False definition of Neurotypical, or are we wrong?

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First of all, most online dictionaries don't have a definition for "Neurotypical".
According to thefreedictionary.com, "Neurotypical is not available in the general English dictionary and thesaurus".
merriam-webster.com says "The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above."
yourdictionary.com doesn't have it either. It says "Did you mean: neotropical[?]"

Dictionary.com has it, but it's definition of Neurotypical is:
"pertaining to autistic persons whose neurological development and function is within the normal range; also called neurologically typical"
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/neurotypical
Is that definition false, or are we wrong?
If it is false, can someone be contacted so that it can be corrected?

I am new to the world of aspies and I always thought NT meant neurologically typical...not neurotypical, but did not know that neurologically typical pertained to autism.

Good question.

Go to the real source:

http://web.syr.edu/%7Ejisincla/language.htm

I'm pretty sure the person who wrote that one was around for its first usage, and therefore has more of a clue than that odd dictionary does.

It's in the wikipedia.


I used to think it meant people who aren't on the autism spectrum but is basically means people who don't have any mental illnesses or mental conditions.

Examples would be:

NVLD
Mental retardation
Severe learning disorders
OCD
Bipolar
Manic Depression
Schizophrenia
Autism/AS
Anxiety issues including OCD
ADHD/ADD


People with those conditions are not considered NT.


But it makes me wonder what about people who have SAD, eating disorders, plain old depression, mild learning disorders, borderline mental retardation. Are they considered NT or not. I can list other conditions but it will take me too long. Because of the definition I don't consider people who are literally crazy, NT, especially people who love to kill like Ted Bundy.
If anyone enjoys torturing people or hurting other people and not caring if they hurt their feelings or not, I don't see them as NT because that is considered a mental illness according to my mother and doctors. I don't consider people with Munchausen syndrome NT either. No normal person would do that to themselves or to others.

Perhaps we should define neurotypical better. What mental illnesses make one not neurotypical? Any? I mean, most people have at least one thing wrong with them, right? Is anyone really neurotypical?

I thought it was anyone without a cognitive syndrome or mental illness.

My head doctor referred to me as neurotypical-variant. He put it in the same category of having your heart in the right side of your chest. Not hazardous, not normal, but okay in and of itself.
(My hd tends tends to get caught up in irrelevant semantics, so take it for what it's worth.)

Dictionaries USED to be relatively accurate books of words and what they meant. NOW, they pander to any idiot wanting to pick a new word.

It is like the seen on "akeelah and the bee" when Akeelah uses the "word" "dissed", and Dr. Larabee says basically "We agreed that you would only use REAL words!"! Akeelah looks it up and, finding it in that dictionary, recites THAT entry and says something like "They add new words to the dictionary every day".

HECK, when I was really learning German, and was unsure how to spell a word, I would sometimes find a word spelled TWO ways!(ie or ei) I may never know what was truly the right way. Some movies, set in the supposed future, show a language that will be cut down to little snippets of what we have now, and odd akronyms and misunderstandings. Like in "demolition man" where they call all restaurants "taco bells". Ya know, they never DID explain the three seeshells. 8-( I want to know! Has anyone heard of a sequel?

Anyway, YEAH, I know! Language evolves. Maybe someone couldn't say "on the way", and said "en route". Maybe someone couldn't remember "That's Life", and said "c'est la vie". Who knows. And english evolved from danish and other languages apparently. Danish appears to have come from a language high german came from, etc... Still, haven't things gone far enough? It is ironic that the Bible said God created the myriad languages to confound communication, yet humans today do it with themselves.

Anyway:

neuro = Having to do with nerves or the brain!
typical = NORMAL!

neurotypical = Normal brain/nerves

OBVIOUS! SO, YES, it is used incorrectly on this site. It means those that are NORMAL, as opposed to those simply without AS. OK, the ahmish do the SAME thing! They call Spanish people and greeks and italians and french and russian "The ENGLISH". And Jewish people will even say ARABS that hate jews are antisemitic, even though the Arabs are semitic! Go figure. There is that misuse and misappropriation of terms again!

I think of neurotypical as meaning people who do not have mental illnesses or conditions, or who are not mentally ret*d or have learning disabilities. There is a borderline area of people with conditions such as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) or eating disorders, about whom I don't know whether or not they are neurotypical.

I really grudge using the term 'NT' or 'neurotypical', as it, like many labels, tends to lump a lot of people into the one group, which can be quite misleading in many cases, especially here, as everyone's neurons are wired very differently.
However, for the sake of defining between those on here with autistic traits and those who don't, it's inevitably a pretty useful term, even if it isn't dictionary canon (yet).

I think that dictionary is wrong.

Wikionary has a good definition, I think. (link) "Having a normal ability to process linguistic information and social cues; used especially as an antonym for autistic".

I purposely avoided the definitions in Wikipedia, Wikionary and urbandictionary.com, because those definitions are anonymously written by people who may or may not know the dictionary definition. The definitions on those sites represent what most people think something means, not what it actually means.
I wanted to see what the dictionary definition was. But apparently "Neurotypical" isn't actually a word, and whoever wrote the definition at dictionary.com should be fired.

The way language works is, what most people think a word means, IS what it means. Yeah, there are exeptions for technical terms, but I don't believe neurotypical is such a term. Plus, even so, for words in common usage, the technical meaning and the common meaning are BOTH meanings of the word, even if different.