Emergency Response Was Never Designed for Neurodivergence
Emergency response systems are designed long before a crisis begins. Inclusion must start there too.
And That’s Putting Lives at Risk
Emergency response systems are designed for speed, clarity, and control. They assume that in moments of crisis, people will understand instructions, tolerate noise and chaos, and respond predictably to authority.
For millions of people, that assumption is wrong.
Neurodivergent individuals, including people with autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences, cognitive disabilities, and anxiety disorders, often experience emergencies very differently. Sirens can overwhelm. Instructions can be misinterpreted. Tone and body language can escalate rather than calm.
Yet most emergency planning frameworks still treat neurodivergence as an edge case instead of a design requirement.
The Gap Between Planning and Reality
Emergency response plans are often written in conference rooms, reviewed by legal teams, and validated through tabletop exercises. They rarely include the lived experiences of the people most at risk during an emergency.
What’s missing is not intent. It’s insight.
When evacuation routes rely on verbal commands, when shelters overwhelm the senses, or when responders interpret noncompliance as resistance, neurodivergent individuals are placed in danger by systems meant to protect them.
This is not a training issue alone. It’s a design issue.
Why Inclusion Must Start Before the Emergency
True preparedness does not begin when alarms sound. It begins in how systems are designed, tested, and updated long before a crisis occurs.
Inclusive emergency planning requires:
Understanding how different people perceive threat and instruction
Anticipating sensory overload and cognitive stress
Designing communication, movement, and decision-making systems that adapt in real time
Static plans cannot account for human variability at scale. Emergency preparedness must evolve to reflect how people actually behave under stress.
For neurodivergent individuals, emergency environments can amplify confusion, sensory overload, and risk.
From Friction to Foresight
At Access Built, we’ve spent years identifying what we call friction points—the moments where environments, systems, and assumptions break down for people of different abilities.
In emergency scenarios, those friction points compound rapidly.
If we can identify friction before a crisis, we can reduce harm during one.
That realization led us to begin building something new.
Adaptive systems can help emergency planners see risk before it becomes harm.
Introducing AIDE: Accessibility Intelligence for Emergency Response
AIDE (Accessibility Intelligence for Decision Environments) is an AI-driven system designed to help organizations plan, simulate, and adapt emergency response strategies with neurodivergence in mind.
AIDE is not a replacement for first responders.
It is a planning and intelligence layer that helps decision-makers:
Surface hidden risk patterns in environments and plans
Incorporate lived-experience data into preparedness strategies
Continuously update response frameworks as populations and spaces change
AIDE exists because static emergency plans cannot account for the full range of human experience.
Designing With, Not For
What makes AIDE different is how it’s being built.
Instead of starting with technology, we started with people:
Neurodivergent individuals
Caregivers and educators
Emergency planners and venue operators
Their lived experience is not anecdotal. It is data.
This approach is central to our Venture Studio work, including workshops conducted at institutions like Cornell University, where we explored how inclusive thinking can reshape emergency preparedness on campuses and in public environments.
The Future of Emergency Preparedness
Neurodivergence is not a niche consideration. It is part of the human baseline.
As cities grow denser and environments more complex, emergency response systems must evolve beyond one-size-fits-all assumptions.
Preparedness that fails to account for neurodivergence is incomplete.
AIDE is our response to that challenge and our commitment to building emergency systems that protect everyone, not just the average case.
Call to Action
If you are a city, campus, venue, or organization responsible for emergency preparedness, now is the time to rethink your assumptions.
Inclusion is not a luxury in a crisis. It is a necessity.
