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 think what the op and the whole thread shows is there is a need to use simplified language because people don't understand the medical terms or their complexities. Even the simplified terms are causing confusion!

It is not insulting to tell someone their brain is typical and it is not telling them it is exactly the same as everyone else's. My right leg is typical. It has a hip joint, knee and ankle. It is covered in skin and hair and has 2 long bones. It is roughly the same length as my other leg. It does not mean everyone's leg is identical to mine. It is a different length and width to other people's, the hair is darker or lighter in different places, it is still typical though. Other people will not have a 'typical' leg. It may have missing bones or a part of a bone, it may be significantly longer or shorter than their other leg. There will be many non-typical things and people with these non-typical legs may wish to explain that differences without going into detail each time by using a single term, leg-divergent for example.

Until we get a better term, neurodivergent fits our purposes.

this... i masked heavily and burned out.

My mother (72) is also blatantly autistic, having been through diagnosis myself since they learned more about how it presents in the female brain, its laughably glaring in her.

@x2boys

I talking about threads in general, I don’t read threads specifically related to ND,
Surely you must have noticed this

I think so but for a different reason. What is considered polite speech changes every decade or two. There was once a time the word “colour” was considered the “nice” word in a race context and now it very much is not (unless you’re in the US or SA where the contexts are different). Then you had sp—tic which wasn’t rude and now is. Disabled, elderly, “queer” vs gay, trans, “person with disabilities”, “differently abled”.. it goes on all these terms come and go and the “polite” version eventually becomes offensive. Neurodivergent will no doubt be the same in ten years and it’ll be something like “person of abstract thought” or something.

This has powerful "Don't call me straight, I'm just normal" energy. There's nothing offensive about being called neurotypical FFS.

i suggest you visit here - Home (dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk) and do some research on the condition.

also this page - Dyspraxia at a glance – Dyspraxia Foundation

This is correct, my husband is skinny as a rake, takes ages to do physical tasks, cannot talk and do a task at the same time, he is clumsy and constantly hurting himself due to poor coordination etc.
His handwriting is like a 5 year olds, despite going to a private school and going to uni!
He struggles with making the bed, folding clothes or hanging them out. He can't cook complicated meals without disaster

Not contributing much but I adore 'person of abstract thought' and now hope it catches on. Describes my ADHD DS perfectly!

Wrong again!

There is no formal consensus on which conditions sit under the ND umbrella and anxiety, misophonia and slow processing speed are also often included. Not to mention acquired Neurodivergence such as a traumatic brain injury.

In my harsher, more cynical moments, I think my brother and SIL are just collecting letters for his son, my nephew.

Any slight difficulty - a visit to a doctor then a specialist and a few more letters.

In my kinder, and hopefully default setting, I realise that he does have problems and differences that need help and understanding.

In reality we all sit at various points of many many spectrums. Those points can alter with…. time, help, understanding, learning, coping, giving up, acceptance etc etc.

The thing is we are all different individuals.

Let’s get it out there! 😁

My apologies - I guess I’d best be telling the teams that diagnosed me at age 8, again at 17 and then again in my mid twenties (re-assessed for university and by occupational health) that they were wrong when they told me about the cognitive and social/emotional effects of dyspraxia 🙄

It affects a great deal more than coordination - I cannot cope with for example being in a supermarket due to the lights, noises (fridges, music, people, trolleys, tills), smells, expectations, other people and knowing how to move around them, do finding my way, the level of info I have to take in and understand, manoeuvring a trolley or basket and not dropping items and remembering why I went there in the first place.

That level of difficulty means I dissociate, or take a panic attack. I don’t think absolutely everyone else around me is experiencing that at all.

I don't believe i was silencing you. Your post remains there to be read. I wholeheartedly agree with deleting posts that use offensive slurs. The one you quoted was of an opinion that many people hold, and so it seems reasonable to keep it as part of the discussion. It contained no slurs and i see it as a valid contribution.

I think the wider knowledge of ND and NT is actually showing that more people than we thought are ND but have just adopted coping strategies to deal with it or hide it. Rather than ND being a minority, I'm starting to think it may be the majority after all!!

There was once a time the word “colour” was considered the “nice” word in a race context and now it very much is not (unless you’re in the US or SA where the contexts are different).

Really? That's news to me. That was never the right term - people just said it and got away with it,

'Person of colour' is not the same as the one you're referring to.

Dyspraxia: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment | Patient

This is also a useful resource.

I actually think this is why blanket terms like neurodiverse can have a bad affect, when you've literally got people on a thread spraffing absolute nonsense about dyspraxia which very much DOES affect thinking, ta very much. Which is why Clumsy Brian from Accounts really doesn't have it, now I'm on the subject.

We're all on a range - not a spectrum, a range - with our own individual strengths and weaknesses. Clumsy Brian might have two left feet and have never made the football team - he is below average when it comes to physical co-ordination. That doesn't make him special. It doesn't make him on a spectrum. It just makes him on a range of normal. But now he can appropriate a name for that, get a few pats, maybe even get some extra support at his work. He will never know the heart-breaking troubles of my diagnosed dyspraxic boy who has actual holes in his memory due to the affect it has on his executive functioning. Who also has the handwriting of a five year old. Who actually can't make his hands perform basic tasks like cutting. But you crack on Brian. You're totes disabled.

(I actually have no issues about anyone getting the help they need to thrive at work, I just wish that first of all someone could support my lovely boy to get and keep a job.)

personally i use the term neurospicy lol (yes i know people hate it) but i have more than one ND condition and its easier these days to just say i'm Neurospicy rather than reel off Autism/ADHD/OCD alongside the bunch of other idiot co-morbid conditions that research is proving go alongside them (like hypermobility)

Solidarity @fottfsofawygtfosm You are dealing with a lot and I see you.

@SwordToFlamethrower may I ask you why you linked your husband's skinniness to his dyspraxia? My lad is also seriously underweight and now I'm wondering if you see a link/reason for it for it that I could maybe work on? Don't answer if you'd rather not though

Why do you think you’re entitled to hear about our children’s diagnoses? With no other disability would anyone be so disparaging. If I said my son was deaf, would you be saying ‘oh parents say that but I bet their child simply isn’t trying to listen’.

I said my middle son was ‘ND’ for 5 years, until his diagnosis. Everyone knew he was autistic, but it’s not the done thing really to say that until it’s on paper. He stopped developing in all areas by the age of two, now at 6 is pretty much the same. Only speaks in repetition, has no conversation skills, little receptive language, doesn’t understand unless spoken to in short, instructional sentences, runs off, bangs himself in frustration, many other ‘classic’ ASD traits. When he didn’t have a diagnosis, what would you suggest I should have said to explain why he wasn’t like other children his age? My friend’s son still doesn’t have a diagnosis, completely non verbal, in SEN school (if you know anything about that, you’d know they only take the most severely disabled children as there’s no spaces - not even my previously mentioned son can get a place), will never be independent - how should his condition be described without an official diagnosis to someone as yourself without waffling?

autism is actually a triad of impairments, which not everybody is apart of. The claim that everyone is on the spectrum is a common but incorrect assumption which has become a modern fable.

autism can be comorbid with many other diagnosis - adhd, anorexia, pda, odd, anxiety, depression, ocd and so on. This means that any two people with autism are very different, like chalk and cheese. No two the same. To say everyone is on the spectrum is to minimise the experience of people with autism.

If that were the case, I don't think society and everything in it would be set up for people who don't have those struggles...

@BlueGrey1 it takes many years to get a diagnosis. Especially now - the waiting lists are 3 years and more.

What if you're an older adult woman who didnt know she is autistic? Has traits she doesn't understand very well yet because there isn't very much visibility for adult women on the spectrum, and its all very overwhelming? She doesn't understand it yet. Should she "fuck off" as well??

@SpeedyDrama

There are absolutely some genuine cases out there there is no denying that

But every second person seems to be claiming to be ND, very bored of hearing about it, the amount of celebrities claiming to ND is embarrassing