Other Neurodivergent vs neurotypical

[Rose White]

traced back to Judy Singer in the late 1990s. It refers to people whose brains have particular neurological responses

Judy Singer created the term with specific reference to autism and the term was mainly used to refer to autism until recently. The intention was to think of the social model of disability rather than the medical model. There is still a huge amount of division as to whether or not any healing/transformation of autistic symptoms/behaviors/traits can occur. Generally the term neurodivergence is embraced by movements related to autism pride and autism activism which generally reject that any healing needs to take place at all.

 

[Deleted member 42984]

Judy Singer created the term with specific reference to autism and the term was mainly used to refer to autism until recently. The intention was to think of the social model of disability rather than the medical model. There is still a huge amount of division as to whether or not any healing/transformation of autistic symptoms/behaviors/traits can occur. Generally the term neurodivergence is embraced by movements related to autism pride and autism activism which generally reject that any healing needs to take place at all.

Interesting. Does it align with modern identity politics? There seems to be a general shift towards an identity-focused approach to mental health, in the younger generations. It's a little hard for me to understand, as I don't *identify* with my brain chemistry and/or diagnosis.

 

[Rose White]

@ziter I don’t know much about identity politics so I couldn’t say.

 

[Deleted member 42984]

I don’t know much about identity politics so I couldn’t say.

Ok. I will investigate.

 

[Weemie]

is a failure or hardship of understanding abstract thinking a feature of alleged neurodivergence, or your individual divergent neurology?

None of what you said was relative to abstract thinking, and my opposition to it had nothing to do with failing to understand what you stated. I explained very clearly why it was not a logical statement to make, and I don't actually know how to make it any clearer.

I mean, in a population where most people have two arms, and a small minority have 1 or 0 arms, the average number of arms per person would be a fractional number slightly below 2, it's pretty basic math.

The point is, you went beyond that to then claim that it is completely typical for people to have less than one arm. This is not a logical conclusion to draw from the statistics you provided, because we live our lives in reality and not academic papers. How many people with one arm have you met over the course of your life? My point is, using this analogy to claim that neurodivergence is actually super common and ordinary (and ergo -- what, exactly?) doesn't track.

These are relatively common disorders, but in the course of your day, chances are the people you interact with will not have them or understand much about them. And even if that were the case, in a world that is not built to handle human beings with more or less than two arms, it would still make sense for those people to want to discuss their lives and their disabilities and their differences from other people.

When it comes to identity politics, I do tend to be more on the pragmatic side. Neurodivergence causes problems, since the world we live in is not designed for us and because even if we did live in a society that was, we'd still face issues with executive function, sensory processing, etc. So rather than saying we should suffer, we should focus on addressing those problems where we can.

Either by therapy, treatment, or education/advocacy. Those aren't mutually exclusive things. It's probably the case that I've come on a bit strong, but it isn't my intent to offend. We hear things like this constantly. "Oh, everyone has ADHD. Tik Tok is stupid, those kids are all fakers. Neurodivergent is just a buzzword, it's just woke nonsense." But actually, it's an important part of many people's lives, and we don't have to dismiss it just because it may not apply to us.

 

[Deleted member 42984]

The point is, you went beyond that to then claim that it is completely typical for people to have less than one arm

I did not say that. I said that most people have more arms than the average, which is indeed logically consistent, considering the information I just provided to you. You correctly stated that typical is not the same as average, so *I believe* that most agreeable conclusion we can come to is that the AVERAGE number of arms per person is different form the TYPICAL numbers of arms per person found in the general population. The average number of children a, say, American family has may also be a non-integer number (2,3 for instance, I don't know the number), even tho it's quite physically impossible for one family to have 2,3 children. That's statistics. It is of little relevance that you choose to discount academia, because you seem to not want to understand what I'm saying? But I hope we can end this dispute with said (attempt of) agreement.

My point is, using this analogy to claim that neurodivergence is actually super common and ordinary doesn't track

That is true, and I retracted that. I knew very little of what neurodivergence as a term/social construct encompasses.

it would still make sense for those people to want to discuss their lives and their disabilities and their differences from other people.

I don't doubt it. Except that I would be wary of stressing the differences from other people too much. I believe the point to any recovery/mental health group is to learn to navigate life outside of the group. For identification, discussion and support? Groups are great. Just my opinion.

 

[Weemie]

That's statistics. It is of little relevance that you choose to discount academia, because you seem to not want to understand what I'm saying?

Because the term is neurotypical, not neuroaverage. I understand what you are saying, but what you are saying is not relevant to what we are telling you about our lived experiences.

Except that I would be wary of stressing the differences from other people too much.

There is benefit to learning social integration, yes. Part of social integration is being able to make yourself understood to others, which is one of the reasons why terms like this exist. It's a method of expressing that how things typically work, is not how we work. I'm not autistic, I am ADHD, OCD and schizoid. So even amongst neurodivergent people I am an outlier with a disorder that affects less than 1% of the population.

There is undisputably value in being able to coexist with others, but I am foundationally impaired when it comes to this for very specific reasons and in a variety of ways - so a term like neurodivergent aside from being accurate is also simply a lot faster to utilize, able to convey nuanced information without getting into detailed medical history.

Being able to identify myself as ND communicates a clear message that I think and reason differently which is why certain disconnects (such as, perhaps, this one) may occur.

 

[Deleted member 42984]

Because the term is neurotypical, not neuroaverage. I understand what you are saying, but what you are saying is not relevant to what we are telling you about our lived experiences.

Your lived experience was also labelling a statistical observation as logically inconsistent, hence the discussion. And it's fine. It's all learning experience, now that you mention social integration/training.

I think and reason differently which is why certain disconnects (such as, perhaps, this one) may occur.

It was the opposite of a disconnect. I urge you to think about that for a moment.

 

[Friday]

Judy Singer created the term with specific reference to autism and the term was mainly used to refer to autism until recently.

if by recent, we mean 1996/7/8? Because that’s when it caught on in ADHD & Gifted spectrum communities. The deaf community basically snickered at it, and still has a bit of humor over it (the deaf community is basically hilf*ckinglarious about almost everything, except loud/busy shirts. Makes sense. The visual equivalent of nails on chalkboard.I’d be vexed, too.). The neurotypical zeitgeist only got offended about not being included relatively recently. Maybe 5 or 10 years ago? Snowflake culture. But EVERYONE is special and unique in their own way!

 

[silverlinings1069]

Except that I would be wary of stressing the differences from other people too much.

What is too much? My dad tried to beat the differences out of me so I hid them to prevent physical/emotional/religious abuse. I conformed, stopped showing how smart I was, hid my gift at math (because girls are not supposed to be better at math than boys), got married, had a kid. I never wanted any of that but because my differences were not stressed and acknowledged, here I am. That led to CPTSD and no diagnosis for Autism. Now that I know, I am stressing it to everyone so that I can be me. Some get it, some don't but now I have more control over the people I allow into my life. If that was the intent of your comment. If not, I apologize and would like to understand better.

Being able to identify myself as ND communicates a clear message that I think and reason differently which is why certain disconnects (such as, perhaps, this one) may occur.

It was the opposite of a disconnect. I urge you to think about that for a moment.

I have to agree with Weemie. If there was not a disconnect, this conversation would not have happened (and I'm really glad it did, this is a great conversation). As a ND person, thinking about it will not help me. It is too abstract. Why do you think it is the opposite of a disconnect?

 

[EveHarrington]

I'm sorry if it was a trigger for you.

If someone raises a disagreement to what you’ve said, you reply with this?

This is incredibly dismissive and condescending of you as it reduces the issue to an emotion and not an actual valid discussion point.

But, I can see how it fits in with your world view that you are intelligent and most everyone else is dumb.

 

[EveHarrington]

No more so than referring to people as, for example, Diabetic/Not Diabetic. It’s simply grouping people together who are on the spectrum, which relates to a specific way that a person brain works in relation to particular types of stimulus response.

But neurodivergent doesn’t apply to just the autism spectrum but also many other disorders. In this regard it is very different from diabetes as there are only 2 types of diabetes and they are similar unlike autism and ADHD which are very different.