Though we already have a short bit about "Neurodiversity" on the main page, this article is being written to go more in-depth and hopefully help answer some of the more common questions people bring up about neurodiversity. It should go without saying that in all things we can discuss only the knowledge and understanding that we have at the present time. Learning is an endless endeavor and, even when we acquire knowledge, we still need time to be able to spread that knowledge, for it to become incorporated into human societies, and for those societies to evolve as a result. So it goes with neurodiversity, where our understanding of human variation has finally become sufficient for us to begin recognizing the limits of our knowledge, the fact that we don't always understand why some people appear to operate differently, and how to best include and respect all humans. In brevity, we can say, "Neurodiversity is our observation of human variations necessary for the survival of the species." But that's a pretty lofty statement and not one that is easy to act upon. So let's try to get a bit more detailed...

Is Neurodiversity a Disorder?

Humans tend to categorize things. Doing so makes it easier to process the vast amounts of information that our brains receive and assign sets of responses or behaviors to each of those categories. It's highly efficient and practical. However, it also produces discrimination, bias, and prejudice. All of the undesirable "-isms" (racism, sexism, ageism, ableism...) we can see arise out of this reliance on categorization. It's not that categorization is inherently a bad thing - it's just a technique or tool for interacting with the world. It can obviously lead to problematic patterns of behavior and harm inflicted on others though. In the case of neurodiversity, our understanding of these variations in human development and behavior arose from first an assumption that "operating within the conventional world is normal and inability to do so is a disorder." Thus, we began by pathologizing differences. The intentions were good: Help those people who are suffering due to incongruence with societal expectations. But it does mean we first assumed that those differences are problematic.

Because we assumed the differences were problematic, we then work toward identifying people who exhibit those differences. We do this by means of informal screening (e.g., a teacher notices a kid cannot sit still in class) and then formal assessments. These processes are definitely still used and, again, I would encourage people to view them as neither inherently good or bad. They are simply tools and have the potential to be useful and stigmatizing. It is here we then see the categorical propensity very clearly: After evaluation, the individual is assigned a diagnosis (or not) based on the congruence of their symptoms and experience with various pre-defined categories. We hope and assume those categories are meaningfully distinct and reliable, and that they help the individual receive support and guidance that helps them. Of course, these categories are generally defined as "disorders", which assumes pathology. In this way, neurodiversity is a disorder, but the other concepts and expectations attached to the word "disorder" can be quite unwelcome and rightly rejected by the individual.

So I would suggest that the answer to the question "Is neurodiversity a disorder" is up to the individual who is being categorized with it. For myself, I gently reject the pathologization of my experience and thus do not want to be considered "disordered." However, I would certainly acknowledge there are things I have difficulty with due to my differences and the expectations of conventional society!

Types of Neurodiversity

This is, I think, a rather funny section to write. There are some profound limitations in our ability to identify "types" of neurodiversity - the very concept of "types" goes back to human categorization. In my clinical experience, I have seen many people who are considered neurodivergent, including the most commonly thought of types (Autism and ADHD) as well as the lesser-known variations (Tourette's and FND). Clinical identifiers that are commonly associated or identified as "neurodiversity" include: Autism, ADHD, Tourette's, FND, OCD, Down's Syndrome, Intellectual Disability, and Learning Disabilities. All of these present with differences that interfere with day-to-day functioning in the conventional societal expectations. The degree of impact or difficulty varies tremendously, ranging from an individual who is, for example, chronically late and disorganized, to an individual who is unable to dress herself. What if we look a bit deeper than symptoms, though, and instead begin examining the functions underlying these characteristics?

For example, why do people with Autism appear to struggle in social situations? I could struggle for a variety of reasons and I suspect that if I took a "neurotypical" person from my local culture (the Southern region of the United States) and placed them in a very different cultural context of which they were largely ignorant, they would experience some similar difficulties. However, a critical difference here is that the neurotypical person does not have that difficulty in their primary culture while I do. Bear with me a moment as I dissect this: Learning the conventional social expectations of one's culture requires attending to those relevant stimuli (e.g., facial expressions, tone of voice, broader context...) and the behaviors that others exhibit in those situations. The individual should likely imitate those behaviors, observe the responses from others, and either modify or maintain their behaviors accordingly (e.g., if others don't respond well, modify the behavior). Individuals with Autism often appear to not do this. But why? Is it that the individual is not attending to the relevant stimuli - and then why is that? Is it because their brain is maintaining broader awareness of more stimuli and not preferentially attending to the social ones (e.g., I pay attention to the lines on the ceiling like I do the facial expression of the speaker)? Or is it because the Autistic individual's brain does not log the response from others? Or is it because it attends and logs correctly, but does not encode it in the same way such that it is unlikely to manifest again when the situation changes? So many questions...

My rambling aside, we can look at some tendencies that are informative. Many neurodivergent people have brains that are essentially more primed and ready to anticipate and respond to possible problems - that is, they are "Anxious." Of course, all people should have anxiety (without it you would stand there unafraid while a bear mauled you), but for many neurodivergent people their brains hold onto those worries longer, amplify the intensity of feeling, are more motivated to respond, or lock in to more rigid patterns of response to anxiety. So while I might say an individual is diagnosed with Autism, OCD, or Tourette's, none of those tell me about the tendency for their brain to respond to anxiety-provoking stimuli or events. And that information is actually rather useful in helping them figure out how they might wish to shape their life, what others can expect from them, how others can support them, or how the individual can advocate for their own needs more effectively.

Why do we have that variation?

Here I'll just follow the example of an individual who exhibits a high sensitivity to anxiety (meaning the internal sensations they experience in response to external stimuli and situations). The environment in which humans live is constantly changing (that's good!) and humans as a species survive by being able to adapt. There are times when it is clearly advantageous for one's survival to be more vigilant for dangers, to anticipate or predict problems further in advance, or to respond more strongly to those anticipated problems or threats. If all humans exhibited the same traits for these responses, then the species would either remain over-stressed as a whole and possibly wipe itself out, or they may all be too under-responsive and be wiped out. Variation is key for survival and is good for the species as a whole - however, it may be pretty burdensome for the individual.