To think the terms "neuro diverse" and "neuro typical" will be short lived.

[theplatformedge]

Diversity means "a range of many people or things that are very different from each other" (Oxford learner's dictionary), so the idea that a minority of people are "neuro diverse" and everyone else is "neuro typical" is not only semantically illogical, but also potentially offensive.

We're all different. Some people have traits that make life more difficult for them than others, whether it be ASD, ADHD or a range of other conditions, with spectrums of severity. Telling people that you're neuro-diverse is so vague as to be meaningless, and telling other people they are nero-typical when you have no idea what they're feeling inside is insensitive. Some people get a formal diagnosis for their symptoms, some people self-diagnose and others don't recognise it in themselves. Nobody knows how many people are living with these traits across the population, but the massive increase in diagnostics suggests they're a lot more common than anyone ever thought in the past, and therefore gradually becoming very "typical".

Discuss! 🙂

You may think that of your brother and SiL but do you think doctors just diagnose for fun, based on a "slight difficulty "? No, they absolutely don't. It is hard enough to get help for children with obvious difficulties in this country, I assure you doctors are not handing out diagnoses easily or frivolously.

Um the women and adults were previously going undiagnosed. The fact they are now is a good thing.

There are also many of us with autism who are sick and tired of having to school people in offensive attitudes which seek to undermine the struggles that those with a diagnosis have or suggest some people are lying about their difficulties. It's tiring.

You are aware everyone with a diagnosis started out without one? They're not given out door to door.

Not helpful for whom? Some people do find it helpful, and it's not really up to you to tell them they shouldn't.

Self diagnosis is valid. There aren't many people going around saying they have a condition for attention. I was self diagnosed for 3 years before I got my NHS diagnosis.

@Littlefish

Aspergers has not been a diagnosis for 10 years. Your daughter is autistic.

That's not true. Up until 31 December 2021
it was in the ICD10.

I was diagnosed in 2017 and I was told by the clinician that my diagnosis would have been 'Asperger's' at one time but that it's not used any more in diagnostic terms.

This.

It was used, clinical assessment using the ICD10 still diagnosed Asperger's until dec 21.

Perhaps your assessment was done using the DSM and therefore the clinician was talking about how it is not a diagnosis according to that?

Probably, but there is clearly a valid reason why clinicians are moving away from using it.

@Bumpitybumper thanks for your intelligent and considered comments.

Language & preferred words change all the time, that's why the terms will be superseded.

The idea that people will stop categorising... neah, that won't happen !

People already do, but it's contextual, surely. Sometimes it's appropriate to speak about your specific diagnosis, sometimes you're making a broader point and it's more relevant to talk about ND people in general. Similar to conversations about race, sometimes you might refer to the BME community in general, sometimes you might talk specifically about Asian people or Black people , or about particular ethnic groups or nationalities. It depends exactly what you're having a conversation about. It's ok and sometimes useful to have a range of terminology available.

I am struck once again how little understanding most people have of other disabilities. Mild, moderate and severe are used with other disabilities and chronic illnesses all the time.
I have a mild disability. It still affects me every day and I have been in hospital for treatment. Other mild disabilities can worsen and become moderate or severe.
This is accepted with physical disabilities. And it is quite common for physical disabilities to become much harder to deal with as you age. What a young body can compensate for to some degree, is not possible in an older body.
So when this is widely accepted with physical disabilities why is it seen as threatening with autism, ADHD, etc? Or is it just that people with these have no understanding of other physical disabilities and somehow think they are being insulted?

I don't disagree

Because Hans Asperger was a Nazi who experimented on vulnerable children and condemned the ones he felt less useful to the death camps.

"This new approach approaches emotional distress for everyone by asking what sources of power you have over you, what resources you have, what happened to you, what meaning did you take from it and what coping mechanisms have you developed"

This is a really dangerous attitude. The point at which most adults seek assessment is because they are not coping. The coping mechanisms have usually long since failed. In order to be considered diagnosis, there has to be a significant impact upon one's life.

A person may cope throughout their 20s, 30s and even later. But continuous burnout leads to poor health, and avoidance is then employed. People start to struggle to socialise, work and function at differnt points. There has to be diagnosis option in order to support and legally protect those who have those significant impacts. Otherwise, what? those of us with Autism just all disappear into the abyss?

Yes, we know that everyone will experience distress in this world at different times of their life. That's entirely understandable. But this article and, therefore, the argument, just doubles down on the 'But we are all a bit like that sometimes' trope.

I didnt take the op to mean that all the various diagnosis that are covered under neurodiverse didnt exist but more asking whether lumping them all together opposite neurotypical was helpful.

I maybe missed a nuance that everyone else saw.

I dont personally find saying neurodiverse helpful to describe my son. Its vague unbrella term in my mind that doesnt help him get the support he needs.

I can see why others either arent diagnosed yet or dont want to go into their medical history with a stranger might use it.

ronoi · Today 12:51

@Littlefish

Aspergers has not been a diagnosis for 10 years. Your daughter is autistic.

That's not true. Up until 31 December 2021
it was in the ICD10.

Thank you, ronoi.

My daughter is now 33 and was told on diagnosis some 5 years ago that she was mildly affected by Aspergers. But here I've been rudely told I'm imagining this by more than one angry and aggressive poster.

She's a (mostly) happy, intelligent, highly articulate and sociable person but as a child had a number of sensory issues which we and she only later realised may have been due to autism (not liking cold drinks, loud noises or scratchy clothes, for eg). This was all in the early 90s when all these things were far less in the open. She also has a diagnosis of BPD, which again helped her and us to understand her issues and to give her support.

According to one poster, my daughter deserves sympathy because I'm so ignorant. Well, I did apologise for my (comparative) ignorance at the beginning of my post. I'm not a clinician and I'm not in a profession in which ND matters are discussed, so I am probably not up to speed like some of the posters here. I think that poster's friends and family deserve sympathy for having such a rude and aggressive relation!

Actually my daughter and I get on brilliantly and she would not recognise or agree with that accusation.

I also find in these discussions non verbal autistic children and adults are usually made invisible. I have seen parents on MN describing their child's difficulties only to be told by a poster who says they are autistic that the difficulties are not due to autism, but a co-morbidity.
Autism can include a child who is non verbal, doubly incontinent, and with little understanding of what is being said to them. However convenient it is for some to pretend that is not the case.

Another example of people trying to shut down important and valid discussion. You have two ND diagnosis so feel like you can police all discussion on the NT/ND model presumably because you think it currently works well for you.

Any suggestion that the binary model might not be helpful for others and could lead to some people struggling desperately but not autistic/ADHD/OCD 'enough' for a diagnosis and to be recognised as ND just doesn't concern you. The very patchy science that underlies all of this combined with so much support and help riding on getting an ND diagnosis is a recipe for disaster for those that don't fit into our current neat little definitions.

How on earth you can describe this as some 'cheery' debate puzzles me completely!

My son was diagnosed with ASD in 2012 and was also told that he would have been diagnosed with Aspergers but this term was no longer used.

The term was discontinued as a diagnosis to avoid the misconception that Aspergers was a different condition from autism.

Except the term was absolutely included up until the end of 2021 in the ICD 10. It doesn't matter what you were told, probably by a clinician who used the DSM at the assessment.

I should not have to justify the diagnoses given by consultants that my children and I have. They are there to protect them in education, the NHS and other important areas of society. It’s deeply offensive.

Nowhere else in RL do you have to do this. No other disability has to do this.