To ask what your neurotypical view is… What is normal?!

That would need to be based on research, you shouldn’t predetermine the outcome or do something just to placate certain groups. It may be there are different/more groupings of traits/symptoms or maybe it will be a profile of needs instead. Or a mix of the two.

I'm starting to think that there can actually be too much knowledge about things now.

I think it is a sensitive topic in general, currently. There was an interesting thread a month or so ago with a few posters questioning the value of diagnosing children with ND, and the potential harms of this. This did not go down well! I can understand both positions, the issue with challenging diagnosis is that it can often be seemed as invalidating to those with the diagnosis.

It is very much the same with mental health ‘disorders’ too, but there are some alternative conceptualisations to diagnosis which are becoming more mainstream. Whereas I don’t think this is the case with neurodivergence.

What would you suggest as an alternative to diagnosis, particularly for children with SEN?

It may be the current system but it is not a good one. It creates silos. People are not considered holistically. Even the diagnostic system has ‘autism pathways’ and ‘adhd pathways’ and ‘learning disability nurses’ and ‘brain injury nurse’ and often people who diagnose one cannot diagnose another. Once one diagnosis box has been ticked curiosity is satiated. There is diagnostic overshadowing. Or a child or adult doesn’t tick, say the ‘autism’ box then they are sent away.

Yes there needs to be systemic change but that needs to start by considering neurodiversity completely in the round not as little boxes.

Exactly, well said.

@Plastictrees A diagnosis can be a gateway into receiving additional support for children with SEN, so many systemic factors would need to change before the entire diagnostic system was binned.

This is an argument to change the systemic factors, not to defend the diagnostic system.

I think you have a nuanced understanding of what you're doing but the vast majority of Mumsnet posts on this topic are "I have an Official Diagnosis therefore I am Officially ND".

I don't think we're disagreeing with each other.
I was thinking of how different types of professions work within different modalities.
Hence an Occupational Psychologist, an Educational psychologist, a psychoanalyst, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a teacher assessor might all work within the same individual but within different settings for different purposes. Hence they might come up with different diagnoses, all of which might be equally valid.
I wasn't meaning to suggest that the same individual can be more or less autistic according to the situation. I understand the point of assessment is to create a profile that will be stable across time ( allowing for a margin of error).
At the same time, these descriptions seem to come in and out of fashion. I don't hear about dyspraxia so much lately and dyslexia seems to on the wane, while ADHD has a high profile socially but seems lately to being rivalled by ASD.

@NDSceptic I agree about diagnostic labels, however there isn’t a current way of understanding these difficulties without a diagnostic framework. A diagnosis can be a gateway into receiving additional support for children with SEN, so many systemic factors would need to change before the entire diagnostic system was binned.

Again - I am referring to neurodivergence, not neurodiversity. A child absolutely can have ADHD, autism and dyslexia - many do. Equally a person can just have autism, or whatever word you want to use for those particular collection of functioning difficulties. What do you propose is an alternative for children with SEN, in terms of identifying and supporting their needs?

I am not conflating different things. IQ is one aspect of neurodiversity, Communication, social functioning, working memory, processing speed, organisation, flexibility, impulsiveness, attention, risk taking etc are others. They all represents different aspects of brain functioning. Autism is just a name given to one collection of ‘norms’ but you just need to look at the level of so-called comorbidities in those diagnosed as autism to see that that autism is an incomplete diagnosis. They aren’t comorbidities - they are what make up the whole of a discription for that person of their single ‘condition’. They do not have ADHD plus Autism plus dyslexia; they have themselves and that could be the same as others or not.

Diagnostic manuals are political books, not set science.

I think this is spot on. Many councils are overwhelmed with the responsibility of providing EHCPs and individualised help to a growing number of students who can’t cope in mainstream school settings - and we know that schools have been cut back to the bone, and classrooms are now so suboptimal as for it to be a national disgrace. More emphasis on structural changes would be useful, imo, which would include specialised support for all students who are struggling to learn, but would probably reduce the cost burden of delivering individual support to so many.

This is the issue with the term autism being misused as shorthand for people who struggle socially. Plenty of people struggle socially and aren’t autistic, and people can be autistic and social.

The assessment process is thorough and not based on the individuals social setting; it is a multi-perspective historical assessment that also evaluates present day functioning. It is not depending on the ‘orientation’ of the assessor, as neuropsychological testing does not require an orientation in the same way therapy does for instance.

I am a psychologist who is trained to assess ND, however I do think the term ND is bounded around too much - here on MN, on social media, etc. Saying that, there is some really unhelpful disinformation on this thread about neurodivergence and assessment of such.

@NDSceptic You are conflating different things. There are norms for IQ, which is how learning disabilities are diagnosed. There are separate researched and validated norms for ADHD and autism e.g social functioning and communication.

IMO terms like 'autistic' are typically used as shorthand for a person who struggles socially, has fixed interests etc.
As a pp said, a formal diagnosis is about a thorough appraisal of whether your difficulties are sufficient to interfere with your daily life. The specific diagnosis will vary according to to an individual's particular cluster of difficulties. Hence one diagnosis is often followed by a series of of further, different diagnoses. The diagnosis may vary according to the individual's social setting or the orientation/ qualifications of the assessor.
Diagnoses are a means of getting help for those in particular need of help, not special, powerful adjectives.
That's how I see it, although I'm not a psychologist etcetera. I'm quite happy for others to disagree & hope there's nothing offensive in my post!

This is a good point but the rates of people who are being diagnosed with neurodivergent conditions are high enough that they are essentially a large part of normal society. People act as if they are two discrete categories (ND and NT), with "ND" people having more in common with each other than with "NT" people.

This isn't the case for the very broad definition of ND that's used today. Strategies to help an "ND" person manage social anxiety would likely be helpful to an "NT" person as well.

The reason I push back on this is that o think in many cases we're providing individualised solutions to social problems. The most obvious one is schools: we have a concept that most NT kids are 100% happy in a 30-person classroom with no issues, but a ND kid needs an EHCP and dedicated TA. It's entirely rational on behalf of parents to pursue ND diagnosis because a 30-person classroom is suboptimal for learning. But it's a problem with the classroom, not the kid. We shouldn't be arguing for more EHCPs and TAs but for better classrooms.

(Obviously not talking about severe cases, but I'd argue based on my own experience that even a lot of quite boisterous boys can do well in a smaller setting with a lot more running around and an active male teacher, for example.)

But there still is no norm: take a random person who may be considered by some as ‘NT’; they have am IQ of 116 that places their IQ in the top 16% of the population, they are female so now their thinking is the same as that of 8% of the population, they are over 70 years old so we are now down to less than 1%.

The truth is diagnosis is a name for a collection of symptoms that enables a pathway to support and treatment. It could just as easily be conceptualised differently and may well be in future as we understand the human brain more.

I agree with this. I don’t think autism exists as a distinct condition. Our brains all work differently and part of this is displayed as certain behaviours/cognitive abilities that all overlap in different ways. A selection of these has been label ‘autism’ but because it is actually not a distinct condition there are ever broadening ‘comordities’ or ‘traits’ associated with it that overlap with others with other conditions or no noted conditions. And even the selection of behaviours that are used to define ‘autism’ are not actually a single group of behaviours with single causes but a group of similar behaviour outcomes from a range of causes. But I also think interest groups would be up in arms at the thought of having ‘autism’ or ‘adhd’ removed as a concept.

yeah this is completely wrong, and tbh quite insulting, as it has an undertone suggesting NT people skip through life easily without any concerns or worries.

There's absolutely no reason that NT people would be more sociable or less prone to anxiety than ND people.

You can have extroverted ND people and introverted NT people.
I'm NT and can't think of anything worse than doing the children's choir thing like OP. I also hate making tel calls.

A lot of things in OP's post don't seem to be specific to ND at all - many people can be moody and get very angry, get anxious about going to new places etc.
The only things that stood out to me as quite unusual and not something I have experienced myself or in many other people are the 'moving' other people out of your way, and the not understanding text messages (I think struggles with indirect communication are one of the most common hallmarks of autism). Not to say that all NT people are excellent communicators, but I would say most people wouldn't have to scrutinise and stress over what a message means - which isn't to say they'd provide a perfect reply 100% of the time or never get things wrong and accidentally insult someone/miss a social cue.

@seelookhearboo It’s how much it affects you though in different areas. I’m diagnosed ASD, I’m what would be described as high functioning in that I have a job, husband, DCs, friends. But what people don’t generally see is the struggle I have in certain areas, things that I’m sure yes, NT people struggle with too but not to the extent I do and that’s why I was diagnosed. Most people wouldn’t know that I hugely struggled in school, not only with social interaction and making friends but with being able to complete and stay on track with work too. I often was alone in break times in primary, was bullied at every stage, had breakdowns (i now know we’re meltdowns), pretended to be sick, panic attacks, I stimmed a lot (still do) which others found weird. I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety, self harm and breakdowns throughout my life. I struggle with going places by myself, meeting new people to the extent I will avoid it if I’m by myself, struggle with housework, struggle with sleeping, need help/reminding to do things like take medication, tidying, making appointments, even being able to have a drink or shower on bad days. Most people won’t see any of this and will think like you do that I must be similar to NT people but I don’t think that’s true.

NT but introvert and I identify with a lot of what you struggle with.

Neurodiversity and neurodivergence are often conflated. What you are describing is neurodiversity, whereas neurodivergence is exactly that - divergence from the mean. This is how ND (e.g. autism, ADHD) is diagnosed, so it’ll never be the ‘norm’ as that would invalidate the entire diagnostic system.

@seelookhearboo but to get diagnosed it has to have a substantial negative impact on your life.

My DD is 'high functioning' IE does not also have learning disability and is literally a genius. She is head girl at school, Captains her rugby team, tutors younger students, volunteers at a charity shop - then gets home and crashes, loses the ability to make any decisions and even talk sometimes. To you and others outside you'd never know. Our life is carefully curated around what she can cope with. If she's volunteering in the morning or playing a match the entire rest of the day and even weekend is a written off. Her sensitivity to noise limits where she can go and we tend to go to busy places like theatres or restaurants on weekday evenings instead of at the weekend.

I think you have explained this very well. I am alarmed by the pathologising of very normal feelings.
Also on MN, lazy men who can't cook ot do housework are always ND. It's eaaier than believing they are just simply lazy and callous.

I'm neither ND nor NT by the Mumsnet definition. They're both terms that are about as useful as the word "queer".

The thing is, I think the neurodiversity movement has some benefits. "Brains don't all work the same - if you find A helpful, why not try B as well?" I've read a lot of books for people with ADHD about how to reorganise your house to stop losing your keys, and been relieved to have solutions for things that were bothering me.

But the concept of neurotypicals is where the issue is. It creates this complete strawman of someone who is totally, naturally at ease in society with no effort. Because the definition of ND is so broad, the definition of NT has to be extremely narrow. It might be a useful term if it was meant as in, people who don't have severe and obvious mental disabilities such as totally non-verbal autistic people. But now it means someone who loves socialising 100% of the time, never loses anything, never feels anxious, never feels low-energy, is immediately at perfect ease in any social setting of any class with no training, and according to this thread doesn't even think any thoughts in their head?!... That person doesn't exist.

This is why a thorough assessment with an appropriately qualified professional is so important, there are too many armchair psychologists and self diagnoses via social media. I’ve noticed on MN that the ‘ND’ label is thrown around far too easily, when someone mentions a fairly ubiquitous personality trait or behaviour.