Digitality is increasingly recognized as a means for achieving greater inclusivity of heterogeneous learners in English language classrooms, by, for example, offering compensatory tools for communication or as a means for realizing differentiation. Beyond these types of integration, emerging digital cultural practices offer learners opportunities to participate in affinity groups and carry out affiliated activities that reflect their authentic interests, contributing to a sense of agency and fostering well-being. Especially for neurodivergent learners, these practices - which frequently use English as an online lingua franca - can help bridge the distance between their authentic interests and unique interactional preferences, and traditional classroom instruction that limits agency and is at odds with, for example, autistic interactional patterns. This contribution will examine how the integration of digitally-mediated communication can address learners’ needs for agency, as well as facilitate development of communicative competence. While important prerequisites for all language learners, we will examine how both digitality and agency are especially relevant for neurodivergent learners. Finally, we will briefly touch on some of the implications for English language classrooms and what teachers might consider for the benefit of all learners, both regarding learning outcomes and overall well-being. 1 Support for this article was provided by DoProfiL, part of the Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung, a joint initiative of the Federal Government and the Länder which aims to improve the quality of teacher training. The programme is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The article is co-funded in part by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union (grant agreement number: 2020-1-DE01- KA203-005696). The authors are responsible for the content of this publication. - “The problem with [school] is that I don’t have any chances to decide anything for myself” (ABB, age 8). The absence of agency - the socially mediated ability to act (Ahearn 2010) - is arguably at the core of this young informant’s complaint about their classroom experiences, and they are certainly not alone in their frustration. The lack of agency experienced in many school settings is frequently a source of tension for learners, and is equally a concern in the context of foreign and additional language learning (Larsen-Freeman, Driver, Gao & Mercer 2021). However, there are indications that its absence poses particular challenges for some learners who are neurodivergent, that is, those who have certain neurological differences compared to a presumed neurotypical norm. For learners who are autistic, or who have ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or RSD (Reading-Spelling-Difficulties, dyslexia), for example, sensory preferences and processing patterns frequently lead to behaviors that are often perceived by neurotypical observers as problematic. Attempts to mitigate these outward signs of atypicality, as regularly occurs in school settings, fosters conformity at the cost of neurodivergent expression and, ultimately, well-being (Vermeulen 2019). A potential antidote in this case may be found in fostering the learner’s agency, or their ability to act, by constructing alternative communicative and interactive options and by creating opportunities to experience selfefficacy in neurodivergent forms of communication and (inter)action. Agency is key, both in terms of supporting the language learning process itself, and because of its contribution to the well-being of language learners (Mercer 2012, 2021), especially those who are neurodivergent (Vermeulen 2019). Yet paradoxically, as Chapman and Carel (2022) point out, neurodivergent individuals are, compared to neurotypical actors, more frequently subject to epistemic injustice, a term that “refers to harms that relate specifically to [their] status as epistemic agents” and a condition that “undermines the agent’s agency and dignity” (ibid.: 614). It is this epistemic injustice of thwarted agency that is detrimental to the well-being of neurodivergent actors in neuronormative contexts, as in many language classrooms, and that may negatively impact mental health (Huijg 2020: 216; Chapman & Carel 2022). One arena that increasingly holds the potential to mitigate poor mental health associated with challenges to neurodivergent well-being is digitallymediated communication. In addition to lowering barriers inherent in faceto-face communication that arise from differences in preferences regarding paralinguistic elements, social conventions, or the surrounding sensory environment, emerging digital practices offer opportunities to engage with like-minded individuals around activities that reflect personal interests. This contributes to a sense of agency (Han & Reinhardt 2022), and fosters well-being (Davidson & Orsini 2013), by creating possibilities for positive mental health development (Pavlopoulou, Usher & Pearson 2022). These practices - which frequently use English as an online lingua franca (Warschauer, Jacob & Maamuujav 2021) - can help bridge the distance between neurodivergent learners’ communicative preferences and authentic interests on the one hand and traditional classroom instruction that often limits agency on the other (Larsen-Freeman et al. 2021). In these “digital wilds” (Sauro & Zourou 2019), authentic engagement fosters the development of English language competences. In light of these considerations, it seems that integrating principles of, and opportunities for, digitally-mediated communication can address neurodivergent learners’ needs for agency while facilitating language learning. As such, it behooves teachers to consider how cultivating the agency associated with interaction in digital spaces can be fostered in ways that improve well-being, and subsequently, educational outcomes (Vermeulen 2019), especially for these students. Although a number of studies have previously addressed issues of digitality, neurodiversity, agency, and mental health, this research has a number of limitations. Many of these studies assume a deficit-orientation toward neurodiversity, focusing on it as a mental health problem rather than a way of being (Hoffmann 2019; Chapman & Carel 2022). Likewise, the potential of technology to foster positive mental health takes a back seat to a medicalized notion of its serviceability (Spiel, Frauenberger, Keyes & Fitzpatrick 2019; Pavlopoulou et al. 2022). Moreover, there is a paucity of research and practice that examines the connections between digitality, neurodiversity, and issues of agency. Connections to formal language learning and this constellation of constructs is absent. Hence, this contribution seeks to synthesize recent findings from these fields to demonstrate how various aspects of digitally-mediated communication can contribute to the well-being of neurodivergent English language learners and enhance language learning. In doing so, it highlights how positive mental health and well-being can be fostered in English language teaching (ELT) settings. After briefly examining the existing research on neurodiversity, agency, and well-being, we will discuss some of the ways digitally-mediated communication can enhance the agency of neurodivergent learners to contribute to the development of positive mental health. In doing so, our primary concern are not those barriers to participation that arise as a result of impairments that impede the general or situational ability to use language, although these play a role as well. Rather, we focus on largely imperceptible barriers resulting from normative expectations and leading to social exclusion of those who do not adhere to these expectations regarding communication. While physical, affective, or cognitive differences limiting language production affect different subsets of neurodivergent individuals and cannot be divorced from discussions of digitally-mediated communication and its implications for agency, obstacles arising from neurotypical expectations about communication are virtually universal detriments to interaction, and thus, potentially, well-being among all neurodivergent interactants. Thus, while we touch on communication via assistive technologies, our focus is on the positive affordances for neurodivergent individuals of engaging - at least intermittently - in digitally-mediated communication. We subsequently turn our attention to formal language learning classrooms, where neurotypicality is frequently enacted (Vermeulen 2019). Keeping in mind that neurodivergent learners may have substantially different learning needs from one another, and likewise recognizing that many needs of neurodivergent and neurotypical learners may also overlap, we will close by identifying potential ways teachers can address some of the socioemotional and language learning needs of all learners in heterogeneous settings. While neurodiversity has myriad definitions, the focus in this analysis is on the aforementioned neurological differences of a portion of the global population, and the ways in which these are constructed in “interactions with individuals considered neurologically typical in the context of public infrastructures built around a presumption of neurotypicality” (Baker 2011: 22). In other words, neurodiversity is an innate internal characteristic of individuals who are autistic, have ADHD, RSD, dyspraxia, or related neurological differences; they can be referred to as neurodivergent. Neurodivergence is, in addition to its innate nature, simultaneously created by and experienced through and in interaction with others in systems that are primarily constructed by, and for, neurologically typical individuals. The challenges that neurodiversity in this sense presents stem, not from inadequacies on the part of neurodivergent individuals, but from exclusionary attitudes and systems that perpetuate “potentially overwhelming messages” to the contrary (ibid.: 20) and that undermine neurodivergent ways of being. Given that there is no consensus regarding which forms of difference are considered to be types of neurodivergence, and in light of challenges resulting from accessibility to appropriate diagnosis, concerns regarding discrimination, and discrepancies in reporting methods, the size of the neurodivergent population cannot be precisely determined. Moreover, issues of otherand self-identification make attempts to count neurodivergent individuals ethically, ontologically, and epistemologically problematic (Fletcher-Watson & Happé 2019). Nevertheless, given indications regarding the prevalence of some forms of neurodivergence, most current estimates suggest that 15% - 20% of the global population is neurodivergent in the aforementioned sense (Doyle 2020). Regardless of community size, the published research suggests that people who are neurodivergent experience higher levels of mental illness and lower levels of well-being than neurotypical individuals (Robertson 2010). However, both the causes of reduced mental health and well-being, and the question as to what constitutes these constructs, are problematic. The same external factors that cause many of the mental health problems faced by neurodivergent people form the basis of criteria that seek to measure well-being of neurodivergent populations based on neurotypical conceptualizations of the concept. Chapman & Carel (2022: 622) refer to this as “autism’s catch-22,” or a kind of “hermeneutical injustice, seen in the exclusion of neurodivergent modes of flourishing.” Lam, Sabnis, Migueliz Valcarlos and Wolgemuth (2021) likewise posit that the dominant uncritical acceptance of the standard notion of well-being fuels the “reinforcement of a normative ideal” that expresses “the implicit assumption […] that the domains covered in the measures [of well-being] are equally valued by everyone” (67). Despite the emergence of some studies that seek to describe autistic well-being from the perspective of autistic people, there is no existing well-being measure that takes into consideration the special interests, language preferences, and communication modalities of autistic people [...]. These observations call for the need to gather first-person perspectives from the autistic community and promote their authentic involvement in research in order to formulate a conceptualization of well-being that is meaningful and appropriate to their worldviews [...] (Lam, Holden, Fitzpatrick, Raffaele Mendez & Berkman 2020: 1247). In an initiative to address this research gap, Lam et al. (2020) use participatory, digitally-mediated methods to identify three themes relevant to their autistic informants-participants. This construction of autistic wellbeing is one of a few studies that make a substantial contribution to understanding how well-being is differently defined when autistic perspectives - notably only one subgroup of neurodivergent individuals - are foregrounded (see also: Naples 2019; Farahar 2022; Petty, Allen, Pickup & Woodier 2023). These insights need to be synthesized with emerging concepts of language learner well-being, which, like agency, are widely conceptualized as multidimensional, socially situated, and dependent on both individual and systemic factors (Larsen-Freeman et al. 2021; Mercer 2021). Although the World Health Organization’s definition of well-being tends to conflate it with mental health, Hoffmann (2019) underscores the philosophical and psychological constructions of the former that are distinct from the latter. In this strengths-oriented perspective, well-being is conceptualized as positive mental health, in that it goes beyond the absence of mental illness and emphasizes the ways in which individuals thrive in accordance with one or another of various measures, such as happiness, (inter-)personal development, or quality of life (Hoffmann 2019). Together with agency, Sen (1995) argues, well-being forms the basis for human flourishing (Hart & Brando 2017). Especially for learners who are neurodivergent, well-being, is at risk when neuronormative structures and systems hinder their agency. Like agency and well-being in general, language learner well-being until now has also been addressed primarily in terms of the individual learner or in terms of learners in general, focusing on subjective learner experiences with little contextualization regarding differences in age, subject matter, cultural differences, or other characteristics of the individual or the environment. Emerging theoretical and empirical analysis is contributing to a better understanding of both language learner agency and well-being (MacIntyre et al. 2019), but it assumes a universality regarding these concepts that does not reflect what research suggests is a very individual experience of what ‘living well’ means. Vermeulen (2019), for example, describes an autistic student who rejected strategies to improve his social integration during recess with the rationale that he had no interest in participating actively, but rather preferred to observe his peers. Mercer exhorts us to recognize that [w]ell-being emerges from the subjective way a person makes sense of and interacts with their social contexts. As such, any meaningful interventions for well-being must ideally promote individual development and personal strategies as well as systemic change and structural support […] [L]earner well-being has been receiving increasing attention but, on the whole, there is much that we do not yet know or understand about its nature in relation to learning a language specifically and how best to promote it in practical terms alongside linguistic competences (Mercer 2021: 16f.). To promote positive mental health and language learning in ways that are meaningful specifically for neurodivergent learners, it is critical to understand how notions of well-being in language learning contexts differ for them. However, conceptualizations of neurodivergent language learner well-being can, with few exceptions, only be extrapolated from an existing paltry base of knowledge. In one study of autistic learners in secondary school in Australia, for example, Danker, Strnadová & Cumming (2019: 219ff.) used Photovoice as a participatory method to identify four domains of school-related well-being and a prevalence of sensory, social, and learning-related barriers to well-being in school contexts. Among the resources that foster autistic school-related well-being, the qualitative analysis revealed that technology plays a prominent role in their informants’ narratives. These insights suggest both significant similarities and differences compared to neurotypical students’ well-being needs and resources. However, they do not apply specifically to the language learning context or other forms of neurodivergence. Parallels can be found to examinations of agency. In this contribution, we define agency for language learning in line with Larsen-Freeman et al. (2021), who describe it as a mutable sense of control learners have over their learning experiences that is co-constructed in relation to others, individually and in their socially contingent roles, in specific contexts. This framing builds on the fundamental notion of agency as “the socioculturally mediated capacity to act” (Ahearn 2010: 28), a capacity which is realized in relation to learners’ individual, interactive, and collective (e.g., in a classroom context) perception and utilization of available action possibilities (Mairitsch, Sulis, Mercer & Braun 2023). These action possibilities, or affordances (van Lier 2010), emerge multi-directionally, interand intrapersonally, as a result of psychological and socially determined factors (Mairitsch et al. 2023). Agency is considered essential to language learner success (Han & Reinhardt 2022), but, like well-being, is conceptualized primarily from a neuronormative perspective (Demo 2017; Spiel et al. 2019; Huijg 2020). However, the problem is not entirely unnoticed. Mercer points out that “[w]hilst an individual’s capacity to act is widely accepted as being socioculturally, contextually and interpersonally mediated, it also needs to be understood in terms of a person’s physical, cognitive, affective, and motivational capacities to act” (Mercer 2012: 42). Larsen-Freeman (2019: 63) similarly warns against perceiving any learner groups as nonagentive, while at the same time acknowledging how agency may be curtailed for some disempowered language learner identities. Among the “subaltern” (ibid.) learners she names, neurodivergent ones may be inferred. Such an approach to both well-being and agency aligns with Sen’s notion of human flourishing, which rests on these two constructs. Well-being and agency are similarly constituted, according to Sen, through the freedom to pursue ways of living, and the achievement of those ways, that are personally valued and that have influence beyond oneself (Hart & Brando 2017). While Sen does not address the ways in which agency is socially mediated, his recognition of the individual ability to act as a core facet of human flourishing is in keeping with the strengths-based conceptualization to mental health that forms the basis of well-being as constituted in this contribution. In other words, well-being and agency - the freedom to pursue them and the ability to achieve them in personally meaningful ways - can be understood as, minimally, contributions to positive mental health and maximally, as contributions to human flourishing. The connections - and tensions - between well-being and agency Sen highlights are indicative of their relevance for the language learning classroom. It is our argument that this flourishing, which goes beyond the absence of mental illness, may be fostered for neurodivergent language learners in digitally-mediated spaces and in formal language learning settings that recognize the underlying practices and principles of these environments. In this section, we will examine more closely how neurodivergent individuals may experience agency in digital contexts in ways that fosters their well-being and, frequently, language learning. Our focus is not on the endless variety of applications and practices that are associated with digitallymediated communication. While it is clear that different kinds of interactive software and platforms, such as social media, listservs, discussion groups, blogs, gaming spaces, chats, and fan fiction, engender unique affordances due to a range of tool-inherent features and socially-constructed practices, it is their commonalities that are relevant here. In particular, their potential asynchronicity, multimodality, multicodality, and opportunities for (pseudo-)anonymity in one-to-one or infinitely large groups are consistent features of digitally-mediated communication that flourishes in online environments. Likewise, the prevalence of English as a digital lingua franca (Warschauer et al. 2021) facilitates both these communicative practices and language learning. Recognition of the fact that online spaces may especially reflect the preferences of neurodivergent individuals is well established. These analyses, which as early as the 1990s posited that “the impact of the Internet on autistics may one day be compared in magnitude to the spread of sign language among the deaf” (Blume 1997: 6), remain consistent across a range of digitally-mediated communicative practices. Some autistic individuals describe a sense of familiarity between their own mental processes and those of the digital environment (Gillespie-Lynch, Kapp, Shane-Simpson, Smith & Hutman 2014). Davidson and Orsini’s autistic informants, for example, report being satisfied with a medium or ‘element’ more suited to their communicative style. In the words of one respondent, ‘I took to the \’net like a duck takes to water. It was clearly my element from the start’ (female, 43, aspie / autistic). Another describes the question about preference for onor off-line interaction as ‘like asking a fish whether it prefers to swim in the water or walk on land’ (female, 27, Asperger / HFA [highfunctioning autistic] / aspie) (Davidson & Orsini 2013: 293). 2 Statements such as these echo the notion that there are unique affordances associated with so-called digital oracy (Hallet 2014), stemming from both 2 Davidson & Orsini (2013) use the self-identification terms for which their informants indicated a preference. technological features of Internet-based communication and the nature of interaction that takes place therein. Technological features that address accessibility at a basic level have long mediated or eliminated barriers associated with monomodal texts. However, the distinction between assistive technologies, or digital media specifically designed for disabled users, and those intended for the general public, is increasingly irrelevant. The ability to individually adjust sound levels, frequencies, or the speed of auditory content makes its reception more accessible, while an array of software tools likewise facilitate the production of various visual, written, and spoken texts for disabled users as well as those who are language learners, have low levels of literacy, prefer one mode of communication over another, or whose communication is atypical (Blume & Würffel 2018). For example, Rauchberg (2022) writes that [c]losed captions or communication access real-time transcriptions (CART) transformed my relationship with media texts. I stim between website clicks and phone pickups. I rely on alt text and image descriptions when a website or post does not use high contrast color combinations. Often I will use my laptop’s accessibility feature to read a page aloud to me. These retrofitted accessibility features make use of information and communication technology (ICT) for neurodivergent and disabled users. Cyberspace is a site of possibility (371). Similarly, Logsdon-Breakstone (2012) observes: When you are someone whose communication methods or media are ignored when you want them observed, it can be an opening to find a new medium to call your own. I learned to type, I gained those skills, and I suddenly had access to a much larger community than I had when speaking or shrieking or running away or stacking dolls gave me (290). What both of these excerpts reveal is that fundamental communicative accessibility is only one component of the advantages experienced by these neurodivergent authors. Equally important are the ways in which the digitally-mediated communication offers opportunities for interaction that reflect the neurodivergent preferences of these informants. The result is that participation can take place on their terms, fostering participation, and hence, agency. Such uses reflect notions of transhumanism, in which disabled and neurodivergent individuals act in concert with technologies in order to transcend ableist notions of impairment and of communication (Ng, Schutt & Corcoran 2015: 169f.). In such conceptualizations, assistive technologies are more than ‘mere’ tools that facilitate inclusion; they reframe notions of agency in joint action with digital applications (Demo 2017). Ultimately, they can thus contribute to well-being. These technologies and modes of communication can mitigate the challenges of in-person interactions that, for many neurodivergent actors, are fraught with sensory-related affronts and communicative obstacles deriving from neurotypical frames regarding modalities, paralinguistic features, and environmental elements. Analyses of digital communication have shown that (voice-)texting and (text-based) chatting in online forums, game spaces, and social media share some features of synchronous, oral communication, but that they are also inherently different. The lack of physical co-presence, an expectation of delayed responses, and alternative semiotic practices are some of the ways that digital communication deviates from face-to-face or synchronous interactions (Lotherington & Xu 2004; Androutsopoulos & Busch 2021; Warschauer et al. 2021). These features address some of the communicative issues both neurodivergent individuals and language learners face, such as those having to do with time pressures, simultaneous multiple semiotic modes, or social conventions (Ochs, Kremer-Sadlik, Sirota & Solomon 2004; Davidson & Orsini 2013; Gillespie-Lynch et al. 2014; Kern, Ware & Warschauer 2016). Empirical evidence shows how online communication offers significant benefits regarding comprehension and interactional control for autistic interlocutors (Gillespie-Lynch et al. 2014). Moreover, there are some indications that the interactional preferences documented in studies of neurodivergent children and adolescents (Bottema-Beutel 2017), which tend to conflict with neurotypical interactional patterns, are less noticeable in online spaces (but see: Guntuku, Ramsay, Merchant & Ungar 2019). Furthermore, such differences, when they are perceived, are hypothesized to be less problematic in these spaces than in analog contexts (Davidson 2008; Gillespie-Lynch et al. 2014). One autistic person argues that [a]nother thing I find is that the locus of Autistic culture being online because we are so spread out geographically has been also very useful for other cultural reasons. Many Autistics feel shy and socially awkward. Others are more comfortable using typing as a primary mode of conversation while being able to speak with difficulty in their everyday life. Even if an Autistic does not use oral language at all, there is no differentiation with that in terms of typing, in the way it looks online. This puts all of the Autistics together on the same page (Grace 2012: 145). Evidence for comparable benefits for other types of neurodivergence is minimal, but the centrality of communicative challenges in ADHD (Westby & Watson 2021), RSD (Cappelli, Noccetti, Simi, Arcara & Bambini 2022), and sensory processing disorders (Del Zoppo, Sanchez & Lind 2015) suggests that similar advantages of digitally-mediated communication may be derived for these populations as well. Technological accessibility interacts with a welcoming and open online culture that accepts alternative modes of communication to allow participation on a more equal footing than participants may experience in offline spaces, in ways that foster both agency and well-being. These findings parallel research regarding formal and informal online language learning with unspecified neurotypes. In online activities, digital affordances mediate the communication among interactants with different languages, or who interact with target language media in ways that foster language learning. Analyses of digital gaming spaces, for example, indicate that, for some English language learners, multicodality can facilitate their participation. In these contexts, text-based alternatives to voice chat, for example, mask marked identities - including those of so-called non-native English speakers - that are otherwise subject to exclusion (Collister 2016). In the formal educational setting, Hauck, Satar, and Kurek (2021) and Yeh (2018) describe how university students make use of the multimodal resources in teaching and learning initiatives, enhancing their linguistic and semiotic skills in tandem. While evidence is mixed regarding the question as to whether foreign language anxiety is reduced via computer mediated communication, some learners report that asynchronous interactions and opportunities for rehearsal mitigate their language-related concerns and can thus contribute to greater interaction (McNeil 2014). Other studies have reported on the effects of nonlinguistic cues, genre-related pragmatic differences, and output production in intercultural telecollaboration. These investigations do not suggest that computer mediated language learning is wholly beneficial for all participants, but they do make clear that, for some learners, there are particular advantages associated with this kind of communication or expression (Kern et al. 2016). There is a dearth of analyses examining neurodivergence as a relevant individual learner differences, but the communicative differences described for this population in their L1s suggest that they might interact with digital media in unique ways as well, regardless of language. Beyond serving as an assistive technology or supplementing neurotypical communicative forms, ‘the Internet’ hosts texts - in the widest of senses - that offer opportunities for a broader range of participation than traditional media often do. Social media, self-publishing, and participatory culture, combined with technical accessibility, converge to foster conversations and propagate texts authored by both language learners and neurodivergent individuals (Osorio 2020; Egner 2022; Han & Reinhardt 2022; Koteyko, van Driel & Vines 2022; Emily 2023). These publications, productions, remixes, and adaptations contribute to language learner and neurodivergent agency in how they allow for multiple voices to be produced and received in a variety of modalities and codes in ways that are individually and collectively empowering. Such reception and production reflect notions of communication in an age of multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis 2009). While this is true for all participants in these contexts, the perception of these environments as psychologically and physically safer than other forms of self-advocacy or self-presentation, given the opportunities for anonymity and alternative forms of representation, may be especially relevant to neurodivergent interlocutors, and thus contribute to their well-being. As the collective authors of a Discord-based network explain, [w]ithin the context of […] wider societal pressures, allowing neurodivergent persons to narrativise as a mode of creation or self‐exploration [on Discord] becomes a political imperative and, for some, engagement with stories and storytelling can be a means of self‐care. As one member notes, writing stories ‘has saved my life on more than one occasion. I know I am not mentally well when I can’t read or write. I write fiction and non‐fiction, to help me process information and explore my feelings’ (Betts, Creechan, Cawkwell, Finn-Kelcey, Griffin, Hagopian, Hartley, Manalili, Murkumbi, O’Donoghue, Shanahan, Stenning & Zisk 2023: 65). These multimodal spaces contribute to new conceptualizations of neurodivergent ways of (well-)being within these communities. The aforementioned neurodivergent-led network on Discord “by actively decentering the expected norms of communication, […] mitigated the need for performative neuronormativity,” leading members of the network to describe interactions in this environment as “‘affirming’ and ‘freeing’” (Betts et al. 2023: 63). These opportunities for participation also foster informal language learning in online spaces, regardless of neurotype, by reducing technological, psychological, and competence-related barriers to engage in output, and by mitigating correctness norms regarding linguistic expression. Practices such as remixing, for example, allow participants to build on pre-existing content to moderate the amount of independent language they need to produce or comprehend. Short texts, such as microblogging (Mastodon) or video clips (Instagram Reels), reduce the amount of language competence individuals demonstrate at any one time, thus arguably minimizing anxiety and encouraging language practice. Moreover, the norms of English as a digital lingua franca, in which standardized orthography, spelling, and grammar are not universally accorded prestige, can foster a willingness to communicate that in more conventional contexts is thwarted by feelings of limited language adequacy (Warschauer et al. 2021). The aforementioned instances of representation, agency, and activism are closely linked to participation in online affinity spaces. Easily accessible digital environments generate opportunities for neurodivergent individuals to join online and offline communities of like-minded individuals, many of whom use English as a shared linguistic resource. These affinity spaces (Gee 2020), in which individuals come together around common interests, take advantage of the aforementioned reduction in barriers to foster interpersonal connections regarding topics of relevance in a common language. Online, these interactions can transpire in ways that respect the unique communicative preferences of unique personae. Offline, neurodivergent informants report that prior digital communication can act as a “training ground” for desired “real-world” (Davidson & Orsini 2013: 295) encounters with like-minded individuals, by, for example, providing opportunities to prepare for and practice neurotypical communicative patterns, as reported here: Finding the online Autistic community and its attendant culture has been so life-affirming and (the opposite of silencing) to me that it has enabled me to come out of my shell socially in the dominant culture as I have practiced having friendlier social skills online and then taking them into Real Life (Grace 2012: 147). These networks for neurodivergent advocacy or mutual support date back to the earliest days of the Internet, and in the interim can be found on sites such as TikTok (Ginapp et al. 2023), Tumblr (McCracken 2020), Twitter (Egner 2022), and, as previously mentioned, Discord (Betts et al. 2023). Such affinity spaces offer opportunities to inform agentive neurodivergent identity construction, with individuals reporting that these online spaces - many of which use primarily English - provide the impetus to seek diagnosis or to manage an existing diagnosis (Betts et al. 2023; Ginapp et al. 2023). Among other affordances cited in one study, pursuing information online improved the participants’ understanding of ADHD, enabled them to find like-minded people, and offered insights into management strategies (Ginapp et al. 2023). Tucker (2021) describes how neurodivergent authors on Instagram and TikTok target “two audiences: in one group, neurotypical users, many of whom may not be more than casually familiar with [for example] autism; and in the other group, neurodiverse users and the people who love them. Their content thus serves the dual purpose of educating and building community” (n.p.). In the co-construction of knowledge about neurodivergence in online and hybrid spaces, neurodivergent individuals may explore ways of being that are otherwise inaccessible to them and that contribute to their mental health and well-being (Gillespie-Lynch et al. 2014; Ng et al. 2015; Pavlo-poulou et al. 2022). Such affinity spaces are not conventional learning environments; they enable informal learning through what Lave and Wenger (2002) call legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice. A key component of these online activities is that “users exercise volitional agency in choosing, creating, and co-constructing digital literacy practices of interest that require the social use and learning of the language of study” (Han & Reinhardt 2022: 986). This participatory meaning-making is at the heart of multiliteracies conceptualizations of literacy (Cope & Kalantzis 2009). Lam (2009), for example, describes how one learner becomes acculturated to local professional norms and develops her linguistic resources in two languages through instant messaging. Chik (2015) does the same in relation to gaming, although the norms in question and the semiotic resources are, in light of the context, quite different from those of Lam’s informant. Similar principles are at work in relation to specifically-designed neurodivergent communities, in terms of both content and form. On the neurodivergent-led Discord network discussed above, “[t]ime and again, members positioned the network in opposition to the academy and to traditional models of scholarship and knowledge production” (Betts et al. 2023: 63). Online communities, with large numbers of participants available at virtually all times, may also more adequately address the ways in which neurodivergent individuals engage with relevant content. In digitally mediated spaces, these interactions lead to multiple kinds of agentive learning. These new competences are acquired through interaction with more skilled others and like-minded interlocutors with subjectspecific, expert linguistic resources. Given the importance of agency to well-being (Hart & Brando 2017), it seems clear that this engagement can foster neurodivergent flourishing. Because these affinity-based communities thrive online, they frequently avail themselves of English as a digital lingua franca (Warschauer et al. 2021). There are numerous reports of how the aforementioned digital practices inform language learner identity, contribute to mediation and translation skills, promote transcultural competence, support translanguaging practices, and improve basal skills and competences with regard to lexis and language production (Chik 2015; Vazquez-Calvo 2020; Cornillie, Bündgens-Kosten, Sauro & van der Veken 2021). They use English alongside other languages as a “social practice” (Jenkins 2015: 73), and members develop shared semiotic repertoires stemming from their use of “volitional agency” to inform their practices (Han & Reinhardt 2022: 986). One neurodivergent individual highlights how their motivation to learn English was, as an adolescent, closely tied to their interests, and in the desire to navigate spaces where these interests were discussed: 3 [...] The Internet was just beginning in the 90s. That means I didn't have much to do with it yet, but where I had contact with it, it was absolutely clear that I needed English. Those were newsgroups, mailing lists. That was the handful of useful websites that existed. So it was absolutely clear: Yes, there are things in German, but if you want to have any interesting content, also in terms of quantity, you have to use English (The ELLeN Group, forthcoming). This example emphasizes how this neurodivergent individual was explicitly motivated to learn English in order to receive and produce texts in online environments, in ways that contributed to their well-being, by addressing their self-identified interests. Digital gaming is an online activity that offers myriad opportunities to engage in affinity spaces, in English (Gee & Hayes 2012). Languaging activities extend beyond the game itself, incorporating such activities as fan fiction (Cornillie et al. 2021), fan translation (Vazquez-Calvo 2020), and streaming (e.g., ‘Let’s Plays’). Neurodivergent interest in digital gaming has garnered (positive and negative) attention, due in part to widespread data indicating that the amount of gameplaying and related activities is higher among autistic and ADHD children and adolescents in comparison to neurotypical youth (Mazurek & Engelhardt 2013; Stenseng, Hygen & Wichstrøm 2020). Despite widespread concerns among neurotypical adults regarding neurodivergent gameplay, its potential affordances for children and young adults in relation to agency and language learning are compelling. The neurodivergent informants in one study cite opportunities to “manipulate game features […] exert control over players […] and successfully influence how the narrative unfolds throughout the game” (Pavlopoulou et al. 2022: 7) as powerful motivators for gameplay. They moreover identify ways in which gaming generates opportunities to engage in greater sociality, due to reduced barriers to communication online and the identification of shared (gaming) interests offline. Ringland (2023) describes how a dedicated Minecraft community for autistic players fosters collaboration. Activity ranges from the adoption of leadership roles to realize large-scale projects, to repetitive hole-digging as a means to manage sensory input. These activities, the author argues, are a form of agentive resistance against disempowering conceptuali-zations of autistic play as well as opportunities for sociality that make use of language but also supersede it. 3 German-language data is translated here by the authors. It seems that agency over communicative forms and in pursuit of personal interests may be particularly important for neurodivergent learners, and it may be that digitally-mediated communication can address this perceived need, especially given the use of English as a digital lingua franca. However, translating students’ outside-of-school interests into the language learning classroom can be challenging. The moment teachers try to incorporate the digital wilds, those wilds become tamed. Grau (2009), for example, found that some students did not want teachers to integrate their extramural interests, and it may be that any attempts to incorporate learners’ agentive activities will fall victim to the formal context of schooling. This may especially be the case for the kinds of playful activities associated with digital media (Wechselberger 2012). Given that playfulness presupposes its voluntary pursuit (Caillois 1961/ 2001), it may be that attempting to make digital media activities abide by the grammars of schooling cannot succeed. Additionally, while “[...] the most natural way of building social inclusion and agency is through [the] daily lives [of pre-teens and teenagers]” (Välijärvi 2019: 101), attempts to build bridges to these daily lives of students might be thwarted by a lack of awareness regarding the actual communicative needs and content preferences of students. Ziehe (2007) argues without reference to neurotype that this is increasingly likely, due to the highly individualized identities adolescents develop and cultural spaces they occupy in an extremely pluralistic world. This diversity in life-worlds is the premise of multiliteracies pedagogies; it can equally be seen as a “fragmentation” of political, economic, and social spheres (Cope & Kalantzis 2009: 174). Thus, authenticity related to ‘‘ordinary practices of the culture” (Brown, Collins & Duguid 1989: 34) might not be evoked by the same practices for all learners. Research into digital divides likewise suggests that the kinds of activities youths engage in online vary widely, not only in terms of frequency of online engagement, but in the types of practices that take place (van Deursen & Van Dijk 2014). These discrepancies, resulting from socioeconomic, cultural, linguistic, and gender differences, in turn contribute to differences regarding how authentic potential topics, popular cultural references, or language may be perceived by a heterogeneous group of learners. Thus, additional forms of difference - fragmentation with regard to individual interests - add to the diversity classroom teachers need to accommodate. As regards communicative preferences, neuronormative assumptions about what constitutes authentic communication may make it difficult for outsiders to fathom how neurodivergent individuals in particular might perceive typical communicative scenarios. Bottema-Beutel, Louick and White (2015) illustrate how, in a face-to-face setting, an autistic teenager proved immune to indirect cues intended by same-age peers to protect his feelings and save others from face-threats. Such conversational differences are reflective of the double empathy problem, which describes how the communicative patterns of neurotypical and neuro-atypical interlocutors are frequently at odds with one another, often to the detriment of neurodivergent well-being (Milton 2012). These differences also reveal the challenge with attempts to incorporate authenticity into the inclusive language learning classroom. The same autistic adult quoted in section 3, reflecting on formal language learning, describes how mainstream ideas of what constitutes authenticity deviated significantly from their own notions about what a person does in a foreign language in the ‘real world: ’ If, by language learning, you mean this clichéd - I think Pons does this all the time - You-are-traveling-and-fall-into-conversation-with-people-going-thesame-direction - story, there’s nothing more boring. I don’t fall into conversation with people, I DON’T WANT to fall into conversation with people. They are to leave me alone when I am traveling somewhere. This makes it absolutely impossible for me to be able to do something with the text. I can comprehend it, of course, but it’s such an unreal situation that is posited there as an example that is used to discuss something. That doesn’t work at all. […] It’s a form of torture (ELLeN Project, in preparation). Given the oft-times unique nature of neurodivergent communicative interests, which may be perceived by neurotypical standards as inappropriate, teachers may find it challenging to incorporate content and structures that reflect authentic engagement. In communicative language teaching theory, tasks should be meaningful, but what counts as meaningful differs - sometimes significantly - for neurodivergent learners. In light of the challenges stemming from the inherent inauthenticity of educational environments and neurodivergent preferences regarding activities and communication, teachers may feel thwarted by attempts to foster inclusivity through thematic choices that reflect learners’ interests or by accommodating preferences for individual work that contradict typical conceptions regarding the development of communicative competence. However, by offering students an array of online resources within a highlystructured framework, teachers can expand learners’ options regarding content, materials, and social forms that enhance the latter’s ability to act in personally meaningful ways. Such choice bestows upon learners the ability to act agentively if, for example, they may select a text (in the broadest sense of the word) from a particular genre or communicate their knowledge in various media-enriched formats. Various forms of interaction can be realized with digitally-mediated communi-cation, reflecting contemporary communicative practices that are highly agentive and authentic, and they can allow learners to make connections to content and practices that are personally relevant, rather than following a path pre-selected by a teacher trying to anticipate their learners’ interests. This ability to choose in turn contributes to well-being, and ultimately, may positively influence language learning. Vermeulen (2019) points out that most interventions intended to support neurodivergent learners are designed with the assumption that improving learning conditions will lead to heightened well-being. However, he argues, learning can only occur if well-being exists, and that therefore, measures to improve well-being must precede other interventions. Merely incorporating choice, however, is inadequate to cultivate well-being. Even if students can select their own topics and tools, including the ones that facilitate digitally-mediated communication, such autonomy contributes only to superficial kinds of agency if this choice has to take place in a space bounded by neuronormative expectations regarding content, interaction, and form, and by neurotypical concepts of human flourishing. Just as linguistically inclusive classrooms problematize prescriptivist language ideologies based on prestige language norms, neurodivergent inclusive language learning needs to make room for differences in communication that result from idiosyncratic ways of thinking and being. Receptivity to neurodivergent learners in this sense may contribute to creating a more welcoming environment in general. Moreover, to be truly attuned to neurodivergent well-being, an inclusive offline space would go beyond mere acceptance of neurodivergent norms. Instead, like the online spaces to which neurodivergent individuals flock, these spaces would honor unique ways of flourishing. Digitality can mediate accessibility in (sub)cultural spaces that are welcoming in terms of their language choices, communicative modalities and cultures, as well as their focus on specific subjects. By offering neurodivergent individuals opportunities to communicate on their own terms, on topics of particular interest to them, they have the ability to act, and enact, ways of being that deviate from what is frequently considered to be the norm, but that are essential to neurodivergent well-being, and subsequently, learning (Vermeulen 2019). What we have not addressed thus far are the very real challenges associated with digitality that may exclude neurodivergent English language learners and, in fact, threaten their mental health. There are large parts of the Internet, and large numbers of digital tools and platforms, that are not accessible due to functional barriers. These may be a result of sensory-related or comprehension barriers resulting from a lack of conformity to web accessibility guidelines (WCAG2) or insensitivity towards recommendations regarding easy-to-read language (Vollenwyder et al. 2018) or multilingualism (van Deursen & van Dijk 2009). More significantly, exclusion also results from unwelcoming digital spaces in which largely anonymous individuals feel empowered to discriminate against other members of digital publics due to gender due to racism, linguicism or ableism (Collister 2016). Virulent online attacks on individuals and groups due to their identities or affiliations represent the ‘dark side’ of the agentive nature of digital communication. These challenges underscore the need for pedagogical digital literacies among teachers, so that they are in a position to develop digital participation literacies among all of their learners that address mental health issues. The goal should be to reduce the potential tendency of some learners to perpetuate such exclusion, in addition to offering all learners’ mechanisms for dealing with these problems when they encounter them. In this way, and in others, we thus acknowledge that equating digitallymediated communication with agency and well-being among neurodivergent English language users would be an oversimplification. Neurodivergent individuals are as unique as neurotypical ones, and attempts to ascribe a certain kind of digital affinity to them risks essentializing both the people and their activities. 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