3 ms·

I think neurotypical accurately describes people who don't have neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, Schizophrenia, or Autism. There are distinct brain archi

I think neurotypical accurately describes people who don't have neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, Schizophrenia, or Autism. There are distinct brain architectures involved here; autistics generally have statistically significant reduced brain activity in response to the human face compared to neurotypical people. This is a bit like arguing that because some people learn to read slower than others, or learn to read by sounding out the words vs memorizing consonants, that dyslexia shouldn't be differentiated from non-dyslexic people. Of course you can be varied and neurotypical. There are neurotypical people who focus well and some who struggle with that a bit more. There are some people who struggle to read facial expressions and others that can accurately guess nuances. But that doesn't mean that they're not neurotypical, and that their internal experiences aren't more widely represented and reflected in the cultural norm.

brnaftr361 4y ago
I'm leaning more towards the fact that umbrella terms like "neurotypical" are setting forward something that doesn't exist, and that everyone has some aberrant wiring. I just find that a lot of this tends to boil down to people scree-ing at one another, coming up with broad generalizations, boxing themselves and others... It should be "normal" to be different - 'cause that's the reality, even if you're in the tails. And to be fair, I did add a caveat where... "Clinically" severe cases probably do need some formalities. It just seems like, reading through the DSM, knowing clinical therapists, and having my own deal of insight on these matters that we're (society) actually pathologizing functional people. That we're giving people language and identities to fixate on or to affix onto others and we do it in a way that is inconsistent even at the clinical level.

brnaftr361 4y ago

I'm leaning more towards the fact that umbrella terms like "neurotypical" are setting forward something that doesn't exist, and that everyone has some aberrant wiring. I just find that a lot of this tends to boil down to people scree-ing at one another, coming up with broad generalizations, boxing themselves and others... It should be "normal" to be different - 'cause that's the reality, even if you're in the tails. And to be fair, I did add a caveat where... "Clinically" severe cases probably do need some formalities. It just seems like, reading through the DSM, knowing clinical therapists, and having my own deal of insight on these matters that we're (society) actually pathologizing functional people. That we're giving people language and identities to fixate on or to affix onto others and we do it in a way that is inconsistent even at the clinical level.