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Do NT's actually exist?

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babybird
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15 Mar 2014, 7:08 pm

Or are they just a myth?

I can't decide if I've ever came across any yet in my life.


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Verdandi
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15 Mar 2014, 7:12 pm

Yes, they exist, and the majority of humans qualify.



guzzle
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15 Mar 2014, 7:17 pm

If to be NT is to be considered normal you could wonder if they are that typical to start with...



Eloa
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15 Mar 2014, 7:22 pm

Quote:
Neurotypical (NT) is a term coined in the autistic community as a label for people who are not on the autism spectrum.[1] The term eventually became used for anyone who does not have atypical neurology, however, in other words, anyone who does not have autism, dyslexia, developmental coordination disorder, bipolar disorder, or ADD/ADHD. The term has been replaced by some with "allistic", which has the same meaning as "neurotypical" did originally.[2] The concept was later adopted by both the neurodiversity movement and the scientific community.[3][4][5]

In the United Kingdom, the National Autistic Society recommends the use of the term in its advice to journalists.[6]


This is quote from Wikipedia.
Why is schizophrenia not listed, can hardly imagine that schizophrenia is neurotypical, also as the term autism got coined in 1911 by Egon Bleuler as a syndrome of schizophrenia (not meaning to say, that autism is a schizophrenic disorder, but stating it as a fact).
edit: forgot to mark it as quote.


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Verdandi
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15 Mar 2014, 7:29 pm

guzzle wrote:
If to be NT is to be considered normal you could wonder if they are that typical to start with...


That's not exactly what NT means.



mother2t
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15 Mar 2014, 7:48 pm

I don't think anyone is actually "normal". I'm considered NT and I'm pretty eccentric.



sharkattack
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15 Mar 2014, 7:54 pm

Yes there are NTs and to those that say there are not I aim a fluffy proverbial slap in your general direction.

Yes we are all individuals so they say but come on.

My experience during my school years tells me I was pretty much on my own and my life experience tells me they were normal I was not.



Verdandi
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15 Mar 2014, 7:55 pm

mother2t wrote:
I don't think anyone is actually "normal". I'm considered NT and I'm pretty eccentric.


^^^^^

One of the annoying things is how people turn NTs into boring people incapable of imagination, and like so not true.

Like not being NT sucks institutionally (as in how society functions) but NTs aren't inherently bad people.



EzraS
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16 Mar 2014, 3:24 am

I went to special school with mostly kids on the spectrum.
Now I go to regular school with kids who are mostly NT.
I'm on this forum that's mostly people on the spectrum.
I'm on two other forums that's mostly NT people.

I do not see any huge differences in any of these.



droppy
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16 Mar 2014, 5:03 am

What do you mean by NT?
Do you mean "person who hasn't got the littlest quirk"? Then you will find no one like that.
Do you mean "person who hasn't got a brain different from most humans"? Then you'll find a lot of people like that.



ouroborosUK
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16 Mar 2014, 5:43 am

Personally I usually use the word as a synonymous of "non-autistic", but I agree that if you take the word to its etymological roots it is too general. There are many way your nervous system can be atypical without being autistic, and some people do use the word in different ways. For example, there are some people with ADHD on this board and most will consider themselves not to be neurotypical. The same case can probably be made for so-called "gifted" children, hypersensitivity, and probably schizophrenia and other psychosis too.

But even if you take that into account, are there any people who are non-autistic, non-ADHD, non-gifted, non-hypersensisitive and non-psychotic? I think yes, and I am afraid they are still the majority of people, so the adjective "-typical" is not completely unjustified. Does "typical" means "average, boring, unremarkable and all the same" ? Certainly not.

Science and social behaviours evolve quickly on those topics ; words remain but their meaning are bound to change as ideas move on. Take the very word "autistic" for example. From what I could find, it was coined by a Swiss psychiatrist in the beginning of the 20th century; it comes from the ancient greek autos "self" (like automobile, which is a self-moving car) and initially meant "morbid self-absorption". Ugh. We still use the word but most of us would not think of autism as "morbid".


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babybird
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16 Mar 2014, 6:24 am

droppy wrote:
What do you mean by NT?
Do you mean "person who hasn't got the littlest quirk"? Then you will find no one like that.
Do you mean "person who hasn't got a brain different from most humans"? Then you'll find a lot of people like that.


I mean, I try to look around for the person who fits in with what I believe an NT should be.

I try to get to know people. But it seems like the more I get to know people, their defences drop and they seem not so typical after all.

It is really amusing for me to see.

I really don't think there is such a thing as the perfect specimen of NT-ness.

This has been a life long pursuit of mine.


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Janissy
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16 Mar 2014, 6:54 am

babybird wrote:
droppy wrote:
What do you mean by NT?
Do you mean "person who hasn't got the littlest quirk"? Then you will find no one like that.
Do you mean "person who hasn't got a brain different from most humans"? Then you'll find a lot of people like that.


I mean, I try to look around for the person who fits in with what I believe an NT should be.

I try to get to know people. But it seems like the more I get to know people, their defences drop and they seem not so typical after all.


Everybody is an individual and no two people will have identical neurology except identical twins and maybe not even them. When people say "typical neurology" I think it just means neurology that is grossly the same as what would be considered 'typical neurology" by neurologists.

If you are jettisoning stereotypes about NTs by getting to know them, that's all good. But the discovery that everybody is unique doesn't mean that most of them don't have neurology that a neurologist would consider typical.



zer0netgain
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16 Mar 2014, 7:10 am

Just because you are NT doesn't mean you don't have "issues."

It just means you're considered part of the majority.



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16 Mar 2014, 7:30 am

Eloa wrote:
Quote:
Neurotypical (NT) is a term coined in the autistic community as a label for people who are not on the autism spectrum.[1] The term eventually became used for anyone who does not have atypical neurology, however, in other words, anyone who does not have autism, dyslexia, developmental coordination disorder, bipolar disorder, or ADD/ADHD. The term has been replaced by some with "allistic", which has the same meaning as "neurotypical" did originally.[2] The concept was later adopted by both the neurodiversity movement and the scientific community.[3][4][5]

In the United Kingdom, the National Autistic Society recommends the use of the term in its advice to journalists.[6]


This is quote from Wikipedia.
Why is schizophrenia not listed, can hardly imagine that schizophrenia is neurotypical, also as the term autism got coined in 1911 by Egon Bleuler as a syndrome of schizophrenia (not meaning to say, that autism is a schizophrenic disorder, but stating it as a fact).
edit: forgot to mark it as quote.


I agree with the defition of this for the most part, but I'm suprised that Tourette's isn't there. :lol:


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Teyverus
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16 Mar 2014, 7:52 am

I have to agree it is not fair to consider NTs to be cookie cut outs. Just because some people only understand herd behaviour doesn't mean all are like that. My husband's NT, and he's the only guy I know who went between most of the taxidermists in Ohio to find one that would do their craft to a latex dragon mask. He wanted it to look like it had been stuffed and mounted.

The look on the taxidermists faces were priceless.