It’s a term that’s being thrown around a lot and the definitions I hear seem to go from very broad to very specific.
To add to that, is epilepsy considered neurodivergent? Some sources say yes, some say no, and I’m quite confused.
In: 7
Basically it just means having a brain that is physically different from the “normal” human brain.
The reason there is variation there is because not everyone agrees just how narrow to define normal in the case of a human brain. Generally speaking, in modern science we prefer to define normal in a broad enough sense that anyone capable of leading a fairly normal life without major accommodation can be considered normal.
Simply put, you will not get a single simple answer because there is no agreement on what that answer would be.
As an autistic person, I’d say it’s like a computer came off the line with custom assembly that makes no sense.
One processor is cutting edge, but the other three are substandard. The fans can’t keep up so it tends to overheat and crash almost daily. The microphone is super sensitive and I can’t find the controls to adjust it. The speakers lag a couple seconds behind the feed and for some reason there’s facial recognition software on this thing that the FBI might be interested in, but the camera sucks!
Tldr: no set definition leads to confusion and differing opinions on what it is. A good all rounder definition could be
“Neurodiversity is the concept that there are a variety of ways that people’s brains process information, function, and present behaviorally. Rather than thinking there is something wrong or problematic when some people don’t operate similarly to others, neurodiversity embraces all differences”
Fuller explanation:
There isn’t a set definition for it and it’s a relatively new term.
Generally it’s someone who is neurologically different from the typical person (neurotypical people).
The confusion happens with the definition because some people will only include those who have some kind of variation in their brain processing of their surroundings that hasn’t been caused by illness or injury and would be something that their brain was like from birth or at least first or second year of life. By this way of looking at it you’re mainly including such things like dyslexia, dyspraxia, autistic spectrum condition, adhd, etc. It’s all about how the person processes the input they get from the world &/ or their response to it. It suggests a difference in cognition, not a deficit or dysfunction
You then get a more expanded/wider definition, that it is anyone who’s brain and neurology is different from the typical. So this includes due to illness and injury as a cause, and that more people become neurodivergent with age. So this would include things such as epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke, Alzheimer’s, etc
So as you can see, the answer to is epilepsy a form of neurodivergence is yes and no, depending on your definition used
Personally I quite like this definition; “Neurodivergence is the term for when someone’s brain processes, learns, and/or behaves differently from what is considered “typical.”
Is being neurodivergent bad?:
I will add that neurodivergence is a good word overall as it does not imply something is wrong or that there is only negatives to it. In the realm of asc, adhd, dyscalcula, dyslexia, problems arise from how modern life it.
600 years ago it wouldn’t matter if you struggled with learning to read or do anything beyond simple adding and subtracting, because most people couldn’t read and most didn’t need to do those kind of sums.
Likewise those with autism (I mean the milder end with no intellectual disability and can live independently). People with autism tend to struggle with social interactions and many would perhaps prefer a life with limited social interaction. That’s fine when the majority of people are farmers and that you can work on your own. And since many people with autism develop intense interests in one thing, if they found that thing that they liked, they would become experts. So they could be the best blacksmith or cobbler for miles (this still happens today, but in a different way).
Likewise people with adhd. Despite the name one trait of adhd is that they can become hyperfocused at times, especially if it’s something of particular interest, so those are traits that would lead to certain lifestyles just like asc would. Also there is some evidence that adhd may have made someone a more efficient hunter-gatherer before we developed farming
This article looks quite good at explaining
Neurodivergence is a broad, poorly defined term that has only come into common usage very recently. It does, however, serve an important purpose. IT basically refers to any difference in thinking/learning/processing information/mental function from what we would, on average, consider baseline.
his matters because the world we exist in is designed to cater to a mental profile that we, at some point, decided “Normal” people have. People who struggle to fit into that mold are different. Does your brain get overwhelmed in crowds? do you have trouble staying on task for 8 hours at work? do you have trouble learning from lectures? the list goes on and on. ND is a way to express this idea.
Of course, this leads to a question that, not long ago, would have been unthinkable. Are Neurodivergent people “Defective”, or did we actually design a world for a subset, and in fact this sort of mental diversity is Natural. For a lot of us, the latter seems more likely. It’s no secret that a HUGE percentage of the population has some Neurodivergence. ADHD. ASD. ADD. OCD. Dyslexia. Dyscalcula. Bipolar. Anxiety. The list goes on and on. More and more, it seems like maybe we got it backwards all along.
There’s no one definition for the term.
Originally it referred pretty much only to autism, but the got extended to similar ‘conditions’ of mankind: namely ADHD, dyslexia etc: Stuff that you are born with, that have a fluid distribution from ‘neurotypical’ to drastically affected in daily life.
So inherent differences in how a brain processes outside stimuli could be definition for that use of the term neurodivergent.
Which is especially relevant in people with adhd or autism who aren’t inherently ‘disabled’ but sollte having trouble due to their environment/modern society.
Getting easily overstimulated for example isn’t at all a problem for a human in general. If you live in a tribal society, there’d just be no comparable situation to having to travel on crowded noisy public transport etc.
Same with more minor executive dysfunction in ADHD: it’s a problem when stuff needs to follow very rigid time based structuring. But again isn’t a problem when there’s really only emergency events or doing stuff whenever you are motivated to.
Recent developments have neurodivergent being used for virtually all psychological disorders/ and at that point it really becomes totally meaningless.
There is no inherent difference between a neurotypical, and that same neurotypical going through a depressive episode.
Like the depression isn’t inherent to that person, like dyslexia; autism etc are.
Really at that point were you Lob in all psychiatric diagnosis and even random neurological ones, the word becomes utterly useless.
Basically: epilepsy is just a full on disorder. Seizures are not at all related to society and differences in the ways someone thinks. They are literally unregulated of large numbers of neurons. Like there’s a straight up easy to note physical cause for the disease.
Neurodivergence came up as a term by autism advocated exactly to describe the parts that make someone different, that aren’t inherently diseases/damage etc.
Same with ADHD, or dyslexia like things.
That’s why having a term as a short hand to group people together who have a mental frame work that differs from that displayed by the ‘normal’ ie neurotypical society is useful.
Once you lump it together with epilepsy, MDD, etc you are basically making neurodivergent a 100% equal synonym for ‘psychiatry and neurology’
Neurodivergence in itself isn’t something that inherently needs to be cured.
But this also doesn’t mean that there’s degrees of severity on say the autism spectrum that don’t also inherently cause suffering.
ELI 5. Hey, you and I are different in some ways. What color are you eyes? What color are mine? See how my big toe is shaped? How is yours shaped? Are we both awesome people? Yup, we are different and we are both awesome. Did you know our brains can be different too? Some brains have different talents and weaknesses. Some people’s brains learn things quickly or more slowly. Other people’s brains remembering things better than others and other people’s brains can be forgetful. My brain struggles to remember names. Remember how many times I got yours wrong? And you? I’ve seen you pay attention to make super tiny detail on your drawings. That is neurodiversity.”
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