Is your dental practice accessible enough? Maisie Cass on neuroinclusion in dentistry

What is one thing a dental practice can do today to become more accessible? For Maisie Cass, it starts with curiosity.

Cass is a neuroinclusion specialist, chief curiosity officer at Diversity Does, and was diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood. She has spent 20 years helping organisations understand the minds they are missing. In this episode of Dentistry Talks, she makes the case that accessibility is not a checklist. Or a policy. But instead a question: what does this person need to do their best work, feel understood and access care with less stress?

The conversation cuts across both sides of the practice. For dental teams, it is about recruitment processes that filter out neurodivergent candidates before they ever reach an interview, onboarding that assumes everyone learns the same way, and performance conversations that mistake difference for deficiency.

For patients, it is about what happens when someone walks through the door already overwhelmed by the noise, the lighting, the uncertainty of what comes next, and nobody on the team knows how to read it.

Cass is particularly good on masking: the exhausting performance many neurodivergent people put on to appear neurotypical, often for years, often until burnout makes it impossible to continue. In dentistry, where perfectionism and high-stakes precision are the baseline, that invisible load can be severe.

The episode also touches on the neurodivergent parents and carers sitting in your waiting room or working in your practice, carrying school meetings, emotional regulation battles and exhaustion alongside their clinical responsibilities, as if none of it is happening.

The message throughout from Cass is practical. Neuroinclusion is building a practice where people can communicate clearly, work sustainably, and feel safe enough to ask for what they need.

You can now watch the full episode on YouTube and listen on Spotify.

Topics include:

• What dental practices can do today to become more accessible
• Neuroinclusion in recruitment, onboarding and management
• Why diagnosis should open the conversation, not close it
• Supporting neurodivergent staff, patients, parents and carers
• Patient communication, sensory needs and dental anxiety
• Creating practice environments where people can do their best work.

Listen to other episodes below:

• Burnout in dentistry: the warning signs before the collapse.
• How an Olympic bobsleigh athlete learned to weather the storm.
• Burnout, balance and building a brand: lessons from the Singing Dentist
• Ageing as a dental professional: how to maintain purpose and identity
• What every dentist needs to understand about trauma and dental anxiety. 

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