Just the title. Trying to understand what would genuinely suffice for somebody to be diagnosed as neurodivergent.
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Neurodivergence is an umbrella term for a group of diagnoses such as Autism and ADHD. It is not a diagnosis in itself. To get a diagnosis of one of these you have to go to a specialist (usually a psychiatrist in the UK) who decides if you fit the diagnostic criteria. Each neurodivergence has its own diagnostic criteria that has been developed over time and is reviewed/updated periodically (so someone might not have the same diagnosis through their whole lives).
People started using neurodivergence because a lot of individuals with these diagnoses argue that Autism, ADHD etc are not illnesses to be treated but differences in brain types that should be considered reasonable variations in what humans can be and given respect as such.
A lot of it comes from discussions about disability and whether the person is disabled by their impairments/conditions or if the impairments/conditions are just variations that are turned into disabilities by a society that doesn’t like them. These are often described as medical v social models of disability.
IMO neurodivergent is a more respectful and inclusive term when used generally as it recognises how narrow the ideals of ‘normal’ are in our world and how limited diagnoses can actually be in practice.
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