What do you think of "Neurodiversity"?

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I have a son with ASD that was in speech therapy for seven years. He was also good at math at first. However, his grades started to drop in high school.

I'm not sure if anyone here knows this, but Neurodiversity means that Asperger's and Autism are supposed to beneficial I think. He likes looking up information online, and eventually, he discovered a phenomenon called "Einstein Syndrome" which resembles Asperger's, but the people with it outgrow their symptoms and become highly social. This seems to better describe famous figures in STEM like Albert Einstein in our opinions.

What are your experiences with your kids and ND, if at all? What do you think?

It seems like you're asking three questions here.

1. What do we think about neurodiversity?
2. What do we think about Einstein Syndrome?
3. What do we think about your son's grades dropping in high school?

Neurodiversity - I have mixed thoughts about the movement. I read the book "Neurotribes." It was extremely interesting. The author does seem to put forward the idea that autistic people have a lot to offer, and *that* is why society should make accommodations. While I think *some* autistic people may be able to make significant contributions to society at large, I think it is unfair to communicate that this should be an expectation. Accommodations should be made because autistic people are PEOPLE. Without any other reason, without any other expectation.

What if an autistic person has a special interest in something that regular society doesn't value? What if an autistic person *CHOOSES* not to "get out there" and do something amazing? What if an autistic person just doesn't have this savant ability that now the whole society is expecting him or her to have? I am afraid that neurodiversity will cause society to have unrealistic expectations of autistic people and society may become "angry" when autistic people don't perform. Autistic people are not circus animals.

It's kind of like thinking "Smart women should be educated *because* they can contribute so much to the work force", and then getting mad when a smart woman *chooses* to stay home and raise her children. People look down on those women with disdain because they are "wasting their potential."

How about we just treat ALL HUMANS like HUMANS and respect all!

OK, next topic.. I know nothing about the Einstein Syndrome. Never heard of it before now, can't comment.

Next topic...son's grades dropping in high school...

I was labeled gifted as a kid. My IQ registered over 140. In elementary school and middle school, I whizzed right through. In high school and into college, I still did well, but things got MUCH HARDER. I still maintained As and Bs in mostly honors classes, but it was a great struggle. I started out in honors English 9, but was not recommended for honors English 10. I still continued in honors math and science, but I certainly was not at the top of my class (not at the bottom, either.)

My son is highly gifted, too. (I think we are both on the spectrum, but we are not diagnosed.) In a conversation with my mother several years ago, she made some kind of comment about smart kids slowing down as they get older. I found that comment bizarre, and I realized later she was referring to me having more academic struggles in high school. Her comment did not jive with what I felt was going on in my head, or my experience with my son. My son has not slowed down, and I know that in myself, my *ability to learn* did not slow down, although my grades dropped a little.

I look back on my struggles now and recognize difficulty with executive functioning problems and a couple of things in English and math (grammar and a couple of topics in math) that could have used some TLC and a slight amount of tutoring to help me overcome a hump. In math, I got bogged down if I didn't understand a detail. I could not wrap my brain around logarithms. Because I could not *understand* them, I couldn't move on. Finally, my dad had to say "just memorize the steps for doing the problem and quit trying to understand them." The reason why I wasn't recommended for honors English 10 was because I didn't understand grammar all that well, my syntax was a little weird, and I didn't use enough active verbs. It had nothing to do with the actual logic of my writing or my ability to understand the literature. I challenged my lack of recommendation and took up the issue with the department chair. In one 10 minute session, she helped me understand the difference between active and passive verbs and my writing was changed forever. But, because of the potential stress of the class, I chose not to accept her override into the honors class.

My point is this...find out why his grades are dropping. I had an extremely hard time managing my papers and keeping track of everything. I constantly left books at school when I needed them for homework, left my (finished) homework at home, forgot about tests/quizzes (esp. in college), stressed about getting assignments done on time, etc. I was the quintessential student that turned in an A paper that was crumpled from being stuck at the bottom of my bookbag. To maintain As and Bs, I was basically fighting a hard battle with myself. If I had even greater struggles, I'm sure my grades would have dropped even more, no matter how smart I was.

If I had more help with EF skills and some tutoring in a few topics in English and math, my grades (though they did not drop a LOT) would have soared, and I probably would have had less academic stress. But smart kids are seen as having no problems. Instead of seeing that I might benefit from some one-on-one instruction, my mom said "smart kids slow down." Instead of being seen as someone who struggles with organization, I was considered lazy and irresponsible.

Intellect can hide a lot of real struggles. Find out what the problem is and get your son appropriate help.

Sorry this was so long.

I have not read the Neurodiversity book, but I think i have heard enough about it to understand the concept.

I also remember that in one of Temple Grandin's books, she talks about having a brain scan to participate in a study; it was discovered that the part of her brain that controls muscle coordination being about 20% smaller than most people's, while her visual pathways were shown to have far more connections than average. The way she explained it, it made sense that if she had a normal sense of physical coordination, her brain would not have room for her visual gifts.

So...it makes sense to me that we should not discount the fact that a disability in one area may make way for a talent in another. But i agree with Nerdygirl that we should, above all, value autistic people as people--not on performance. Then what about those who can't perform, or choose not to fit into society's model of performance? It opens a can of worms there, if we are valuing autistic people on performance and contributions to society only.

I too was labeled gifted in school. I had executive function issues from elementary school on. I also had trouble seeing the big picture for the details and a lot of times just didn't understand concepts. Math was a real struggle and still is. I can add a column of numbers 3 times and get 3 different answers, or put 2 numbers together, change a number accidentally that messes up the sum or difference by a couple hundred...and not realize it was wrong til i get the calculator out. My husband has told me not to try to add up the checkbook ever! without a calculator. And even then i have to be extremely careful.

But English/spelling/reading was where i could shine. I still have a giant Webster's dictionary on my bookshelf that i won in an all-school spelling bee in 8th grade. It was pretty much a piece of cake, i could spell just about any word in my vocabulary with ease at that time in my life. And i knew all the words in an elementary school spelling bee. Now there are some words i have difficulty with, but not many and it is always with a new word that i have not used much. My gifted assessment was on my verbal, reading, English, and vocab skills. I absolutely loved diagramming sentences...stuff like that. It came very naturally.

But because of the executive function issues and difficulty with concepts and big pictures of things, i made A's and B's with the occasional C thrown in. I often got the "not working up to her potential" on teachers' reports. They looked at my tested high I.Q., looked at my performance, and labeled me lazy. Nobody in my life understood executive function problems at the time.

High school was also harder because it was so much larger and noisier. Lots more people and a lot of sensory overload. Although i got that in elementary school at times too. Seemed like i could not organize my thoughts at school although my room at home was usually in immaculate order. That was my calm in the chaos of my mind.

Hope this is helpful. Sounds like your son has some issues with uneven skills, attention, or executive function...or maybe a combination of them. I would talk to the guidance counselor or someone at school who can work with him on making a plan to address the issues.

Hmmm. It seems that when people talk about neurodiversity, they are often not talking about the same thing.

I found this helpful when I started to explore the idea of neurodiversity: http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neurodi ... finitions/

Very interesting and long responses. I will have to think about all that.

I have mixed feelings based on reading these forums. On the one hand I like the idea of valuing differences among people. On the other hand I don't understand why people are offended when parents wish for a cure for their children. I think at the heart of this is the level of functioning. If a person is high functioning they learn to live with autism and like the positives that it can bring such as independence of peer pressure, honesty, logical thinking etc. On the other hand I don't see how people would refuse a cure despite having sensory issues or inability to communicate. Of course its hard to judge from the outside looking in. Still the basic concept of loving yourself for who you are is appealing.

Who you are is a package, so I think there is a difference between someone saying they wish they could function better socially and wishing s/he is NT. One way is basic self-improvement and one is saying you don't like yourself for who you are. In addition, depending on what your individual situation is like, you may feel like most of your issues are due to discrimination and that wishing to be NT is like wishing to be white or heterosexual mainly to avoid discrimination.

It is controversial because depending on what array of strengths and weaknesses one has, one may not want to trade the weaknesses away if one had to also give away the corresponding strengths and a unique way of looking at things. On the other hand, some would be willing to do it b/c of how difficult or unhappy their lives are. It is a very personal thing and any blanket statement is likely inadequate or will offend someone.

If you value your autistic self, you may be offended by people saying they think autistics should want to be cured b/c it implies your true self is not good enough. If you are dealing with some very difficult functional issues or are unhappy, you may resent people telling you how to feel. Maybe you don't feel like embracing your autism, just b/c someone tells you to. If you are responsible for someone who is autistic, you may worry about his/her future and happiness and maybe you use "cure" to mean you wish your loved ones problems would go away.

It usually winds up being a discussion that ends up dividing people rather than clarifying.

I think neurodiversity is one of those things that is great in principle but really f*****g terrible in practise.

My experience with it with regards to my kids is that the movement does not include my kids at all, which is a part of the problem here. Mine are lower functioning. The movement excludes them by saying their problems are all due to other factors. They say that my eldest son is intellectually disabled, and his problems are due to ID, not autism. This is a total cop-out because the evidence suggests that he actually isn't intellectually disabled and his problems ARE due to autism. But that just doesn't work with their idea that autism is great.

The defense against the claim I just made is always "I know a LFA person who types to communicate and they say they don't want a cure". Ok. But it seems to me that those people would automatically be in a different category than the LFA people who can't type…because they can communicate! Only being able to communicate by typing is not the same as not being able to communicate at all. And there are MANY, MANY who cannot communicate. What about them? Why should we speak for them? I think we should focus on finding ways to teach these people to communicate so that they can tell us themselves. But of course that requires us to acknowledge that autism is not all sunshine and butterflies, which the ND movement won't to do.

Neurodiversity, of course, is about accepting that people have alternative means to arriving at useful solutions.