I do wonder whether though it’s more of a spectrum than a binary thing, and if so, that’s an important thing to recognise, so that people who feel they have some autistic or ADHD traits can more easily find methods to help them get along. In a way, for those scenarios, formal diagnosis is irrelevant, as it’s more about people finding coping mechanisms for things they find difficult, regardless of why that may be. That can only be positive, can’t it?
I don’t deny though, those experiences are completely different to those with severe diagnoses who really do struggle to fit into education, employment and lead a normal life without substantial support, and they shouldn’t all be lumped in the same category, as the differences in challenges are obviously immense, and I think all the noise around neurodiversity also don’t think think that all those FB reels and Tik Tok videos about “things that people with ADHD do” etc are remotely helpful, as they encourage people to self diagnose without necessarily pointing them to coping mechanisms and tools which might actually help them, rather than just setting people up to pigeonhole themselves.
The other issue is of course that the debates around SEND reform, disability benefits and PIP tend to focus on the explosion of recent autism and ADHD diagnoses, which certain commentators love to dismiss the very real impact they can have on learning and people’s employment prospects, and use them as a kind of “Aunt Sally” to argue that money and support isn’t needed for people with disabilities, because I guess that neurodiversity is seen as a lot easier to shoot down than physical or learning disabilities.
But given all that, I don’t see that increased recognition of neurodiversity should be anything but positive….in an ideal world perhaps, anyway.