Welcome to the ND Brain Trust!
A growing library of practical, research-backed literacy resources built specifically for the
educators and families of neurodivergent learners.
Welcome to the ND Brain Trust Library! Everything here is yours — no costs, no strings. Just click the download button on any resource below to add it to your cart. Complete the checkout (no payment info required) and your selections are yours to keep. New resources are added regularly, so check back often!
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The ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series
〰️
The ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series 〰️
Before we build anything, we need to know where we're starting.
Week 1 introduces the Regulation Continuum, a four-state framework for understanding where your nervous system is right now. It includes two evidence-informed self-reflection tools to establish your personal baseline: the Snapshot Screener for a quick continuum placement, and the Full Inventory for a comprehensive look across four domains.
This week's content also introduces the Nervous System Reset, a structured wellness practice for observing your own thought patterns and generating your first qualitative data point of the summer.
This download includes: Content pages · Snapshot Screener · Full Inventory · Guided Practice · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for digital notetaking apps like GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for digital notetaking apps like GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Your body has been speaking to you your whole life. This week we learn to listen.
Week 2 explores alexithymia and hyperempathy, two ways neurodivergent nervous systems experience emotional awareness differently, and introduces body-based check-ins as an alternative to standard emotional processing practices. The Body Signal Reference Guide gives you a practical vocabulary for what your nervous system is communicating when words aren't available.
This download includes: Content pages · Body Signal Reference Guide · Guided Journal Practice · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print-friendly black-and-white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Boundaries aren't walls. For neurodivergent nervous systems they are dynamic, responsive energy management tools.
Week 3 reframes boundary-setting through an energy lens, introducing the concept of energetic boundaries grounded in the latest research on ND burnout recovery. The three-part energy audit — relationships, environments, and sensory budget — gives you an honest accounting of where your energy is going and where you most need to protect it.
This download includes: Content pages · Energy Audit Journal · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
The bath bomb didn't work. The eight hours of sleep didn't either. That's not a failure, It's a mismatch.
Week 4 dismantles the self-care industrial complex and replaces it with evidence-based restoration strategies designed for neurodivergent nervous systems. The Rest Inventory helps you identify what actually works for your brain (sensory rest, creative rest, social rest, movement, and special interests) rated by how restorative they genuinely feel rather than how restorative they're supposed to feel.
This download includes: Content pages · Rest Inventory · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Understanding your nervous system is one thing. Building a framework that works for it is another.
Week 5 marks the series' shift from understanding into action. Understanding the ND Burnout Loop gives you the knowledge you need for interrupting the patterns that have been running your nervous system. Three differentiated framework templates and a self-talk script help you build a personalized decompression plan grounded in everything you've learned so far.
This download includes: Content pages · Decompression Framework Templates · Self-Talk Script · Snapshot Screener · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Who are you when no one needs anything from you?
Week 6 is the most personal week in the series. It traces the Identity Erosion Timeline (how implicit messages received in childhood create a progressive gap between the authentic self and the performed self) and introduces the Masking Spiral, documenting the social and professional cost of sustained masking. The Values and Preferences Inventory and exploratory journal practice guide your reflections.
This download includes: Content pages · Values and Preferences Inventory · Snapshot Screener · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Seven weeks of honest writing. This week you find out what it's been telling you.
Week 7 is the payoff week. A step-by-step qualitative coding guide including inductive and deductive coding methods walks you through reading your own journal entries as data. Four coding categories help you identify meltdown precursor patterns, energy leaks, masking costs, and restoration sources hidden in your own writing.
This download includes: Content pages · Qualitative Coding Guide · Snapshot Screener · Coding Journal Pages · Theme Synthesis Page · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
This is not about setting goals. It's about building self-advocacy from evidence.
Week 8 brings the full summer together: the quantitative screener , qualitative themes, and the ND Cognitive Energy Model capstone graphic showing all three cycles in both their depletion and restoration states. The Self-Advocacy Plan translates everything you've learned into concrete commitments for the year ahead, grounded entirely in your own data.
This download includes: Content pages · Snapshot Screener · Full Inventory · Self-Advocacy Plan · Journal Pages ·
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Before we build anything, we need to know where we're starting.
Week 1 introduces the Regulation Continuum, a four-state framework for understanding where your nervous system is right now. It includes two evidence-informed self-reflection tools to establish your personal baseline: the Snapshot Screener for a quick continuum placement, and the Full Inventory for a comprehensive look across four domains.
This week's content also introduces the Nervous System Reset, a structured wellness practice for observing your own thought patterns and generating your first qualitative data point of the summer.
This download includes: Content pages · Snapshot Screener · Full Inventory · Guided Practice · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for digital notetaking apps like GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for digital notetaking apps like GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Your body has been speaking to you your whole life. This week we learn to listen.
Week 2 explores alexithymia and hyperempathy, two ways neurodivergent nervous systems experience emotional awareness differently, and introduces body-based check-ins as an alternative to standard emotional processing practices. The Body Signal Reference Guide gives you a practical vocabulary for what your nervous system is communicating when words aren't available.
This download includes: Content pages · Body Signal Reference Guide · Guided Journal Practice · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print-friendly black-and-white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Boundaries aren't walls. For neurodivergent nervous systems they are dynamic, responsive energy management tools. This week we build them that way.
Week 3 reframes boundary-setting through an energy lens, introducing the concept of energetic boundaries grounded in the latest research on ND burnout recovery. The three-part energy audit — relationships, environments, and sensory budget — gives you an honest accounting of where your energy is going and where you most need to protect it.
This download includes: Content pages · Energy Audit Journal · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
The bath bomb didn't work. The eight hours of sleep didn't either. That's not a failure, It's a mismatch.
Week 4 dismantles the self-care industrial complex and replaces it with evidence-based restoration strategies designed for neurodivergent nervous systems. The Rest Inventory helps you identify what actually works for your brain (sensory rest, creative rest, social rest, movement, and special interests) rated by how restorative they genuinely feel rather than how restorative they're supposed to feel.
This download includes: Content pages · Rest Inventory · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Understanding your nervous system is one thing. Building a framework that works for it is another.
Week 5 marks the series' shift from understanding into action. Understanding the ND Burnout Loop gives you the knowledge you need for interrupting the patterns that have been running your nervous system. Three differentiated framework templates and a self-talk script help you build a personalized decompression plan grounded in everything you've learned so far.
This download includes: Content pages · Decompression Framework Templates · Self-Talk Script · Snapshot Screener · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Who are you when no one needs anything from you?
Week 6 is the most personal week in the series. It traces the Identity Erosion Timeline (how implicit messages received in childhood create a progressive gap between the authentic self and the performed self) and introduces the Masking Spiral, documenting the social and professional cost of sustained masking. The Values and Preferences Inventory and exploratory journal practice guide your reflections.
This download includes: Content pages · Values and Preferences Inventory · Snapshot Screener · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Seven weeks of honest writing. This week you find out what it's been telling you.
Week 7 is the payoff week. A step-by-step qualitative coding guide including inductive and deductive coding methods walks you through reading your own journal entries as data. Four coding categories help you identify meltdown precursor patterns, energy leaks, masking costs, and restoration sources hidden in your own writing.
This download includes: Content pages · Qualitative Coding Guide · Snapshot Screener · Coding Journal Pages · Theme Synthesis Page · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
This is not about setting goals. It's about building self-advocacy from evidence.
Week 8 brings the full summer together: the quantitative screener , qualitative themes, and the ND Cognitive Energy Model capstone graphic showing all three cycles in both their depletion and restoration states. The Self-Advocacy Plan translates everything you've learned into concrete commitments for the year ahead, grounded entirely in your own data.
This download includes: Content pages · Snapshot Screener · Full Inventory · Self-Advocacy Plan · Journal Pages ·
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Before we build anything, we need to know where we're starting.
Week 1 introduces the Regulation Continuum — a four-state framework for understanding where your nervous system is right now — and gives you two evidence-informed self-reflection tools to establish your personal baseline: the Snapshot Screener for a quick continuum placement, and the Full Inventory for a comprehensive look across four domains.
This week's content also introduces the Nervous System Reset — a structured, non-religious practice for observing your own thought patterns and generating your first qualitative data point of the summer.
This download includes: Content pages · Snapshot Screener · Full Inventory · Guided Practice · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for digital notetaking apps like GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for digital notetaking apps like GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Your body has been speaking to you your whole life. This week we learn to listen.
Week 2 explores alexithymia and hyperempathy, two ways neurodivergent nervous systems experience emotional awareness differently, and introduces body-based check-ins as an alternative to standard emotional processing practices. The Body Signal Reference Guide gives you a practical vocabulary for what your nervous system is communicating when words aren't available.
This download includes: Content pages · Body Signal Reference Guide · Guided Journal Practice · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print-friendly black-and-white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Boundaries aren't walls. For neurodivergent nervous systems they are dynamic, responsive energy management tools. This week we build them that way.
Week 3 reframes boundary-setting through an energy lens, introducing the concept of energetic boundaries grounded in the latest research on ND burnout recovery. The three-part energy audit — relationships, environments, and sensory budget — gives you an honest accounting of where your energy is going and where you most need to protect it.
This download includes: Content pages · Energy Audit Journal · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
The bath bomb didn't work. The eight hours of sleep didn't either. That's not a failure, It's a mismatch.
Week 4 dismantles the self-care industrial complex and replaces it with evidence-based restoration strategies designed for neurodivergent nervous systems. The Rest Inventory helps you identify what actually works for your brain (sensory rest, creative rest, social rest, movement, and special interests) rated by how restorative they genuinely feel rather than how restorative they're supposed to feel.
This download includes: Content pages · Rest Inventory · Journal Pages · Snapshot Screener
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Understanding your nervous system is one thing. Building a framework that works for it is another.
Week 5 marks the series' shift from understanding into action. Understanding the ND Burnout Loop gives you the knowledge you need for interrupting the patterns that have been running your nervous system. Three differentiated framework templates and a self-talk script help you build a personalized decompression plan grounded in everything you've learned so far.
This download includes: Content pages · Decompression Framework Templates · Self-Talk Script · Snapshot Screener · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Who are you when no one needs anything from you?
Week 6 is the most personal week in the series. It traces the Identity Erosion Timeline (how implicit messages received in childhood create a progressive gap between the authentic self and the performed self) and introduces the Masking Spiral, documenting the social and professional cost of sustained masking. The Values and Preferences Inventory and exploratory journal practice guide your reflections.
This download includes: Content pages · Values and Preferences Inventory · Snapshot Screener · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Seven weeks of honest writing. This week you find out what it's been telling you.
Week 7 is the payoff week. A step-by-step qualitative coding guide including inductive and deductive coding methods walks you through reading your own journal entries as data. Four coding categories help you identify meltdown precursor patterns, energy leaks, masking costs, and restoration sources hidden in your own writing.
This download includes: Content pages · Qualitative Coding Guide · Snapshot Screener · Coding Journal Pages · Theme Synthesis Page · Journal Pages
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
This is not about setting goals. It's about building self-advocacy from evidence.
Week 8 brings the full summer together: the quantitative screener , qualitative themes, and the ND Cognitive Energy Model capstone graphic showing all three cycles in both their depletion and restoration states. The Self-Advocacy Plan translates everything you've learned into concrete commitments for the year ahead, grounded entirely in your own data.
This download includes: Content pages · Snapshot Screener · Full Inventory · Self-Advocacy Plan · Journal Pages ·
Available in three versions:
Pastel — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Neutral — optimized for GoodNotes and Notability
Grayscale — print friendly black and white version
Part of the free 8-week ND Teacher's Summer Recovery Series.
Musical-phonetic Intervention Resources
〰️
Musical-phonetic Intervention Resources 〰️
The full doctoral dissertation examining the effectiveness of Musical-Phonetic Intervention as a multimodal literacy intervention for neurodivergent learners. Includes literature review, methodology, pilot study results, and implications for practice.
The Musical-Phonetic Intervention Quick Guide is a comprehensive 71-page teacher guide for educators and literacy specialists working with neurodivergent learners who need support with building phonics skills. Grounded in research and designed for practical classroom use, this guide covers the foundational theory behind Musical-Phonetic Intervention, answers frequently asked questions, and walks you through understanding, implementing, and delivering MPI with confidence.
Full-size reference image mapping vowel phonemes to musical notes within the MPI framework. Ideal for classroom display or intervention reference.
Image Description: This resource shows the connection between musical notes on a piano keyboard and their corresponding vowel phonemes, mapped across octaves from B1 to A3.
Full-size download of the Musical-Phonetic Intervention Framework showing the progression from Note Awareness through Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping to Decoding and Encoding.
Inclusive Classroom Resources
〰️
Inclusive Classroom Resources 〰️
The Student Accommodations Guide is a comprehensive 50+ page resource designed to support classroom teachers, literacy specialists, special education teachers, interventionists, and families in identifying and implementing meaningful accommodations for neurodivergent learners. Organized into five research-informed categories — Foundational ND Support, Assistive Technologies, Instructional Supports, Environment, and Time — this guide provides practical, ready-to-use accommodation options that honor the way neurodivergent brains learn. Whether you are building an IEP, supporting a 504 plan, differentiating instruction, or advocating for your child, this guide gives you the language and the tools to make it happen.
This resource is free and may be shared freely in its complete, unmodified form with a link back to comprehensiveliteracysolutions.com. If this guide was helpful to you, share it with a colleague or family who could use it too.
Flowcharts & Graphics
〰️
Flowcharts & Graphics 〰️
Use this infographic to support early writers through differentiation during shared writing instruction.
Full-size download of the Musical-Phonetic Intervention Framework showing the progression from Note Awareness through Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping to Decoding and Encoding.
A practical decision-making flowchart for selecting and structuring appropriate literacy supports based on student need.
Full-size reference image mapping vowel phonemes to musical notes within the MPI framework. Ideal for classroom display or intervention reference.
Image Description: This resource shows the connection between musical notes on a piano keyboard and their corresponding vowel phonemes, mapped across octaves from B1 to A3.
Visual overview of the RTI tiered support model and how it applies to literacy intervention for neurodivergent learners.
Family Resources
〰️
Family Resources 〰️
Use this reflection guide to examine the everyday messages your family sends about reading. Through four lenses — The Set, The Director, The Script, and The Producer — explore how your home environment, modeling, language, and self-awareness shape the readers in your life.
Quality literacy resources shouldn't be a privilege. Teachers and families of neurodivergent learners are already giving everything they have — their time, their energy, their own money. The ND Brain Trust exists because every educator and every family deserves access to practical, research-backed tools regardless of their budget or their district's resources.
Free Resources, No Strings
Our ND Brain Trust resources are completely free. You get access to all newsletter freebies and downloads in one convenient place — no strings, no pressure, just resources.
Different ≠ Deficient.
And access shouldn't be deficient either.
