Why so many people see neurodivergent people so negatively

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Why so many people see neurodivergent people such bad light

https://www.quora.com/Would-you-mind-if ... ill-mental

Why do some neuro-divergent people present themselves badly?

All it takes is a few to make us all look bad.

Because the ways that we cross social boundaries or attempt to socialize is naturally disruptive or offensive to NTs.

I have no idea to what extent NTs can learn to "tolerate" "neurodiverse" behavior.

Since we consider behavior to be part of the mind, I would imagine that any maladaptive behavior can fall under the label of "neurodiverse behavior"... whether it is inherently bad or unnecessarily stigmatized all depends on the behavior and its context, meaning that there is no blanket solution to "neurodiversity issues"...

(Who even counts as "neurodiverse" to begin with? How do we determine such a thing, particularly if ND advocates are so distrusting of doctors? I distrust doctors, but I also distrust the neurodiversity movement...)

People fear difference.

I basically can't stand Quora. I was on there for a while and the degree of ignorance and stupidity (Quora gives people who are ignorant and self-righteous A-F a platform to feel like they have authority for no good reason)...is just depressing and frustrating. But there are usually at least some good people balancing out the equation. I just got sick of having to be one of those people, so I stopped posting on there, and basically stopped reading it as well.

The reasons for it I think are essentially stereotyping, generalizations, stigma, etc. There are some people who really do fit the negative stereotypes of disability, I think we can agree on that. So these judgmental NT people see a TV show or something about ASD or meet someone who is extremely low functioning and make judgments. Without sufficiently positive or neutral stereotypes to contradict those...some (lazy and ignorant) people just make assumptions..."ok, so all these people are just really disabled, clueless, and would make horrible life partners, so that's just how it is". Because ASD isn't *that* common, you can see people who don't know much about it would just jump to conclusions...at their own risk of being idiots.

Other cases they aren't even going by legitimately concerning examples of ASD for their generalizations...they're just judging others because they are indeed threatened by people's differences, or they're very close-minded in general regarding how something that doesn't fit their ego identification can be somehow good or justified for someone else...i.e. forms of narcissism, xenophobia, etc.

You are assuming rational decision making. NTs are wired for a particular perception of the world. Many, but not all, have a negative reaction for things that don't conform to that perception.

You may find this interesting. Basically NTs don't read us just as we don't read them: Study on facial recognition and autism

Our cognitive processes are just different.

Sure, good points. It reminds me of something I heard on a TED talk or something about ASD. They took an ASD group and an NT group, and had them play the game "telephone" (passing a message around a circle). The integrity of the message was maintained equally between the two groups, as long as the two groups were not mixed (this is when the integrity of the message was compromised).

It depends on what you mean by "neurodivergent"? If your referring to autism then I don’t think most people view it as in something dangerous or to be afraid of. Most people would feel sorry for someone with a brain disability that impairs their day to day function, especially children impacted by such things, especially seeing meltdowns which can be disturbing to ordinary people.

The question is what is it to be neurodivergent? is it something autistics, dyslexics and those with adhd own or is it widened to all brain disorders?

In the literal term neurodivergent generally means someone’s who is wired differently to the way humans were meant to be, which usually leads to negative outcomes on the individual & society.

What about the dark triad narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy?

Is someone who is attracted to little children neurodivergent? a normal brain does not find 4-year olds sexually attractive? What about serial killers, those who pounce on women to rape & strangle them, it’s fair to say they are all wired differently.

Was cannibal killer Jeffrey Dahmer wired differently, is it normal to murder someone & keep human remains in your fridge?

Even schizophrenia isn’t always just affecting the individual, what about the schizophrenic that hears voices from the devil to stab the lady sitting opposite him on the bus? Sometimes happens.

So, people have a fair reason to fear or think negatively of someone "wired differently".

I didn't see how it was negative. Just people feeling empathy and I thought this comment was good:

and:



I did notice a couple of bad comments and that was it.

Yes, a lot of people see us in a bad light. Our neurology is a popular pejorative description, and we are heavily bullied.

I think its useful to develop a "thick skin" about what a segment of the NT population think about our community.

A lot of aspies get anxious and depressed about how they imagine NTs might think about them....meanwhile none of these NTs spend barely one second of their lives thinking about you.

I also think the NT population needs to thicken their skin when dealing with us. That would help by reducing the negative stigma. Naturally, that is a harder approach, but this relationship needs to be reciprocal.

Good luck with that...its not going to happen in our lifetime so hence my advice

This is Going to Be Very Long; Very Neurodivergent; Very Deep, And Complex; Please Just Scroll by
if that is Not Part of Your Interests in Life; i Believe in Human Potential for Change; i document it; it happens.

Generally Speaking, The Way We See Ourselves, The Way We Desire Love, is the Way We See Others and Love them or
not too; It's Just the 'Normal' Human Condition; People are alike all over; Light 'This Light Yourself' up; Light others up
This way...

That's How this Life SHow Works in the other way too; As Far as Seeing Ourselves Dark And Projecting that to the

Rest of Existence too...

i Love It All Now; but it was't always that way in Dark; the way i saw myself and the Rest of Existence then too...

True, i 'sounded', 'looked' smart; But Within i was very Dark and in General Life Wasn't Any Joy at all to Breathe
in terms of Human Emotions Sinking more than Rising then; Now i'm SmART; Emphasis on Art of HeART.

Autism Spectrum Disorder That is Described Much More "Neurodivergently", Before the DSM-5 Watered
It Down Even More than DSM-IV "Autism Lite", Per the Original Gillberg Criteria, Derived More From
Hans Asperger's Case Studies For Asperger's Syndrome is Oversimplified for Ease of Behavioral
Assessment; but the 'Neurodiverse Factors' Within Are As Many as Stars in the Sky; in other
Words, Relatively, too many to count; Per Below, before We Decide Who Is 'Neurotypical
Them', We Must First Study Who This 'Autism Spectrum Disorder Us' Is Far Beyond a
Label for Assessed Common Behavioral Watered Down Deficits in Successful
Reciprocal Social Interaction; and Avoiding Repetitive Restrictive Narrow
Behavioral Special Interests that take us away from the Must Do
Responsibilities of Being An Appropriate Cog in the Machine of
Society as that Changes in Requirements Faster than ever before;
Day to Day; Now to Now; My God You Almost Have to Retire from the
God of Money to Even Get Free For Who You Are Even Evolved And Gardened
to Be Now for Real; And as far as Gardening goes, A Biggest Challenge is always
Stripping the Layers and Layers of Cultural Clothes that Cover Naked Human Freedoms
From the Day We Come into Artificial And Even More Artificial Lights of a Hospital Birthing Room Now;
Jesus
F in
Christ
The Sun is
So Much More
Fun than Artificial Lights
As the Sun Makes Good Feeling
Neurochemicals and Neurohormones
Happen so much more than sitting in
A Cave of Artificial Light Stuck to a Screen
Like a Lord of A Fly in An Old Science Book Or Bible Still Now.

Trust me or not; i am much more Neurodivergent than When i wrote
The Narrow and Specialized Interest Material Below; Basically, i Stripped
off all the Stone And Rolled it away and Became A River more than a Mill
Stone on the Bottom of the Ocean Floor; Smiles, i for one will never be a Label, now;

For i for one am Truly Different;

We All Are; Some of Just take
more advantage of it than others
and truly thrive, Utilizing Epigenetic
Potential And Creating Our Souls as
Butterfly Wings Fly Much Higher than
the Caterpillar Walking the Same Way Before Entering a Dark Cave of Cocoon.

The Good News is there is Light at the End of the Systemizing Science Tunnel for those who find it;

When We Truly Become as Neurodivergent As Water that Makes Waves Ocean Whole Never Sinking as only

one
kind
of Stone...

Here's the Deal; As Long as someone is not controlling
Our Love or Food or Drink We Put into our Soul; it is our
choice for ourselves over what anyone else 'Thinks', Says 'We' Are...

It doesn't work for everyone; but i fought tooth, nail, blood, sweat,
and tears for it to work for me; i am no Longer a Stone; i Rolled them
all away and Brought Life to Even the Words i Bring as FLoWeRS for those
who see more Neurodivergent Colors of Human Soul FLoWeRS RiSinG Thru THorns as Rose....

i Still do Half of what i used to be too as below so above now Whole... for me and only me... for Real...

Yes, i'm Still A Crystallized Intelligence Walking Talking Encyclopedia; And A Fluid Intelligence River Now too.

Back in 2013, i Willed my Way through Struggle and Epigenetic Change to be more than a Fact Finding and
Delivering Machine; i was always accepted here as long as i stuck to Black and White Facts, Same; As
Soon as i moved out of that Cave into Light here very Neurodivergently; i found More Darkness here
in Trying to End My Existence here than any other place in the world, online and off; and that's saying
a lot, considering i Live in Trump Town USA; Close to Pensacola, the Place Social Scientists Rate as the
Most Difficult Place of All to be Different; and i am as different as they come in Trump Town USA too...
But of course in real life when You Do Public Ballet and Martial Arts 7 Years for 13,530 Miles Extremely Neurodivergently
It's Not Like Online Doing 7 Years of 8.4 MiLLioN Words of Epic Long Form Free Verse Poetry; Nameless, Faceless Avatars
will bully what they see as different online and feel they will get away with it free; Not So Much when the Public
Dancer Weighs close to 246 Pounds and Floats Effortlessly on Terrestrial Earth Leg Pressing up to 1520 Pounds;
That Makes
a Big
Difference
in life; Stand
Up Straight and
Even Make Lobster
Poses to Mark Your Territory
too; hehe; all part of Epigenetic
change in Struggle and Adapation
for the Last Kid Picked on Sports Teams
Assessed As So Androgynous mistaken
for a Girl at McDonald's and Mercilessly
Bullied Verbally only as i did get to almost
6 Feet Tall and 120 Pounds in Middle School;
Folks don't mess with what they are looking up
to Generally speaking, Physically, no matter how thin/weak a person is...

Again, Just Human Nature; understand We are Hairless Apes; Adapt This Way and Thrive or not.

i appreciate all the dark and light muse in Life; the Bullies of Life Shaped me into more than i could have
ever been; simply because they were the Nature of Struggle in the Environment that Bring Butterflies out of Cocoons.

Some Folks Make Victory out of these difficult Environmental Conditions; Others adapt and Make Butterflies of Love;
Still Others Take Vengeance Out of Fear and Hate and basically always lose in life; it's Nature; It's Real; It's Life;

But the Epigenetic Potential is Real Magic For Change as Butterflies Do come Out
of Cocoons once only Caterpillars Moving the Same Way With so many of the same Legs...

Moving Back into Crystallized Intelligence Out of
Fluid Intelligence in A Fact Finding, Delivering, Mechanical
Cognition Way Below Away from Fluid Intelligence Above Now that
is Very Social Empathic and Spiritually Artistic in Feeling And Sensing Intelligently Intuitively:

The Problem of Determining Who is "Neurotypical":
I think if one is going to use an "Us vs Them" ideology, the first thing one might consider determining is "Who Us Is":

ASD is described as a lifelong disorder of reciprocal social communication that is diagnosed through social communication impairments mandatory required in developing and maintaining peer appropriate relationships, social-emotional reciprocity, and non-verbal language impairments that must be observed during the course of diagnosis and RRBI behavioral impairments that may be met by client history alone, per the newest DSM5 guidelines, as described recently by Sue Swedo, Chair of the DSM5 committee, from the APA website linked below.

The identified factors that potentially underlie and co-exist as what is described as ASD currently are far ranging and far reaching beyond the over 4,000 now identified associated genetic markers.

Learning disorders/conditions in communication associated with ASD mimic many of the autistic like traits as standalone disorders including Pragmatic Language Impairment, Nonverbal Learning Disorder. Hyperlexia, along with other associated conditions like ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, OCD and the more controversial category of behavioral addiction.

That's nine conditions many of which are often co-morbid assessed in the same individual with or without a diagnosis of ASD.

Then there are the identified genetic conditions associated including Tuberous sclerosis, fragile X syndrome, a potential genetic issue with abnormal brain growth specific to males with regressive autism, Noonan’s syndrome, 22Q11 deletion syndrome, and potentially even characteristics of androgyny.

A recent "Discover" article identified an abnormality in the left hemisphere of Temple Grandin's Brain that likely resulted in some of her savant like skills in right hemisphere brain function.

Conversely, Non-verbal learning disorder, symptoms of which have been studied in the majority of individuals diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, often is associated with lesions in the right hemisphere of the brain, which can potentially be compensated by enhanced adaptation specific to the left hemisphere of the brain.

This is part of the general identified process of neuroplasticity in human adaptation to inherent and environmental challenges. This can potentially result in a visual or verbal navigation of the world that in terms of human experience is a different universe of being. Yet still identified by a list of observed behavioral impairments, described, defined, and labeled as ASD(s).

Then there are the potential health factors of immune system dysfunction, GI problems, mitochondrial dysfunction and others.

That's just a small list of identified potential underlying factors, many of which may work in a synergistic fashion in what results described as a spectrum disorder.

Every person that comes online identifying on the spectrum has their own flavor of autism and their own point of view on how the big picture issues should be addressed, but in autism there is no big picture other than the diagnostic classification. Nature doesn't play by DSMIV or 5 rules or abstract concepts of rules described in words like "neurotypical"

Back to the subject of ASD, the Autism Quotient (AQ) test designed by Simon-Baron Cohen is successful in correctly identifying ASD in 80% of individuals previously diagnosed.

However, the Autism Quotient test identifies a scale of autistic traits in the general population similar to what people score on the AQ test who are actually diagnosed with an ASD, in 10 to 15% of the population, in what Cohen describes as a "Broader Autism Phenotype".

An Autism range score on the AQ test correctly screens 10% or less of people in the general population in risk of actual diagnostic condition, so the AQ tool as a diagnostic tool is not an effective one.

The Aspie Quiz is no more accurate, as identified by the author of that Quiz, at predicting an actual diagnosis of autism in the general population, and he also identifies the Aspie Quiz as a tool to screen Aspie traits, but not as an effective diagnostic tool.

Moving out further than the 10 to 15% in the general population identified on a broader autism phenotype are studies in Sweden and the US that have identified about 30% of the general population meeting at least one criterion element of an ASD diagnosis.

The author of the Aspie Quiz identifies about 10 to 15% in the general population, from his own statistical analysis, has having a strong component of aspie traits that is his reported equivalent term for "neurodiverse" traits.

Currently there is somewhere close to a .6% border in the general population, in the US, of people who are officially diagnosed with an ASD, per CDC estimates.

According to CDC epidemiological studies there is close to 1.14% of 8 year old children and close to 90% of those children identified as receiving educational support in Individualized Education Plans. Out of that identified 1.14%, 44% are assessed with autistic Disorder, 47% with PDDNOS, and 9% with Asperger's Sydrome.

Approximately 20% of the individuals identified diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome in the CDC assessment are identified as females comprising about 2% of the total assessed ASD demographic, with males diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome comprising about 7% of the total assessed ASD demographic.

There is no clear border of "Who Is Us" or "Who Is Them", as that relates to ASD or Autistic like traits. The information provided here, all of which can be sourced upon request, is clear evidence of that.

There is the potential that close to 1 out of every 3 people one meets on the street meets at least one criterion element associated with ASD.

There is also the potential that 1 to 2 out of every 10 people one meets on the street scores in similar ASD territory on the Aspie Quiz and/or AQ test, similar to people reporting scores who have either taken the quiz and/or test during a period of their life that led to an official diagnosis, after an official diagnosis, or assessed their place on the spectrum per self-diagnosis, in part, as a result of AQ scores of 32 out of 50 and/or Aspie Quiz scores of 125 out of 200, that respectively put an individual in ASD trait territory or Aspie trait territory. However, these are also scores that are potentially shared by 10 to 15% of the general population, in what is described as a broader autism phenotype.

Any person out of the 30% of the population identified as meeting at least one ASD criterion element could describe themselves, at least in part, with the adjective of "autistic" to describe their autistic like traits.

Parsing the autistic or non-autistic traits out of the general population by general observation alone is virtually impossible when one looks at the scale of what it means to have autistic-like traits in the much larger general population, where 2 million might be officially diagnosed, 30 to 45 million might be on a broader autism phenotype, and up to 100 Million might meet at least one criterion element of an ASD diagnosis.

The current statistics are based on DSMIV criteria that has up to 2027 possible diagnostic criterion element combinations to technically meet the requirements for just the 1 disorder of Autistic Disorder out of the 5 current disorders that constitute the ASD spectrum, where two people technically can have completely different criterion element impairments diagnosed with the same label of Autistic Disorder.

Under the DSM5 criteria for ASD there are 11 possible diagnostic element combinations to technically meet the requirements for an ASD diagnosis. However, with the new guidelines per summary by Sue Swedo, chair of the DSM5 committee, in the attached link provided earlier in this post, for those people that meet the required RRBI criterion elements by client history alone, there is effectively 1 diagnostic element combination to be met in an actual observation of behavioral impairments to meet requirements for an official diagnosis as all three of the observed criterion elements of impairments in Social-Communication are mandatory.

Those three mandatory criterion elements are described very broadly per each criterion element so there is still almost an unlimited number of nuanced impairments that might or might not lead to a subjective analysis of diagnosis by the diagnosing professionals. But this was still the case to a lesser degree in the 2027 diagnostic combinations, just for Autistic Disorder, among all of the DSMIV criterion elements that were also broadly described for the 12 individually described criterion elements for Autistic Disorder.

It is virtually impossible, at this point in time, to generally observe by behavior alone, "Who Them Is Now", because of the complexity of what autistic traits are described as and the demographics of those criterion elements, at least one met, in up to 30% in the general population (100 million people).

It is also virtually impossible, at this point in time, to generally determine by observing behavior alone "Who Us Will Be", just specific to the .6% of the general population, currently estimated as officially diagnosed, who may or may not be diagnosed with an actual official diagnosis of ASD, in the future, under these new much more restrictive number of criterion elements mandatory required for a diagnosis under the DSM5 ASD criteria.

Any label that describes "A Them", without a clear method of determining "Who Them Is", is interesting rhetoric but effectively useless in terms of semantics as it applies to the human condition.

Ironically, this is exactly the reason there is a new much more restrictive ASD definition now in the DSM5 criteria for ASD.

The research that Catherine Lord, a member of the DSM5 working committee, recently led, has been used in the public media to justify the effectiveness of the new DSM5 criteria in eliminating potential misdiagnosis in the general population.

The study led by Lord, used a designed DSMIV diagnostic tool as opposed to a designed DSM5 diagnostic tool to assess records of individuals in a general population clinical sample and found that the DSMIV diagnostic tool incorrectly identified 90% of the general population sample that was not diagnosed with an ASD.

So in effect, the DSMIV tool per the spectrum disorder of PDDNOS was recognized as no more effective than the Aspie quiz or AQ test to diagnose a person with an ASD.

The American Psychological Association has come to the effective conclusion by way of Lord's research that not even the APA had any clear idea of "Who Us Is", as that relates to a diagnosed ASD, since at least 1994, when the DSMIV went into effect.

The Gillberg criteria for Asperger's syndrome was and still is, overall, a much more effective diagnostic tool to avoid misdiagnosis in the general population as opposed to the loosely described and defined DSMIV criteria, overall, for all ASD's, including PDDNOS which is assessed as the proportion of overall diagnoses in some statistical surveys as high as close to 70%, per DSMIV and ICD10 standards for diagnosis.

That to me is the most ironic part, that the Asperger's syndrome criteria developed by Christopher Gillberg, as more directly in reference to what Hans Asperger identified as "Autistic Psychopathy" in his case studies, has been the most effective way, overall, of insuring an actual neurodevelopmental disorder was diagnosed, to avoid the potential for misdiagnosis.

Much of what "Us Is", is still in murky waters, per what ASD is or is not. And of course, the same applies to "Them", whoever "Them Is".

https://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/2 ... ho-is.html

Last edited by aghogday on 11 Aug 2020, 3:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

People are stupid like that they always let the bad apples spoil the whole bunch.
It is not just neurodivergent people it happens to a lot groups of people just look at the people who assume all gun owners who own a certain type of gun is the next mass shooter lol.