The neurodiversity concept viewed through an autistic lens

Extract from abstract:

In The Lancet Psychiatry, Edmund Sonuga-Barke and Anita Thapar highlight an important area for both clinical and academic practice. The debate between a medical view on autism (ontologically grounded in positivism) and a social view (more closely aligned with constructivism) is a longstanding issue in the academic literature and wider societal discourse. The neurodiversity movement in particular (a social view) has been growing in popularity and influence since it was first proposed by Judy Singer in 1998.2 Neurodiversity challenges us to reframe our view of neurodevelopmental conditions away from one of disorder and towards one of difference and diversity.1 Sonuga-Barke and Thapar provide a helpful overview of the basics of the neurodiversity perspective for non-specialist readers. The language is new to many and there is some excellent pre-existing literature summarising the movement and terminology, including the explanation that individuals are neurodivergent and populations consisting of neurodivergent and neurotypical people are neurodiverse. Grammatically speaking, one cannot be neurodiverse as an individual.

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