In recent years, an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the nuances of autism has emerged across much of the world. Advanced ways of identifying and supporting those with neurodivergence have materialised, particularly in education and in the job market. That has not been the case in Somalia, however, even though medical studies have revealed disproportionately high diagnosis rates amongst Somali children in some Western countries. Instead, traditional Somali understandings of mental health and neurodivergence continue to operate in a rigid binary, centred around the concept of waali (insanity). Within Somali culture, there is limited room for developmental or neurological differences that do not fall within these expectations of either psychosis or normalcy.