What is neurodiversity?
Neurodiversity = “variation in the human brain regarding sociability, learning, attention, mood and other mental functions.”
What is generally included for the conditions that are collected under the category neurodiversity?
What’s included/excluded varies, but the history of the term ‘neurodiversity’ is that it was initially used to describe autism in the late 1990s.
Since then, the term ‘neurodiversity’ has been extended to include a broader range of conditions which varies internationally, including, but not limited to:
Autism
Developmental speech disorders (e.g. stammering in UK/stuttering in the US)
ADHD (a persistent pattern of inattention, sometimes hyperactivity and impulsivity)
Dyslexia (also known as reading disorder)
Dyspraxia (developmental motor coordination difficulties)
Dyscalculia (difficulty learning or comprehending arithmetic)
Dysnomia (word retrieval difficulties)
Intellectual disability (significantly impaired intellectual functioning)
Tourette syndrome (multiple movement and phonic tics)
Schizophrenia (includes periods of psychosis)
Bipolarity
Schizoaffective disorder
Antisocial personality disorder
Dissociative disorders
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
How is neurodiversity viewed? Are there different schools of thought?
Today, many experts have moved away from ‘fixing’ neurodivergence, instead encouraging support systems to enable and empower neurodiverse individuals. The intention is for people to receive support that honours authentic forms of human diversity, self-expression, and being.
Neurodiversity advocate John Elder Robison agrees that neurological differences may sometimes produce disability, but at the same time he argues that the disability caused by neurological differences may be inseparable from the strengths it provides:
“99 neurologically identical people fail to solve a problem, it’s often the 1% fellow who’s different who holds the key. Yet that person may be disabled or disadvantaged most or all of the time. To neurodiversity proponents, people are disabled because they are at the edges of the bell curve; not because they are sick or broken."
He, therefore, argues for the accommodation of neurological differences, while also recognising that it can produce disability.
This position though is controversial because some people categorised as ‘neurodiverse’ may well prefer to not be affected by the condition and will seek means to resolve or improve their condition.