Terra Vance

Terra Vance was a career public school English teacher of 14 years working in secondary education. During her tenure, she served as the anti-bullying liaison for her district and worked on several committees dedicated at reducing systemic oppression that disproportionately impacted the poor, people of color, and students with disabilities. When nationally accredited programs failed to be effective at addressing educational disparities, Vance, who was in grad school specializing in the psychology of trauma, pivoted to industrial and organizational psychology as a path to improving outcomes of systemic change initiatives.

In 2016, Vance graduated with a Master of Science in psychology with a specialization in industrial and organizational psychology and a focus in diversity, equity, and poverty dynamics. For two years, Vance worked as a DBT therapist with clients who have experienced complex trauma. In 2017, she was diagnosed a second time with autism after being diagnosed and never informed in 2006. She was previously diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD, sensory processing disorder, and tic disorder. In September of 2017, she and five other autistic adults launched what is now the nonprofit, NeuroClastic, an autistic-led organization with over 500 autistic contributors in six continents.

Terra is a public speaker, lecturer, essayist, editor, aspiring novelist, parent to an autistic child, and spouse to an autistic husband. She is a member of a multiracial ethnic group from the Appalachian region of the United States called Melungeons and is of Native American, Romani, Irish, and Black heritage. Her advocacy passions include helping the world to better understand autism and neurodivergence through a depathologized lens. In the last year, she has focused most heavily on communication rights for NonSpeakers, decriminalizing autism, and counterbalancing the erasure of autistic Black and Brown voices from the dominant narrative about autism.