Last month, two members of the Thriving in Motion team took to the stage at the Spectrum Space Symposium, Western Australia’s neurodiversity conference, marking its 10th anniversary in 2026.

Ben Kramer, Business Manager at Thriving in Motion, and Ben Quick, Community Engagement Officer and Peer Worker, joined a panel alongside Dr Craig Thompson (Senior Occupational Therapy Lecturer, Curtin University) and Dr Claire Willis (Senior Research Fellow, The Kids Research Institute), both part of the wider UWA MHEX research team.

The panel, Celebrating Strengths and Connection through Exercise, explored what genuinely neuroaffirming movement looks like in practice, well beyond the idea of exercise as ‘fitness.’ Held over 18–19 June at the University Club of WA, the session brought together frontline, relationship-led practice and the research base it sits on.

Four themes anchored the discussion

1. Building wellbeing through exercise
2. Building self-confidence through exercise
3. Building social connection through exercise
4. Building identity and self-expression through exercise

Across each theme, the panel returned to a consistent idea: autistic strengths are something to design programs around, not something to design around. Confidence grows fastest in non-competitive, sensory-friendly settings, supported by coaching that creates the psychological safety to try something new. Connection sustains participation more reliably than any single exercise does. And identity and self-expression flourish when programs accommodate sensory preferences and flexible scheduling rather than asking autistic young people to adapt to a one-size-fits-all model.

For our team presenting, the panel was a chance to put Thriving’s relationship-led, demand-reduction approach to inclusive exercise programs in Perth and across WA into direct conversation with the evidence behind it.

Movement is more than fitness. For autistic young people, it can be where confidence is built, connection is found, and identity is celebrated.

If you’d like to learn more about Thriving in Motion’s approach to inclusive, neuroaffirming exercise, we’d love to hear from you.