Who hijacked the neurodiversity definition and why?

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So, what term do you think I should use?

1. I cannot use neurodivergent since then I would need to give everybody that answers a single "autistic" item positively that judgement. I couldn't present scores either, since neurodivergent is a yes/no issue.

2. I cannot use Aspie since then some people will believe I refer to Asperger's syndrome, which I certainly don't

3. I cannot use broader autism phenotype since many other "labels" are included too.

I could use "Neanderthal" though.



Not at all. The two are basically identical. The two factors of Aspie Quiz covers 2/3 of human diversity. It's pretty hard to come up with something that has absolutely no relation to it, although "lack of imagination" comes close.

In fact, did you ever wonder why both the MTBI and Big Five have the introvert-extrovert dimension? Turns out that introvert is rather strongly correlated to neurodiversity, and so as long as you include this dimension, you could add about anything else and still get a reasonable "personality test". Still, when you run it with Aspie Quiz items, everything will fall apart.

Actually, Aspie Quiz typically have a cronbach alpha of .97, and with low intercorrelation between items. Something that no other test I know of can replicate. Generally, a high cronbach alpha typically means you have high intercorrelations between items.



It can easily revert back to full "refrigerator mother" state.

It can start by accepting some traits and not others. For instance, being asexual and LGBT is acceptable today, but this is not much of an advantage given that at least asexual is mostly a coping mechanism. Stimming is not acceptable, and many studies & treatments are geared towards removing stims. Stims are important and not a coping mechanism.

I would prefer a more balanced view where autism is viewed as both a inherited difference and problems in the current cultural context. It must also be viewed & analysed as a spectrum, and not based on isolated "neurodivergent" traits.

'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.'

Hmmm. Where did you get that idea?

Nick Walker defines "neurodivergent" as follows: "Neurodivergent, sometimes abbreviated as ND, means having a brain that functions in ways that diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of 'normal.'" Note the word "significantly." So, no, answering "yes" to just one autistic item would not, in and of itself, be sufficient to make someone "neurodivergent." Exactly where to draw the line is something that could be debated.


How about "RDOS autism phenotype"?

That's a term you would be free to define any way you like, as long as it has some relationship to autism.


2/3 is not equal to 100%. So they are, most certainly, not identical.

Moreover, even if there were two factors that covered 100% of all possible human psychological traits, it still would not make sense to label one of these two factors "neurodiversity."

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 24 Feb 2021, 10:15 pm, edited 5 times in total.

The sociological perspective on "neurodiversity" already entails such a balance between neurology/biology and the cultural context.

The sociological perspective on "neurodiversity" does not concern itself with the question of whether, and what degree, autism is caused by "inherited" factors vs. to what degree it is caused by other genetic factors such as mutations, or perhaps other biological factors such as hormones in the womb. The point of the term "neurodiversity" is to acknowledge that there are indeed physical, biological, neurological differences between people (regardless of the source of those neurological differences), and that these differences are socially significant.


As I mentioned earlier, I think you misunderstand the term "neurodivergent."

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 24 Feb 2021, 10:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It seems to me that "broader autism phenotype" is a much, much better term than "neurodiversity" for what you have in mind, i.e. a single specific set of traits. If "broader autism phenotype" doesn't quite fit, then "autism phenotype" with some other prefix. I'll call it "RDOS autism phenotype" for now. There might be a better prefix.


The question of whether asexuality differs between NT's and RDOS-autistic people is a material hypothesis, to be proven or disproven. It is not the sort of thing that can be declared to be true by definition; it is not a tautology.

Neither does "neurodivergent terminology" have any bearing, one way or the other, on the truth of falsity of your hypothesis.

But, regardless of whether your hypothesis is true or false, using the term "neurodiversity" to mean "RDOS autism phenotype" is just confusing.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 24 Feb 2021, 9:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Here is what Judy Singer, who coined the term "neurodiversity," has to say about it:


Notice how she defines "neurodiversity" as "neurological diversity." And she speaks of non-NT people as being "the neurologically different."


We have seen that Judy Singer did indeed define the word "neurodiversity" in terms of its parts.

What you say about combined words having a meaning different from what their parts would imply is true for informal, colloquial language, and also true in poetry. But academic terminology is another matter. Most academics prefer their terminology to be semantically coherent.


The "Neanderthal" hypothesis is another material hypothesis, not something you can assert to be true by definition.

I see no incompatibility whatsoever, not even the slightest tiniest incompatibility, between what Nick Walker wrote and what Judy Singer wrote. Can you point to a contrary quote from Judy Singer?


In every quote I've ever seen from Judy Singer, her word usage is consistent with what Nick Walker recommends (except that Judy Singer says "neurologically different" instead of "neurodivergent").


I'm not sure what you mean by this.


You're the only one I've ever seen use term "diversity" to refer only to autism and related conditions.

There is a lot to that. Interest groups, in this case, disability groups that don't have their disabled members' best interest in mind, are trying to redefine terms used for a decade or two to mean new things so they can continue in their old tracks.

One might note that the piece from Nick Walker came up a year or so after I had published Aspie Quiz using the term neurodiverse as it was typically used at the time. Previous to that, he didn't seem to have taken much interest in neurodiversity.

Neurologically different is a whole lot better than neurodivergent.

I think this page does describe the true history of the concepts, something that Nick Walker fails to do:
https://www.disabled-world.com/disabili ... diversity/

Nicks definition of neurodivergent:


As I already concluded, he defines neurodivergent as diverging from the societal standards of normal, something that is completely wrong in the neurodiversity view of things. Note that "being neurologically different" which Singer used, is certainly not the same thing as "diverging from normal"! Not all stuff that is part of Neanderthal Neurodiversity (NND, I'll use that term from now on here to refer to "my" definition) has any manifestations at all in normal society (stims and mind-to-mind communication are good examples), and some NND traits actually do not even have a normal (introvert/extrovert is a great example of that).

Another issue is that I think I'm not alone in claiming that extreme NNT stuff like psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism, and sexual predators which clearly are conditions diverging from normal, should not be associated with neurodivergent or neurodiversity, simply because it has nothing to do with it and it will give people the wrong associations.

So, even if it appears to be a good idea to include all diversity, in practice, such concepts become meaningless. You must be able to define what you are talking about in clear language, and I certainly will not be part of advocating for the greatness of psychopathy or narcissism.

More cites from the article:


I don't think Singer had this in mind at all. The idea that drug abuse and trauma would be neurodiversity is completely alien to me at least. It simply makes no sense to include this.

Actually, I think if this group wants some labels, they should pick new ones that are not associated with neurodiversity.

Also note how he tries to transform neurodiversity to "having neurodiversity" (using person first language), instead of complaining about how bad it is to call somebody neurodiverse. "Having neurodiversity" is analogous to "having autism" while being neurodiverse is analogous to being autistic. This clearly shows were he comes from, and it is not from the neurodiversity community.

I've changed my mind about which labels to use. I will use eND (Eurasian neurodiversity that evolved the last one million years in Eurasian in Neanderthal & Denisovan) and aNT (The African-descent neurotypical people that migrated out of Africa). These labels will include any trait that evolved exclusively in Eurasia or Africa respectively during the last one million years.

Could you give some specific example of what you mean by "disability groups that don't have their disabled members' best interest in mind"?

And how, specifically, does the terminology question (calling an individual person "neurodiverse" vs. calling an individual person "neurodivergent") pertain to the above issue?

Note to other readers: The above two questions are addressed to rdos and no one else. I don't want to turn this thread into a general discussion of everyone's perspectives on what the disability rights movement has (or has not) done wrong. I'm just trying to clarify rdos's views on this matter insofar as they are relevant to our terminology debate.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 26 Feb 2021, 3:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, the expression "have neurodiversity" occurs only once in Nick Walker's article and is discussed in only one short paragraph, whereas he explains at much greater length why it's incorrect to refer to an individual person as "neurodiverse." On the latter, he says:


Anyhow, you also wrote:


I'm glad to see you considering changing your labels. However....

1) There's still the problem of using "diverse" or "diversity" to refer an individual, or to a single, specific "factor" or set of traits, which just doesn't make sense at all, period, end of story, no matter what compound word it's a part of.

2) Your idea about the "Neanderthal & Denisovan" (hence "Eurasian") origin of autism (and related) genes is just a hypothesis -- which you, not being a geneticist, have no way of being able to prove. I would suggest that you use terminology that simply describes present-day phenomena, rather than referring to an unproven origin hypothesis, except in contexts where your main point is to talk about your origin hypothesis.

I would suggest that, instead of using any label whatsoever containing the word "neurodiverse" or "neurodiversity" to refer to a single, specific "factor" or set of traits, you use some label containing the word "autism," because autism is what the "factor" centers around.

It's my opinion that the term "neurodivergent", just like the term "aspie" has been dragged into the dirt (so to speak), and therefore, will be impossible to use for anything serious. Neurodivergent because it implies we should use a trait-by-trait analysis of neurodiversity, and that it can relate to ANYTHING that is divergent. Aspie because it is supposedly just a nick-name for the Asperger's syndrome diagnosis.

Originally, both aspie and neurodiverse actually were used to refer to the broader autism phenotype, but today both of them are impossible to use in that context. I'm sure that if I use or even invent another term, it's only a matter of time before it will be dragged into the dirt too.

In relation to eND and aNT, I don't see a problem. People on the aNT spectrum are a majority everywhere, while people on the eND spectrum are a small minority that carries most of our diversity as a species. It therefore makes sense to call them just that. Divergent is clearly wrong since these are independent spectrums, not some anomaly from the normal human build-up. Just like cats are not a divergence from a normal dog phenotype, rather they are a species/spectrum of traits themselves, and the same applies to eND in relation to aNT.

As for the proof of the idea, I've written two articles that both give some pretty important evidence:

Ekblad, L. (2020, September 24). Hunting adaptations in autism and neurodiversity. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/q7mn8

Pfuhl, G., & Ekblad, L. (2018, July 22). Neurodiversity traits linked to Neanderthal admixture. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/w4nh5

The first one shows how hunting traits still are manifested in today's people, and how these can be linked to archeological evidence. The second one used clustering methods commonly used in genetics to link neurodiversity (eND) to Neanderthal admixture.

So, I don't see it as an unsupported hypothesis only. It actually has lots of evidence to favor it, and so this would be a possible background to use even in scientific papers.

Though I would prefer to use neurodiverse in the intended context, however, if I have to switch terminology, it would be towards Neanderthal introgression, and not new terms that will be dragged into the dirt too.

Why? What do you see as an important difference between "neurologically different" and "neurodivergent"?


The above article says the following, which is entirely consistent with what Nick Walker says:


Note the word "sometimes." Apparently, not everyone in the neurodiversity movement, even back in what you apparently consider to be the good old days, used the word "neurodiverse" as an opposite to "neurotypical" -- or agreed with that usage -- even before "neurodivergent" was coined.

Nick Walker's article does contain the following additional info about the origin of the term "neurodivergent": "The terms neurodivergent and neurodivergence were coined by Kassiane Asasumasu, a multiply neurodivergent neurodiversity activist."


Apart from the question of whether what you call "mind-to-mind communication" even exists at all in the first place, it's incorrect to say that stims have no manifestations at all in normal society. Almost everyone stims. Autistic people just tend to stim more often. (See Never heard of stimming? You probably do it….)



What do you mean by saying that this trait doesn't have a normal? According to The Majority of People Are Not Introverts or Extroverts in Psychology Today, Oct 06, 2017, most people are ambiverts, approximately in the middle between the extremes of introversion and extroversion.


Personality disorders (such as narcissistic PD and antisocial PD) are not, strictly speaking, neurological conditions, in the first place. Although genetic neurological factors apparently do have a role in the development of personality disorders, the main cause apparently is childhood emotional trauma. (See What causes personality disorders? on the website of the American Psychological Association.) Personality disorders are more like bad mental habits (albeit deeply ingrained habits) than like intrinsic brain wiring. Apparently at least some personality disorders, e.g. borderline PD, can be successfully (to some extent, at least) treated via Dialectical Behavior Therapy.


But Nick Walker goes on to say:

I think this is just a lack of imagination. If a set of traits contributes to diversity, people that have them can be called for diverse (bearers of the diverse traits). Divergence is not the correct word in this context, since it implies some traits are normal and some are not. The eND traits are not non-normal, they are novel, and therefore divergence is the wrong word. If somebody can come up with a better word that actually captures this in the correct way, I'd consider using it instead.



No, it's not since these are two independent spectrums. A cat is not the opposite of a dog, which people easily can understand, and so why can't they understand that eND and aNT are not opposites?



I'm moving away from using anything autism-related in my terminology since it is a term linked to medical diagnosis, just like aspie is. It's also wrong since the first factor contains a lot more than just autism traits and many things that are currently not believed to even be related to autism.

Apart from neurodivergent being a word with the wrong associations for me personally, it means we are comparing to normal. Divergence is what we have in phylogenetic trees, and it implies a comparison and a close relationship between something. Neurologically different don't give me the same impression that we must compare to normal, although I would prefer a term that made this distinction even more clear.



That's only because stims are part of the eND spectrum, and since it is a spectrum, we will find these traits in individuals that are primarily on the aNT spectrum too.

There probably are better examples, but I cannot come up with any right now.



So, both being introvert and extrovert is considered as being neurodivergent? In my terminology, being shy and introverted are both eND traits while being extroverted is an aNT trait. However, since these are spectrum traits too, some people will be in the middle and some at the ends.