This article really misses the point. I fundamentally disagree with the conclusion and think it’s actively harmful to neurodivergent people.
They’re criticizing academic use of the words “neurodivergent” and “neurodiversity” and effectively demanding that all academic work rigorously categorize people into pre-existing diagnoses. They point to disagreement on what terms mean as a reason to not use the terms. But that’s precisely why we need to use the terms, why we need academics studying these things in context.
Remember, it was only 13 years ago that Aspbergers and PPD-NOS were grouped in with Autism Spectrum Disorder. And ADHD & Autism were finally allowed as co-diagnoses. Yes that’s right, before 2013 you could not be diagnosed with both ADHD & Autism!
Ultimately, here’s the problem. We weren’t “done” figuring out neurodivergent diagnoses prior to 2013, we weren’t done in 2013, and we aren’t done now. Neurodivergence isn’t as clear and as clean as these authors seem to think. The existing diagnoses can be very helpful to people, but they also fail a lot of people, and can lead to under- or mis-diagnosis. We need sociologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and other scholars studying this from many angles.
Maybe one day we’ll get to the point where we don’t need medical diagnoses for neurodivergent people of all ages to have their needs met, but I don’t think we get closer to that day with rigid categorization and unchanging definitions.
tl;dr - This term that folk use to talk about their experience in a way that prioritises lived experience over medicalisation is problematic because it doesn’t talk about their experiences through the lens of medicalisation
I was diagnosed in my 30s, after my kid got diagnosed. I didn’t magically become neurodiverse when I got a diagnosis, and it didn’t change my life in any meaningful way, yet the authors of that article would claim that there is some fundamental difference between the version of me that didn’t have a diagnosis and the version of me that does
Whilist, I haven’t read the article. The only thing diagnosis helps with is “being aware” sometimes being aware helps.
It actually set me back quite a bit for a while. I’d lived my life telling myself that I could do the things i struggled to do if i was serious about it. My diagnosis forced me to accept that I couldn’t do the things though, and no amount of 'getting serious " would make my ADHD go away. And so, for the first time in my life, I felt broken, like there was an inherent fault with me that could never be solved or fixed. I got through that eventually, but it was really rough for a while, precisely because it forced me to be aware of something I’d been actively avoiding being aware of…
I hate “whilst” like others hate “moist”, but “whilist” is far worse. 🤢
In short: I wouldn’t consider neurodivers/neurodivergent a medical term, but a political one. So for me it doesn’t make sense to link it with specific diagnosis but rather with specific types of marginalization.
adding to this, i’d say it’s actually a generally more useful term precisely because it’s not medical.
Medical diagnoses have all these maddening arbitrary qualifications like needing to display 7 of 9 symptoms and whatnot, which means that if you only have 6 symptoms then you can eat shit and don’t get proper help for the struggles you may face.Meanwhile if you have neurodivergent traits that noticably affect you, then you’re neurodivergent. Bam. Done. It’s the same kind of term as “handicapped”/“disabled”, you clearly know it when you see it and there isn’t much to argue about beyond what the person in question feels comfortable being labelled as.
I feel like neurotypical hasn’t been well defined, which is creating this problem. I also feel like neurotypical hasn’t been well defined is because it probably isn’t as typical as people think.
I’m willing to overlook generalizations when the person making them is showing a good faith effort to learn.
Nothing kills budding interest faster than being constantly scolded for insignificant mistakes. See also: teachers who hate kids.
I tend to think of neurotypical as the slur. Insensitive, out of touch, ambiguous communicators with low empathy and a high tendency to conform and a low ability to perceive patterns, sensory signals, and systemic effects.
I’ve never heard it used that way. I see it used more like cis and trans. Just a descriptor
Also, moral flexibility which depends on being observed.
I miss the OG catch all terms, like stupid. Or moron.
Now that neurodivergent is associated with these undesirable traits, it’s a bad word too. :(
Which word will we associate with bad outcomes then be upset when people use it as a slur next?
I’m neurodivergent. We’re keeping “neurodivergent”, they can’t have it.
I would love that. Sadly I was around when they started saying special needs to be kind, it got perverted by those with bad intentions. Unfortunately I think this word will too. It’s just words though. They do not define anything, they just attempt to.
I personally dislike trying to lump so many different scenarios into one catch all term anyway.
I personally dislike trying to lump so many different scenarios into one catch all term anyway.
That’s fine. I don’t want to prescribe language for you to use. I find the term very useful myself.
But to your other point, I’m truly remaining strong on holding the word. I remember when “queer” was a slur and when “gay” was an insult. Both have been solidly reclaimed. I don’t think "neurodivergent’ has entered that level yet, and I hope to help avoid that by keeping it normalized.
(Comment intent: trying to add helpful context in a kind way)
Stupid and moron aren’t terms that exist outside of abelism. Some of the words we use to mean “bad” or “undesirable” are antiquated medical terms for disability or perceived deficiency (i.e. non conformance to societal expectations).
Some examples:
In 19th- and early 20th-century medicine and psychology, an “idiot” was a person with a very profound intellectual disability, being diagnosed with “idiocy”. In the early 1900s, Dr. Henry H. Goddard proposed a classification system for intellectual disability based on the Binet-Simon concept of mental age. Individuals with the lowest mental age level (less than three years) were identified as idiots; imbeciles had a mental age of three to seven years, and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot
The term dumb as a descriptor for someone lacking the ability to speak was once common, and from the early 19th century, it featured in the names of schools and advocacy organizations. In that same century, however, rejection of the term by the population it aimed to describe began, and by the end of the 20th century, the offensiveness of dumb was widely recognized. When a single term to describe someone who lacks the ability to speak is called for, the adjective mute is used instead.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dumb
Prior to Howe’s On the Causes of Idiocy (1845) people with intellectual disabilities were considered indistinguishable from one another. This was true regardless of varying degrees of impairment. Although Howe’s theory was prejudicial and incorrect, he was the first to offer a classification scheme according to severity.
According to Howe (1846), Fools were a subdivision of Idiots. Idiots had some muscular control and some cognitive functioning. This group was thought to have almost no reasoning skills and major delays in speech.
Howe’s third division was the Simpletons. This group possessed motor skills and adequate reasoning skills. They could complete daily activities with little guidance. However, they had difficulty functioning within society.
https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/history-stigmatizing-names-intellectual-disabilities
There is also the idea that criticizing the real or apparent lack of intelligence is abelist and I’m currently working through this myself so I don’t really have anything to offer on it.
I’m not trying to tell you what language is okay or not, I just thought this was interesting context!
(Also your comment might have gone right over my head because I am excited to share. In that case I’ll take my L with grace, lol)
This is exactly what I was talking about! Kudos for adding pertinent links.
FWIW, and I may be missing some details here, but I believe “moron” was originally used to describe the people who couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t vote.
That was idiot, and that appears to be a modern misinterpretation of the ancient Greek usage. See the etymology section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot
Oh, neat! Thanks! 🤓🤘🏼
