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! 🙂

I got regularly told not use "Aspergers" to describe myself, because it's offensive!

Haven’t read the entire thread but yes to all of this.

And someone posted We also know that trauma and stress can hugely impact how the brain works and these things can be hugely intertwined with ASD and ADHD

but the thing is - irrespective of whether it’s trauma symptoms or ASD or both, what’s the issue with these people receiving reasonable adjustments irrespective of the root source?

Exactly. Haven’t read the whole thread so I don’t know if anyone else has posted this but straight from the dyspraxia foundation website : Many people with dyspraxia/DCD have difficulty organising themselves, their equipment and their thoughts. Some also experience problems with attention, memory and time management. Many adults with dyspraxia/DCD say these difficulties present more of a challenge in their daily lives than their underlying movement difficulties.

And the movement difficulty ie. Problems with fine and gross motor coordination is obviously linked to the way their mind processes things.

You beat me to it. I was going to post the dyspraxia link.

This poster is so uninformed about dyspraxia, which is fair enough but why do people boldly make such claims with no research.

A scale is a linear series of values, a spectrum is a number of scales for a number of variables. ASD is often represented as three impairments. The example given by @theplatformedge has ten, and the DIVA test for ADHD has 25 (IIRC).

A radar diagram is a good way of showing it but it could be a bar chart or a stock chart depending on the audience.

For an explanation, try reading (at least) as far as the first two illustrations in this article:

https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/

"Red is not “more blue” than blue is. Red is not “more spectrum” than blue is. [...]
But when people talk about autism they talk as if it were a gradient, not a spectrum at all."

Or think of the graphs from spectroscopy, where there will be peaks at various points on a spectrum.

This. I have a lot of opinions on this but will keep it outside of Mumsnet.

@DyslexicPoster

Do you know what? I have a non verbal type of ASD child and a close to diagnosis cut off child.

Me too. But, crucially, it's the same child.

This is why I can't get on board with mild/moderate/severe labels.

The mild label my child would have been given no longer applies.

I appreciate that wasn't your discussion but I quoted your sentence as it goes nicely with my example.

I ask over and over when people talk about labels and how the diagnosis should be clearly different but for me the child who would have been diagnosed with Asperger's back in the day is now a clear case of classic autism.

I was in a few groups on Facebook when I was first diagnosed a few years back, I ran out of every one for this reason.

I do consider Mumsnet to be a much safer space than Facebook. Although the anonymity encourages people to say exactly what's on their mind, the moderation is usually swift and fair, and it's relatively easy to walk away from conversations that become toxic.

@anarchicparadise @Bergamotte @theplatformedge

Change wavelength to neurological or psychological variables or parameters.
Change Relative Energy to intensity or impact

In which case the different curves could represent or identify different neurological conditions including NT, ADHD, ASD, dyslexia etc etc.

It's ridiculous! I hate people policing what terminology people use to refer to themselves.

And actually, I'm probably autistic and tie myself up in knots, convinced I'm going to offend someone or put my foot in it (it happens often) so your encounter would have had me in a complete spin and I probably would have cried for days about it and asked my husband on repeat why I can't get it right!