What is Neurodiversity?
Neurodiversity refers to the various ways the human brain works and how brain development and functioning form our individual personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and interests. The term is also often used when we talk about learning disabilities such as Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, and Dyscalculia. Different ages, genders, ethnicities, cultures, and sexual orientations are also part of Neurodiversity. Basically, every person on the planet is relevant to the topic of Neurodiversity, whether their brain wiring is “standard” or not.
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Neurodiverse or Neurodivergent?
There can be a lot of misunderstanding and ambiguity surrounding the terms Neurodiverse and Neurodivergent, and people easily get them mixed up. The truth is we’re all Neurodiverse. However, the term itself doesn’t focus on one person’s differences specifically but on the differences in everyone’s brain development and functioning in general. Neurodivergent, on the other hand, refers to someone with differences in brain development and functioning outside of what is considered “standard”. People often describe a person with a learning disability such as Autism as Neurodiverse, which is not incorrect but also not detailed enough. As discussed at the start, Neurodiversity relates to all of us. However, a person with Autism, for example, is Neurodivergent as their brain development and functioning differ from the standard Neurodiversities of people’s brains.
A simple way to distinguish both terms from one another is to think of a magnifying glass. When the magnifying glass is zoomed out, we see more items or patterns in less detail, but we can see their diversity. When the magnifying glass is zoomed in, we see a single item or pattern in more detail. We can see differences that we couldn’t see when the magnifying glass was zoomed out. We can see any divergence in detail.
Supporting each other
As more differences in brain development and functioning are accepted in today’s society, it’s vital to understand and use the terms above correctly to ensure that there is no miscommunication when it comes to meeting different people’s support needs. It’s also important to recognise that everyone’s preferences, views, wants and needs are totally valid unless they’re harmful to others or there’s evidence to prove they’re factually incorrect.
Neurodiversity and Neurodivergence may seem like vast and complex subjects upon reading this. However, they’re more straightforward than we think. The keys are communicating effectively and reserving our judgment. Using a magnifying glass to see the individual and being supportive rather than dismissive will give people more confidence to ask for support, and providing the right help will also make us feel better.
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