one of their favorites in their entire college career.

Perhaps the transformation here had more to do with the instructors’ openness to feedback than the way their grading systems were designed. However, we believe that many alternative grading systems build lines of communication between student and instructor that simply don’t exist in more traditionally graded courses (or at least don’t exist in the same way). The more open communication encouraged by alternative grading enables greater tolerance for error: if something is going wrong, students and instructors can collaborate more easily to find a solution that works for both parties.

In Summary…

Previously cited authors Kryger and Zimmerman (as well as Ellen Carillo’s book The Hidden Inequities of Labor-Based Contract Grading) both argue that implementing an alternative grading practice (e.g. Labor-Based Grading contracts) that is designed to address one form of inequity or normativity can always introduce another. They write that “It is not the assessment technology itself that does the social justice work; it is how we implement, explain to stakeholders, critically analyze, and recursively revise the technology that matters.”

This is an overall useful principle for understanding how neurodivergent students may interact with alternative grading practices. In our next and final post, we will offer some general considerations that practitioners can take into account while thinking about how to select and implement alternative grading practices with neurodivergent students in mind. As a preview, we will discuss the following main ideas:

• Alternative grading methods are not best understood as “good” or “bad” for neurodivergent students; rather, they can be implemented in more or less neurodiversity-informed ways.

• Alternative grading needs structure, multiple sources of motivation, and executive function support in order to be maximally accessible to some neurodivergent students.

• Methods like LBGCs and others that ask students to track their effort may be fairly treated with suspicion by neurodivergent students. Instructors may want to reconsider whether effort tracking is a necessary component of their alternative grading approach, and if it is, provide students a significant amount of autonomy around what they track and report.

Photo by Oleksandr Horbach on Unsplash

If you are ready, you can continue on to Post 3 in this series: What we learned and where we might go next.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to contact me or comment if you have any feedback!

Works Cited

Campagna, K. C., Ketcham, C. J., Krasnow, B., Kelly, K., & Byrd, S. (2025). Perspectives on alternative grading. Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/perspectives-on-alternative-grading/

Carillo, E. C. (2021). The hidden inequities in labor-based contract grading. University Press of Colorado.

Costa, K. (2022). Systems aren’t scary. Medium. https://karenraycosta.medium.com/systems-arent-scary-e55d8ac63bc7

Ernstes, A. (2025, June 11-13). The student experience of ungrading. The Grading Conference.

Donahoe, E. (2025). The complexities of process tracking. Unmaking the Grade. https://emilypittsdonahoe.substack.com/p/the-complexities-of-process-tracking

Kryger, K., & Zimmerman, G. X. (2020). Neurodivergence and intersectionality in labor-based grading contracts. Journal of Writing Assessment, 13(2).

Masland, L. (2023). Ungrading: The joys of doing everything wrong. Zeal: A Journal for the Liberal Arts, 1(2).

Phillips, I. (2024). Student perspectives. Teaching English in the Two-Year College, 52(1).

Wells Jacobson, L. (2025). Introduction: Risky Business. The Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 64(8).

Zeller, J. (2022). Ungrading: Another Iteration. jessicazeller.net. https://www.jessicazeller.net/blog/ungrading-another-iteration