What You Need to Know About Neurodiversity

[firemonkey]

What You Need to Know About Neurodiversity

I’m not sure I agree with the overly simplistic attitude of it’s either a curse or a blessing to be neurodiverse. Some people who are neurodiverse excel while others really struggle and can not live independently. For many of us it’s a balance of strengths and weaknesses. For those of us of an older generation who’ve never had our neurodiversity recognised it’s meant going without help and support for those difficulties . Being seen innaccurately solely through the lens of a psychiatric diagnosis due to mental health problems that developed from peer group and societal reactions to our neurodiversity . As my not too intelligent housemaster once said when I was being bullied “Some boys are the type to be bullied”, as though that excused the bullying.

The way forward should be to encourage and foster strengths while providing support for the things we struggle with. To stop seeing it simplistically as a blessing vs a curse.

[Sezbot241]

Very interesting. My sister has Asbergers Syndrome but was raised as a normal child. She never went to a special school - normal school and received a little extra support there from an aide earlier on. She completed high school on her own with average marks. I couldn’t be more proud of her for accomplishing this really as it must be hard being on the back foot and trying to excel in a system that isn’t always geared to recognize your uniqueness. I would never see her as disabled. She lives independently, earns her own money, has a job and is actually more sociable than me. There is a lot you can do for autistic spectrum kids these days as well as those with ADD and ADHD.