Neurodiversity: An insider’s perspective

The neurodiversity movement has historically been led by and composed of autistic and other neurodivergent advocates and activists, with little involvement from neurotypical stakeholders. Now, as the neurodiversity movement gains traction within the wider autism community, we are beginning to see a positive shift in attitudes towards autism in neurotypical stakeholders. Strengths-based approaches to intervention and support are increasingly accepted as best practice, and treatment goals are increasingly focused on issues of key concern for the autistic community, as opposed to the normalisation of autistic people. The activism of neurodiversity advocates has gained recognition from leading autism researchers (Nicolaidis, 2012; Pellicano and Stears, 2011), and the neurodiversity paradigm informs the work of collaborative research teams such as the US-based Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE), Australia’s Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC) and the United Kingdom’s Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE).
But as with any social justice movement, the neurodiversity movement is not without critics. As an advocate of the neurodiversity paradigm, I welcome informed and respectful debate regarding my beliefs and activism. The neurodiversity movement is, arguably, still in its infancy. Dishearteningly, though, as more members of the autism community become aware of the neurodiversity movement, I find myself encountering not nuanced and sophisticated criticism, but instead a swathe of misinformed arguments against a fictional conceptualisation of ‘neurodiversity’ that is not the paradigm to which I subscribe. Misinformation about neurodiversity is perhaps compounded by the proliferation of autism researchers, professionals, parents and even autistic people adopting what has been described as ‘neurodiversity lite’ (Neumeier, 2018): employing the rhetoric of the neurodiversity movement without fully understanding the assumptions that are the foundation of the neurodiversity paradigm. While it is encouraging to see the wider autism community embracing the concept of neurodiversity, in order to truly facilitate the evolution of the neurodiversity movement, it is vital that all its proponents – and, just as importantly, critics –have a deep and nuanced understanding of its key assumptions.