Neurodiversity inclusion minimising difficulties

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It’s neurodiversity celebration week so many positive messages are popping up on social media at the moment.
I saw the one below about changing the narrative- in my view this type of thinking minimises the difficulties and stops people getting the support they need.
For example fidgety turns to energetic. To me it’s not about being energetic , it could be being over stimulated or uncomfortable with a situation.
Quiet changes to thoughtful. It’s important to look at why someone is being quiet, why aren’t they making themselves heard. Stating they are thoughtful brushes over the underlying difficulties.

I am happy to accept I’m wrong if I am, perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way.

That poster is really unhelpful. The words mean different things. While we should absolutely be understanding of the reasons people exhibit certain behaviours, renaming them does nothing to change the effect of them.

If the poster was about physical disabilities and said

wheelchair = lovely comfy seat all day

it would never have passed. It would be judged insensitive and downright offensive.

It’s really got my goat as someone that’s regularly had to spend hours consoling someone about why their horrendously difficult and upsetting experiences didn’t feel like superpowers.

I also have issues with these kinds of posters, but find it difficult to articulate why.

My daughter is ND and has some other disabilities and feel that this kind of messaging minimises what she’s going through and somehow puts the onus on her to just try a bit harder.

We’re currently having a bit of a ding dong with her college who are not supporting her as they’re meant to be. Every conversation, or report refers to DD’s disabilities as “challenges”. They are certainly challenging but they are actual, diagnosed disabilities. This constant referring to them as challenges minimises her difficulties and the college gets to reframe the entire discussion and DD just comes away from it all feeling like that she’s just not trying hard enough. That if we just reframe the negatives as positives, all the bad stuff will go away and DD will somehow magically be fine.

I end up frustrated and tying myself in knots.

I also get a bit fed up with all the nit picking of language around disability. It doesn’t actually help those who have the disability.

I agree that the poster is terrible and does seem to be trying to frame neurodivergent thinking as neurotypical but I think it’s the swing of the pendulum. Autism etc used to be seen as all bad and treatment tried to make autistic people “normal” by encouraging masking. It’s gone too far the other way but hopefully it’ll swing back to celebrating diversity whilst acknowledging the difficulties that are caused, not by the autistic person’s differences, but by society’s lack of acceptance of these differences.

I'm ND and don't have a problem with it.
It's not denying the existence of disorders or neurodivergence, or saying NDs don't need support, but just putting a different spin on it.
A lot of ND people grew up hearing lots of negative spin put on their natural traits - ie lazy, ditzy, oversensitive. When in fact you could reframe it as curious, observant, perceptive.
In my experience most of the minimising has been from the negative side. Ie 'there's nothing wrong with her, she's just lazy.'

I work with neurodiverse kids who would all be described as “high functioning” in that they are articulate, will pass their exams and most will be able to live independently and work. They like neurodiversity being framed in a positive way - they suffer daily micro aggressions and are often made to feel stupid, difficult or odd which impacts on their self-confidence and their mental health. They have very real challenges but also incredible strengths in my opinion.

I understand that the kids I work with are not representative of all neurodiverse people. However, if we want more people with ASD in employment, for instance, we need to educate the population and encourage employers to see the benefits to their business of making the necessary reasonable adjustments when interviewing and hiring a truly diverse workforce. That does involve changing perceptions, although I understand that this needs to be done without minimising the range and extent of the challenges that neurodiverse people face.

acknowledging the difficulties that are caused, not by the autistic person’s differences, but by society’s lack of acceptance of these differences

That's not necessarily everyone's experience of autism though, particularly at the severe end. It is for many an often profound disability, not a difference or a diversity. And it's those (and their parents/carers) who are getting so badly overlooked now.

"Difficult = difficult?"

Being difficult can be a positive thing (whether someone is ND or not)

In general though that poster is irrelevant to my autistic son as his needs are on another level.

But what about, "there's nothing wrong with her, she's just quiet." And then your application for flexible work gets denied, because your neurodiversity is actually a superpower and this is all so positive so we couldn't offer accommodations because it would discriminate against the NTs who don't have a super power!

I'm not saying that happens, I don't actually know. But refusing to acknowledge the challenges inherent in having a legally recognised mental health disability can br construed as ableist.

But what about, "there's nothing wrong with her, she's just quiet."

But that's not the case with this poster, it's just reframing some ND traits in a positive light. It's not saying 'there's nothing wrong with them, they are just [insert negative trait]'.

In my own personal experience I don't find it helpful to focus on the negative - I prefer focusing on the positives alongside providing support. I don't feel that it minimises the impact, and in fact there is more support and awareness now than when the message was 'there's nothing wrong with you, you just need to work harder to fit your square self into a round hole.' Especially when it comes to small things like being labelled a problem child in school, when actually the accommodation would have been something as small as letting me stand at my desk rather than sit.

Half of these suggested "rephrasings" don't precisely match the "bad words" anyway.

You can lack focus on your specific task because you're thinking of the big picture too much, or because you're daydreaming. You can be hypersensitive when it comes to yourself, while not particularly compassionate to others.

This sort of stuff is useless for those towards the extreme end of their neurodiversity anyway. You can rephrase as many autistic traits as you want, my son will never be able to live alone.

All the the autism influencers who are capable of pursuing their own diagnoses (if they bother, internet spaces accept self-diagnosis) after completing mainstream and even further education, getting a job and living independently...I bet they fucking love it though!🤣

I was quoting you, not the poster.

It's fine that your experience is different, but to discount other people's POV and concerns solely on the basis of your own experience is problematic. There's a bigger picture here, and reframing disability as merely a bit different doesn't actually help people. There are diagnoses and laws for reasons.

Trying to find positives in situations is good but not when that is at the cost of actual understanding of the struggles. People seem so keen to understand the positives but a lot less keen to understand the day to day struggles

Ds CAMHS team do this. They give the kids a book about ADHD being a superpower when they first get diagnosed. I said to the dr, the only super power he has is at giving me a nervous breakdown.

I'm not discounting anyone else's experience, I literally said 'in my own personal experience.' I ask you not to discount mine.

I'm not suggesting we should reframe disability as being a bit different - that's exactly the problem I had in the past with negative attitudes, ie 'there's nothing wrong with you, you're just lazy and need to work harder.' As if ND people work the same as NT people but just don't try hard enough.

In comparison, 'You have ASD/ADHD, and you're naturally more creative and energetic, so we have put these supports in place' is more positive AND more helpful. Awareness combined with positivity is what works for me.

The poster is poorly trying to reframe negatives as positives when in fact you need to look at why someone is having those difficulties whilst also looking at the strengths.
DD has many of those negatives and needs support and adjustments in school to help her manage - she gets the support because people understand the negative impact of those difficulties. DD also has strengths and they are recognised too, she’s very good at a particular subject and her peers turn to her when they need help which DD willingly provides, she’s a loyal friend.
In my view by putting a different spin on it this poster is minimising rather than looking at the why which is so important.

The issue that I have with it, is that by putting these kinds of positive spins on difficulties, can lead to the difficulties my daughter faces being over looked and minimised.

Her college is not supporting her in the way they are supposed to be and use these kinds of phrases to excuse why they’re not supporting her and to put the onus back on DD for not trying hard enough

So, for example - she loses focus and is easily distracted in a maths class - she’s not forward thinking, what is actually happening is, she doesn’t understand the lesson, no one has helped her so she’s forgotten what she’s supposed to be doing and has looked out of the window and is now thinking about what birds do when it’s raining. She’s fidgeting because she’s anxious - she’s not just fidgeting her fingers, she’s ripped all the skin off them again. She’s not disorganised because she’s proactive - she’s disorganised because she‘s been given too many instructions and too much information in one go, in a format she doesn’t cope well with so is trying to do the task but doesn’t really know what the fuck she’s supposed to be doing.

College then tell me I’m being negative and we need to look at the positives as if that will make all DD’s difficulties go away. In the meantime, DD is still unsupported, is still struggling and still can’t pass the bloody maths GCSE she needs in order to move on to the next stage of her education.

Of course there is room for positive messaging and looking for the best in things, but at the same time we have to be careful that we don’t completely reframe the narrative to the point that difficulties are completely minimised

I'm sorry but I had to laugh at this. That said, I hope things have improved since then.

I accept that you have different experiences to others, it's important to recognise that despite having the same diagnosis, neurodiversity impacts and affects people in vastly different ways, across our lives.

I actual bristle at the idea that I'm more creative and energetic because of my adhd. My ability to apply any creativity, or externally focus my energy, is often limited to extreme degrees, and I struggle a lot with my self worth because of it (the old 200+ half finished craft projects trope).

I, personally, would feel patronised by that approach. But I'm not saying it wouldn't work for someone else, and unfortunately, I haven't got any solutions for my own needs. Something I need to consider, especially in a work context.

I agree, minimising in either direction is unhelpful. It would be equally unhelpful to say 'you're not struggling, you're just creative'.

In my case, I grew up hearing 'You're only struggling because you're lazy/flaky/need to grow up and get on with it.' Or turning my natural behaviours like needing to get up and move around as 'disruptive' or 'bad' when there was nothing inherently 'bad' about them.

It was only when I heard 'You have (x), and you're not bad or defective, you just need adjustments' that I started to understand and feel good about myself, and also find ways of managing beyond 'just try harder to be like everyone else.'

So for me what works is a combination of adjustments and reframing some natural differences/traits as benign or positive - as in, instead of telling little me I was 'naughty' for getting up rather than staying still, which made me feel like I was a bad person, telling me I just had lots of energy and that (x) adjustment could be made.

I'm probably rambling but I hope this made sense.

I agree. I strongly believe that this movement to minimize the impact of ND on people’s lives does ND people no favors. Both NT and ND people need to understand about ND and how it affects people, so both can make accommodations that enable them to form good relationships with each other.

So for me what works is a combination of adjustments and reframing some natural differences/traits as benign or positive - as in, instead of telling little me I was 'naughty' for getting up rather than staying still, which made me feel like I was a bad person, telling me I just had lots of energy and that (x) adjustment could be made.

Yes, totally agree

When DD first started college, she had a great tutor who really educated herself on DD’s disabilities. Unfortunately she left half way through her first year.

She recognised that DD was disorganised because she became overwhelmed with too many instructions and too much information and put reasonable adjustments in place - give her clear, bullet pointed instructions and information, in writing, broken down into bite size chunks. Now we get bullshit platitudes like in the poster in the OP.

When DD lost focus or became distracted instead of leaving her to daydream about birds in the rain for a whole lesson because she’s “forward thinking”, she had structured breaks and lesson notes sent to her.

When she was anxious and feeling overwhelmed in class, she had a quiet room she could access, now on bad days she just avoids going into college altogether.

She just comes away from it all feeling confused and stressed and patronised. She wants to learn, she can learn when given the right support, she has ambitions and dreams and plans and just wants to get on with it, albeit with the right support.

Chuckling at the idea of me being naturally more energetic. I wish. I'm fucking knackered

When DD is particularly energetic it doesn’t mean energetic in the NT sense - it means nervous energy, exhausted but not being able to switch off and getting more energetic and more erratic.

ND reaction to that poster

1. Ugh. That's the font and intensity/tone of the background colours on posters about STIs in clinics in the 00s. That boyfriend was a real dickhead, like the time when...(rest of afternoon, evening and dreams tonight about the shit he put me through)
2. That poster was clearly done on Microsoft Word 2007. That paperclip was fucking annoying, but at least you could always speed things up by using keyboard shortcuts, not just Ctrl-B and Ctrl-I, but by using Alt to access the menu bar as well, oh, those were the days when I was so fast that people thought I was magic, rather than the agony that is shit done on Google Docs...(far too long spent resenting the shitness of the Google environment)
3. Stacking those things up makes it sound like the old Big Mac advert, you know 'Two all beef patties, special sauce...' oh, no, not Big Mac, what was it again, it was something about burgers, or food or something - OH, I KNOW! Pepsi Cola! Or was it Coke? Only one way to find out... (three hours later, still on YouTube looking at old adverts, then cartoons, then vlogs about cartoons, then looping back to old drinks, stop on TAB, which takes me off to watching Back to the Future again...)
4. Oh, yeah, the poster. Words. What are those squiggles for? What are they supposed to mean?
5. Back to the poster. Are we supposed to be drawing lines to make them match up like those incredibly boring worksheets at school where we had to link a word with the French/German equivalent? I wonder what the words are in Olde English? Only one way to find out...Oooh, that's interesting. Most of them are Latinate in origin, I wonder how these things would have been described by the Romans?
6. So, what have the Romans ever done for us? Let's look...
7. Oooh, there's a bird on the wall outside. And what is that thing on the chimneystack of the house over the back? I'll go upstairs and try to get a better look..
8. Hmm? Oh, the poster. Come on, rule #1 of designing posters is don't fill them with crappy bits of small text on white because nobody ever reads them. If I were designing a poster, I'd do it like...
9. Okay, okay. The words. They're shit and bear no relation to one another. And WHY is this being linked to trauma recovery? Neurodiversity isn't a trauma. Who are these people and why are they trying to tag onto ND to flog their business? And why did they lob their website address there where it sends the entire 'balance' (not that there is much balance in the first place) of the poster out? Do they really think that somebody's going to want to copy it and pass it off as their own when it's that bad?
10. tl;dr. It's shit. They clearly don't know what they're talking about. And that 'design' that somebody's probably been paid a fuckton to knock out is visually and intellectually reprehensible.