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! 🙂

@YuleDragon I am dyslexic, but not neurodiverse. I am entitled to say that; feel that way.
And dyspraxia is odd - this does not affect "thinking" in any way at all, so why is it on the list.

I think it's a shame to delete posts in order to 'sanitise' a discussion. How can we discuss anything, and come to compromises and understandings if people are silenced when others don't agree?

it’s not silencing an opinion. It’s pointing out a deeply inaccurate and offensive post.

Every second person seems to be claiming that they are ND or their children are these days, especially in MN, everyone who posts seems to have a ND child or are ND themselves, I would love to know how many of them have formal diagnosis or are they self diagnosing

Someone the other day told me their child was ND, when I asked when they were diagnosed they admitted that they weren't

I meant to quote OP saying she'd get the discuss bit edited sorry. I fell ino the 'reply' trap 😳

No we don't.

My son is high support needs autistic, I am low support needs autistic.

One day, he may be low support needs autistic and I may be high support needs autistic because life experiences can change how you need support.

What you're probably thinking of as "mild" is autism with little to no other comorbid learning disabilities or developmental delays, and what you probably think of as extreme or profound autism is probably someone who will never ever care for themselves, but it is likely that is because they are both high support needs autism and have other cormorbidities such as learning disabilities and developmental delays.

HTH.

I appreciate your point of view, but without that post, we wouldn't have had the counter arguments which are very informative.

*Reported the entire thread.

Yet another attempt to invite people who have no idea what they're talking about, to discuss other peoples disabilities and wave their ignorant, uneducated, ableist attitudes around like anyone actually cares.*

But my DB is very severely disabled, and I have a condition that you have just labelled as neurodiverse (which I disagree with). I am not ignorant, I am not ableist. I disagree with you, from a position of knowledge and understanding.

The criteria in my area to be added to the nhs waiting list is very strict.

You have to show that it has severely impacted your life in some ways, such as being unemployed, traumatised, have other diagnoses of ptsd, bpd etc.

If you can hold down a job and haven't been abused, you don't qualify to be assessed.

I meet all the criteria and I'm being fully assessed (after a 1.5 hour pre assessment) in a couple of months.

I am totally overwhelmed by it all. I thought my coping mechanisms and triggers were due to childhood and adult trauma and abuse.

My therapist strongly believes that the reason I've been abused and traumatised repeatedly is because I'm neurodiverse. I have been repeatedly abused and bullied throughout my life in work, even when I owned my own business!

I am so traumatised by work and hierarchal systems, that I can't do paid employment. So my ND is a disability.

Usually I'm terrified to admit this to working people as they think it's a dodge I'm working. But it isn't. I've been raped, sexually abused and horrendously bullied by colleagues (I worked in retail, offices etc)

Even schools trigger me because the teachers allowed abuse to go on towards me. Their work uniforms trigger me into fawning or freezing.

Fawning being the worst because I go along with everything with a big smile on my face and then I block out what happened.

I mask so well, and then my traumatised brain blocks it out. I am an abuser's wet dream

because dyspraxia or developmental co-ordination disorder does actually also have impacts on social/emotional development. It usually quantifies about a 25% delay in development of the brain in these areas, as well as physically impacting on coordination and muscle tone.

Your defining feature of Aspergers is that it "impinges on others"?? Can you genuinely not see how offensive this is?

Do you have dyspraxia? It definitely does affect thinking, and behaviour - I have it and my ability to concentrate and multitask is horrendous because I’m putting all my energy into the task at hand. It definitely affects thinking, as you put it.

♥️♥️♥️

And with other conditions you can move from ‘mild’ to ‘severe’ depending on several factors - that’s the only good reasoning to use the idea of a ‘spectrum’. Just because someone currently lives more typically with their autism, doesn’t mean they won’t present more severely at different points in their life. Making ‘mild to severe’ a pointless description of autism - it’s more appropriate to say ‘autism with/without LD or GDD’ if differentiating intellectual abilities.

ADHD and Autism have a roughly 80% heritability.

IF a child has autism/adhd, there is an 80% one or both parents also have it.

FTR, both myself, and both my kids have formal diagnosis. As does my brother, and both of his kids.

I don't think anyone has attacked you. It is frustrating to see ableism enabled by the parent of someone with a diagnosis. And that's what it is I'm afraid.

Saying that AS is 'mild' invalidates the struggles that a person on the spectrum encounters every day in a world that wasn't designed for them to thrive in.

'We're all on the spectrum' is dismissive of these struggles.

*LewishamMumNow · Today 09:59

@YuleDragon I am dyslexic, but not neurodiverse. I am entitled to say that; feel that way.
And dyspraxia is odd - this does not affect "thinking" in any way at all, so why is it on the list*

Dyspraxia absolutely does affect ‘thinking’ and organisation. Who diagnosed you? Didn’t they tell you this?

My ds 30 was diagnosed dyspraxia at 7. We were told then.

Well said! 👏

It's really demoralising when you tell someone that you have autism and they say " well we all have a bit of that don't we". No, no we don't. Every one has struggles yes but, not every one has so many of the struggles that means they have autism. I do wonder if the term " on the spectrum" has something to do with this though, I think people misunderstand what this actually means.

Exactly. It’s not that there’s more ND children, it’s more an embarrassment indicator of how much it was ignored in previous generations. And ND becomes more apparent as the generations go on - my ex was obviously undiagnosed, but looking further back he can see how older members of his family had traits now he knows what ASD is. He’s recently found out his cousins children are looking at being diagnosed as well, it’s genetic from his side.

Being female makes it 10x worse - I actually said ‘I think I have ADHD’ 20 years ago, long before neurodivergence ‘blew up’. I was basically laughed at because it was a ‘naughty boy’ condition.

I hear you re fawning - my mental health care plan says ‘please ask x more than once if she is really OK, she will present as smiley, chatty and happy even when in acute crisis as she struggles to show a negative emotional response and wants to please.’

You sound like you’ve had a very difficult time of it and I really hope the assessment gives you some answers and the support you rightly deserve. Sending you a heap of love.

My son was diagnosed with autism at three
I guess a thread about autism is going to attract people with autism and or those with autistic children

here

Dyspraxia - not saying it can't be a problem or a disability. It runs in my family a bit, thankfully mildly. But it is not about emotional and social development at all; of course difficulties of any kind can lead to broader emotional and social issues, but that's not the same. It's about co-ordination, hence my querying why it can go under the ND umbrella (from the point of view of someone who thinks the whole ND thing is daft anyway).
@fottfsofawygtfosm Lots of people are bad at concentrating and/or multitasking. That is not dyspraxia or ND (whatever the latter is).

Well perhaps if your first post had read

I think it's a shame to delete offensive posts in order to 'sanitise' a discussion. How can we discuss anything if posts such as this are deleted and not giving other posters a chance to explain why they are so completely wrong?

but you didn’t, you accused me of “silencing” an ableist.

would you defend a racist or misogynist in the same way?

That and I think we tend to congregate more online because it’s more accessible than more traditional ways of meeting people!