Some common and challenging signs of neurodiversity include: Social communication difficulties, such as trouble making eye contact while talking or not reading body language. Speech and language challenges, such as stuttering and repetition.
“You can choose to identify yourself as neurodivergent, but you should not unilaterally assign other people the label of neurodivergent. Not all individuals with a medical diagnosis like autism or ADHD self-identify as neurodivergent. There is also no standard for a 'neurotypical brain.
“With this definition, anxiety can be considered a form of neurodivergence, although it may not be as commonly recognized as ADHD, autism, or trauma,” she says. Many people utilize self-identification to categorize themselves as being neurodivergent, explains Claney.
Other types of neurodivergence include Tourette's, dyspraxia, synesthesia, dyscalculia, Down syndrome, epilepsy, and chronic mental health illnesses such as bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, and depression.
What is the most common type of neurodiversity? Among adults, dyslexia is the most common type of neurodivergent condition. Approximately 10% of adults are diagnosed with dyslexia. Around 4-5% of the population has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Other neurodivergent workers may thrive in tasks that require innovative, out-of-the-box and creative thinking. Their perspectives can help solve problems, create or improve products, and develop and support new ways of performing work and delivering services.
Neurodivergence. Noun: Cognitive functioning which is not considered "typical". For example, autistic, dyslexic, and dyspraxic people.
Being neurodivergent means having a brain that works differently from the average or “neurotypical” person. This may be differences in social preferences, ways of learning, ways of communicating and/or ways of perceiving the environment.
Neurotypicals learn things more quickly in the ways that information is currently typically presented, whereas neurodiverse people may find it harder to process facts presented in this form. The latter may need more training time or different approaches because their brains are wired differently.
Besides ADHD, neurodiversity commonly refers to people with: Autism spectrum disorder. Dyslexia.
Learning about neurodiversity can help you move the focus from impairments towards everyone's different abilities. It is thought that up to 15% of the population are thought to be neurodiverse. The remaining majority are neurotypical.
Neurodiversity is a scientific concept arising from brain imaging. A number of brain studies have shown that people with learning or thinking differences are “wired” differently than their peers. In other words, some children are born with brains that think, learn and process information differently than others.
Most people are neurotypical, meaning that the brain functions and processes information in the way society expects. However it is estimated that around 1 in 7 people (more than 15% of people in the UK) are neurodivergent, meaning that the brain functions, learns and processes information differently.
People with developmental, intellectual, psychiatric or learning differences can be considered neurodivergent. Neurodivergence is the state of being neurodivergent and can be genetic and innate (such as autism) or produced by experiences (such as trauma).
All types of brain functioning are valid, however, and none is inherently better or worse than another. Both neurodivergent and neurotypical people are part of neurodiversity. Neurodivergent people have brain function that is different from what is considered common or neurotypical by Western medicine.
Many neurotypicals (NTs) struggle with the idea that not everyone experiences the world in the same way they do — it likely comes from being part of the privileged majority, which can cause pathological behaviours.
Neurodivergent people tend to have high affective empathy and low cognitive empathy. The inverse is true for neurotypicals. (Some people have a high degree of both types of empathy, because they have practiced and learned the type that does not come as naturally to them.)
The word “neurotypical” describes someone who thinks and processes information in ways that are typical within their culture. They tend to learn skills and reach developmental milestones around the same time as their peers.
Since they are constructed socially and individually, everyone can experience or present them in different ways. This applies to neurodivergent people as well. With regards to people with autism, some claim that they do not feel empathy or emotion. This notion is entirely false.