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! 🙂

Discuss ..
Yeah I would of done had you not wrote discuss

I have seen quite a few threads on fibromyalgia but obviously it's a lot less well known than autism so less threads will be created about it.

I didn't say the assessment wasn't thorough, it is extremely thorough and detailed. My argument is that it is fundamentally based on our very patchy understanding of autism and how the brain functions and the way that the assessment is conducted means that it is somewhat subjective. It simply isn't as definitive as undertaking a blood test to check if you have diabetes etc. The fact that the assessment seems so thorough and 'accurate' is what gives a false sense of certainty.

Ha, I also hate it when posters say ‘discuss’. Like they are giving me my weekend homework to prepare.

Yes it is odd when they get personally offended by perusing a diagnosis, whilst also not wanting to hear terms to overarch our child’s disabilities before getting said diagnosis. With my eldest, he was actually dropped from the paediatrician - it was the school that essentially begged me to fight it (it wasn’t that I disagreed, just felt very deflated for my poor boy). The first paediatrician we saw actually drew a line and said ‘if your son is autistic he’s up here (close to typical) so is there any point?’. By the time he went to ASD panel the level of medical/school/psych evidence given was piles high, a very different story from what that first doctor saw two years previously.

People have no idea the level of work and the years it takes to have autism recognised. In the flip side, same son was diagnosed with ADHD within one appointment after the school filled in some paperwork for the consultant. Both conditions affect my eldest in equal measure but the fight for recognition was like night and day.

Agree, drives me a bit mad - everyone seems to be (admittedly self diagnosed) nd these days, and most seem to think they should be given special treatment consequently, I'm sympathetic to those with diagnosed serious issues related to their nd eg those who are autistic and have resulting problems but complaining that her dd should jump the queue into our playgroup because she's neurodivergent (the mum not the child) but on requesting had no formal diagnosis, no social services request etc, that was an hour ago.

We all can struggle with certain things, nd just seems to be fashionable currently. How about accepting everyone is different, everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and restrict diagnosis to those who have significant difficulties resulting from their condition

@ronoi I can see it going exactly the same way with my DD in front of my very eyes. It's so difficult.

I'm also in exactly the same position as you personally. In fact I could have written your second paragraph. Sending solidarity.

I have reported it too but highly doubt it will be removed. It was only yesterday I posted a thread about benefits bashing and ableist bullshit on here, ADHD and ASD seem fair game too on Mumsnet recently and people dont even try to hide their distain, its getting quite vile being on here and reading it all the time.

Exactly right. Nobody has to keep justifying their physical disabilities and the ignorance on MN recently has reached a new high.

www.instagram.com/reel/C0R8x8ssrWY/?igsh=dWg5cGJiZmZjZ3h4

I think it’s overused and often not from a diagnosed standpoint which dilutes its meaning for me.

Off topic but my real pet hate of misused labels is narcissistic. Every other annoying DH is apparently a narc!

Of course nobody is diagnosed as NT in the same way that nobody is diagnosed as 'not having cancer' or 'not having heart failure:. The assumption is that if you get checked for a condition and don't meet the criteria then you don't have it. If you don't have a diagnosis for a ND condition then by default you are considered NT. It is absolutely that binary.

You will see time and time again that there is a strong feeling, especially amongst the diagnosed community, that you can't self identify as having a condition no matter how much the traits and symptoms impact your life.

Obviously this would make perfect sense with a physical condition where for example a blood test shows you don't have diabetes. Someone then going on to claim that they dod indeed have the condition would be viewed with a lot of scepticism. But when it comes to my relative who struggles with quite extreme autistic traits but doesn't quite meet the threshold in all areas... I'm not so sure that our science and understanding of the brain is good enough to definitively state he isn't autistic. He wouldn't meet the threshold for any other ND condition so therefore would be considered NT for all intents and purposes. I'm sure you would agree this is wrong and casts doubt on whether the obsession with distinguishing between the 'NT' and 'ND' is massively helpful.

How do you know it's overused? Are you a diagnosing clinician?

I've learnt that you're not allowed to talk like that on MN. You get told off.
Back in the real world though, when you have a group of individuals with high needs, some non verbal, lots in head guards, lots prone to wandering off or approaching people, stimming severely, talking to themselves (echolalia) and who just generally need to be kept safe. The easiest and most efficient way of describing that group, to say a venue you are taking them (to people who don't spend their time being told off 'educated' online) is to say they are autistic and have high needs or they are severely autistic.
If I were to say to somebody that my son is neurodivergent, it really wouldn't reflect the level of support he needs.
As we learn more and more about the human condition, all of the difficulties that come under being ND, it is very presumptions to describe a person as neurotypical.
So, if people want to describe themselves as ND, that's fine by me. Equally if they see themselves as autistic as the people I've described above, thats their choice and I wont argue with them. But not everyone will agree that their needs or autism is as severe. Different labels of severity are needed for different groups.

You’re conflicting the point in your own post. No one denies there’s different level of needs and support within autism, it’s simply the condition itself doesn’t come under ‘mild, moderate or severe’. Anyone with autism can be at different points of severity and support needs in their lifetime, though those with additional needs/learning disabilities with autism will typically need high support throughout their life. And I’d tell that in the ‘real world’ as well.

Interestingly, it looks like the sociologist who first used the word "neurodiverse" and some nero-scientists interviewed in this article would agree that the terms NT and ND have evolved in a way that isn't particularly helpful: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191008-why-the-normal-brain-is-just-a-myth

But not everyone will agree that their needs or autism is as severe.

Clearly some people (like my 22 year old dd) have very high care needs.

But it's really not for people uneducated on the subject to decide that their own snapshot view of a person means they are lying about their own struggles or pretending to be autistic.

There is a say about 'mild autism' is only mild to the people who don't have it themselves. People in this group are often spending their whole lives masking which severely impacts their mental health and causes other functioning problems.

There is a threshold for an autism diagnosis and it absolutely is not mild or moderate. as it has to impact your life hugely for you to have a diagnosis so nobody can be mildly or moderately autistic.

Where is the data for the alleged massive diagnostic increase?

It’s impossible to separate into groups eg my dd has high needs but is verbal. There are non verbal people with autism that don’t have her high needs. Both sets reach the threshold of autism and are autistic.

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

There is no such thing as 'very mild' autism. Your daughter is autistic.

Sorry, I did try (4 hours ago), but got this reply from MNHQ just now:

"Thanks, but that's a no, sorry, because too many people have referred to it. As it happens, it's not something we're bothered about, we remember it from school as well, but there does appear to be a broad consensus that it's off-putting.Never mind, you'll know for next time!"

The huge increase in diagnosis of autism is undeniable. There are a plethora of sources that will back this up but this study shows a huge jump from the late 90s.

A 2021 study found that there was a 787% exponential increase in the number of people who were diagnosed with autism between 1998 and 2018 in the UK. The groups that experienced the steepest increases in autism diagnoses were women and adults

OP, as someone with two neurodiverse conditions, the idea that whether I can describe my reality, as assessed by a psychologist, is up for a cheery debate is deeply offensive.

You wouldn't have a thread stating that "I've got a slight twinge in my knee, therefore we're all a bit physically disabled", so why you (or anyone else) finds it acceptable to discuss neurodiversity in this way is baffling.

I’ve been reading about The Power Threat Meaning Framework. A lot of Psychologists are of the opinion that disorder labelling is outdated and that everyone of us experiences emotional distress to varying degrees.

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.

It acknowledges that emotional distress is a reaction to how the world is. That the world is distressing and humans are reacting to it, not broken.

Really interesting stuff.

Read:

The power Threat Meaning Framework

Watch:

It is being diagnosed more. That doesn't mean that people are pretending to be autistic.

I'm autistic and so are various other women I went to school with and we all have autistic children but we weren't diagnosed ourselves until adulthood. It's genetic.

Hi @abominablesnowman,
Thanks very much for flagging this "this forum itself has a section that is incorrectly titled as 'Neurodiverse Mumsnetters' when it should be 'Neurodivergent'", we'll look into it from our end.

As to the thread itself, it doesn’t appear inherently offensive or ableist for expressing a perspective on the usage and implications of terms like 'neurodiverse' and 'neurotypical'. From what we can see the OP is considering the idea that a binary distinction may become oversimplified as our understanding evolves.

We absolutely appreciate and understand that perspectives may vary but ultimately we want to host open and respectful discussions with the hope they lead to a better understanding.

Describing all discussions that may broach these issues as here to ‘stir up ableism’ etc just isn't in that spirit. There are many posters here who have ASD or parent or love someone who does and have interesting perspectives to offer.

Posters are always welcome to challenge those perspectives, we are a discussion site after all, but we must ask that they do so without contravening our long-standing guidelines. And of course please do continue to report any posts that concern you.

Thanks to those who have done so already, we couldn't do this job without you.

So in your opinion, clinical depression doesn't exist? 🤔

I prefer to not give it a second thought as it's not helpful to label people in such a way.