Talk:Neurodiversity/Archive 2

older discussion
I wish to revive this discussion over the to concerns about objectivity, in my opinion this page has been "vandalised" over time by both pro and anti "neurodiversity camps" however the article in it's current cut down format does not reflect the true status of the term as it is used in UK effectively as an identity, whose epistemology originates within the disability movement and the debate around social models. This has nothing in particular to do with autism specific disputes but a wider conception of non medical identities for people stigmatised by medical model labelling. The concept did not arise with Harvey Blume, he was merely the first who gives it a citation, like many neologisms, before they make the grade as current usages to be included in dictionaries, the term had been around before then. It has obvious resonances of Biodiversity in it's coinage (Larry Arnold - go google me) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.240.89.212 (talk) 23:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

focus on Autistic Spectrum
There is a focus on Autistic spectrum conditions in this article & I think it is unbalanced. --78.86.146.148 (talk) 03:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC) For example the 'Autism rights movement' box! --78.86.146.148 (talk) 03:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. This entire article smacks of pro-autism propaganda. Gimme a break! I reached this article through a link from eugenics.IchiroMihara (talk) 10:16, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The term is mainly used in relation to autism, but I do agree that the article is somewhat unbalanced. It also quite incomplete, and is more of a dictionary entry than an article. 217.120.191.158 (talk) 10:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Originator of the term
There has been some dispute in the past on this article about whether or not it was Harvey Blume or Judy Singer who coined the term. According to, "The term neurodiversity was put forward by Judy Singer, an Australian whose mother and daughter have Asperger’s and who is on the spectrum herself, and was first published by the American writer Harvey Blume." Q0 (talk) 00:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The first to print with the term was Harvey Blume. The popular press isn't an RS in this instance.  The question of priority is simple : First to print wins.   Unless a citation can be found that predates blume's article, it was blume that first 'put it forward.'  Disputes over the origin, beyond that, are simply not sourceable.CeilingCrash (talk) 14:07, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The definition given here, that neurodiversity encourages the 'tolerance' and 'acceptance' of autistic mind-casts, is not what blume said.  Blume said neurodivergence can be beneficial - in fact crucial - to the human race, "neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial to the human race ..." Of course, the entrenched wikipedia editors prefer to edit out any implied benefit of autism in the lead.


 * Nobody, anywhere disputes that any disability should be 'tolerated' and 'accepted', the alternative being intolerance and rejection.  'Neurodiversity'  attacks the notion of disability itself.


 * But sources are just sources, right? You guys know better. "We say it, later in the article!   The lead (link to WP policy) is just an overture, an encapsulation in more familiar terms, a prelude and summary ... blah blah blah."  I know, I know. You don't care  what the source says. You want the article just so, and you've got lots of friends waiting to just-happen-to-drop-by this discussion who feel the same way.  I know.  Bye.CeilingCrash (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Judy Singer here: Maybe this will sort out the controversy. Haven't been back to wikipedia for years, to see what became of the concept that Harvey Blume and I collaborated on back in 1996-8, when I met him online while researching my Honors thesis "Odd People In: An exploration of a New Social Movement based on Neurological Diversity" at the University of Technology, Sydney. To sort it out, the concept arose out of dialogues between myself and Harvey. While Harvey was first in print, it should be borne in mind that he published in the media, with a short lead time. I published in an academic work, "Disability Discourse" with over a year to publication. Our takes were slightly different too. Mine was rooted in the British based, social constructionist, disability rights, activist tradition. My aim was politicised and within the still popular ideas of identity politics. I wanted to empower people who were neurologically different to claim a space in the political sphere, by locating "neurological difference" as a social category on a par with "gender", "ethnicity", "class", "disability" etc.

Jsinger (talk) 07:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * So, just to make sure I understand, you're basically saying that the article is correct as currently written, right? Looie496 (talk) 14:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a tertiary source. It isn't our role to adjudicate a "he-said, she-said" disagreement. The first to print is Harvey Blume. J Singer knows this, which is why the nebulous phrase "first put forward" is used in the newspaper article. Which is itself non RS since it's the popular press.

This isn't rocket science, folks. If you wish to abide by WP, you observe that the Atlantic article predates any other RS mention of the term. It doesn't matter if Blume scooped Singer unfairly due to publishing delays. We don't determine fairness, or even truth. Just verifiablity. And the Atlantic article is verifiable.

Anyone who wishes to contest the date need only produce a prior mention in a reliable source.

Any debate as to whether Blume stole the term from conversations with Singer is not for WP to decide. Let that debate occur and be decided (or not) in print in an RS. Then we can include it.

The current state of the article reflects a stark failure to observe policy. CeilingCrash (talk) 20:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that you've misunderstood Wikipedia policy, CeilingCrash. The popular press is very much a reliable source - we can and do cite it extremely regularly. You might want to familiarise yourself with our policy on reliable sources. The debate clearly has already been cited in a RS - the question is how it gets covered in this article. I have no dog in that fight, but I don't like to see people making up policy as they go along. Rebecca (talk) 00:33, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * A couple of points to clarify - yes, the popular press is often cited, but only when it is acting as a primary source or secondary.  That is, a fact was directly observed by a reporter, or a statement was given to a reporter who then gives a citation, "X says ...".
 * In this case, the popular press is not a primary source since the reporter did not directly observe the first use of the term, and it's not a secondary source since it doesn't attribute the claim of Singer's "first use" to anybody (it does so rather implicitly, but not directly. The key failure is the article says "the term was first put forward by .." and not "Judy Singer says the term was first put forward by ...")  Hair splitting, but important.
 * And irrelevant anyway.  The notion of 'put forward', in conversation and not in print is unverifiable.   We can include that "singer claims ..." if the reporter were to give this attribution.   But what's the point?   We open to door to any dozen other people who can make such unverifiable claims.
 * Whereas first to print is generally taken as the source of a neologisim.  For the simple reason that its primary source can be verified by anyone with a web browser.
 * We seek verifiability, not truth.  An uncorroborated, undocumented, self-professed claim which is not clearly attributed in the popular press doesn't pass the verifiability test.

CeilingCrash (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Link
Please add this link, a parody of the many institutes and journals devoted to the study of autism:

http://isnt.autistics.org/

I this early site is a pretty good example of the rise of an 'anti medical establishment' point of view. It is referred to in the New York Times article by Harvey Blume but the link is broken there. --79.78.150.200 (talk) 15:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

What about opponents?
Besides the proponents mentioned in the section "proponents and opponents" there is not being talked about opponents- what about them? Maybe somebody knowledgable in that field is able to contribute this part?! Thanx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.138.44.130 (talk) 07:45, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I took the liberty of removing the "and opponents" part from the title of that section due to the lack of anything at all regarding those who could be classified as such. When something is added to justify the original title, they can either change it back then, or, even better, create an entirely new section for their material. - Brother Dave Thompson (talk) 02:59, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The "Proponents and Opponents" section remains inaccurately titled; there is no discussion of opponents and very limited discussion of proponents. I think that the section should probably be merged with another.Monstromash (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I've edited the main article as Monstromash suggested, since there hasn't been any contradiction and it's a stylistic cleanup (I merged the content into the remaining subsections). Overall, the article lacks a "Criticism" section, and is quite biased. I don't have the research in hand to write that section, but I think it's a serious lack. Ironphoenix (talk) 21:27, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be some criticism, one quote from the web: One went so far as to suggest that all proponents are pedophiles and neurodiversity is just their cover and means of obtaining victims. DS Belgium (talk) 02:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Original research ?
What looks like opinion and original research was added in this edit by, subsequently removed and later re-added  (edit warring). Will the original editor who added this text please place an exact quote from the source on this page so we can evaluate the text? Because of the curly quotes used, I am also concerned that this may be a copyvio. Thank you, Sandy Georgia (Talk) 00:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just as a note, I do not think that 1 revert along with the unthreatening: "it would be better if you tagged the inappropriate information, because the majority of this material is fine, and is sourced", constitutes edit warring. After all, policy says: "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about some aspect of the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions...". Once is not repeatedly. ValenShephard (talk) 01:33, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is Neurodiversity titled as an Ideology?
The first subheading, "Neurodiversity as an Ideology" seems a bit strange to me. The paragraph simply seems to be discussion differing opinions on the relevance of neurodiversity as a category of human functioning. And since neurodiversity is a relatively marginal movement (as it is still a developing and slow-accepted concept), it doesn't seem to fit the primary theoretical definition of ideology (as a set of internalized, assumed, or unquestioned beliefs; beliefs so deeply ingrained they are understood as being essentialist or natural law). The use of the word "ideology" isn't used anywhere else in the article, so its appropriateness to the conversation seems lacking. If no one is opposed, I would like to change the section to "Opinions on Neurodiversity" or something like that. Does anyone have a better idea, or is opposed? Madnessandcivilization (talk) 17:28, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Neurodiversity and the classroom
This is an appalling section that has been written as an opinion and completely lacks both sources and neutrality. I'm not sure if it can be saved, but as I'm fairly new it may be better to get some other views. If it was up to me I'd take it out altogether, but a better writer might be able to save it because it might be a good issue to include. Aspie Lover (talk) 09:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

This Article Needs Review
This article should be downgraded to a C or to a start. It's really not a B class article. Here are some suggestions to help the page. Article needs to be reframed as a disability right issue NOT an autism rights issue. Correcting the history will help this a great deal. Controverseies needs to be made its own section and not in the introduction. If you want to talk about the specific ways that the autism spectrum community have appropriated it it needs to be included in the autism section. The rest of the article should be retooled to be more neutral. Sugarcoma (talk) October 3, 2012 —Preceding undated comment added 00:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure, except that not everyone views Autism as a "disability"...did you not read the bit, for instance, about the push by those in the movement to remove pathologizing terms?--74.132.26.248 (talk) 07:47, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Rewrote the Introduction
I'm working on a project that is somewhat related to the neurodiveristy movement. Some co-workers and I were talking about the article and how it could be improved. I took the liberty to begin by rewriting the introduction to be more netural. While there are controversies involved with the ND movement, an introduction should state simply and concisely what the concept is and its context. Controversies should be included in their own section or if they are nescissary for the introduction, given their own paragraph concisely summarizing the the nature of the controversy and leave the details for deeper in the article. Sugarcoma (talk) October 3, 2012 —Preceding undated comment added 00:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

"Controversies"
This section needs removing, perhaps with the content inserted in other sections. Nothing in it refers to controversy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.132.26.248 (talk) 07:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

New contributor introduction
Hello all. I'm working from Sonoma State University in California on a Masters thesis which includes information on the neurodiversity movement. Part of my project this semester (Spring 2013) is to create or update a Wiki page on my topic. Since this page already exists, and because the neurodiversity movement is so active, I want to introduce myself before I make any changes. I've done research on the neurodiversity movement, including its history, controversies, the differences between the British and American concepts of neurodiversity, and the organizations which promote a neurodiversity framework. I also have a boatload of academic references for the page. Since this movement is growing and changing, my sense is that this entry needs to change as well. However, I don't want to step on any toes. Would it be preferable for me to create a page of my intended changes elsewhere (and link you to it for discussion), or shall I just enter boldly into this page? Let me know! I'd like to start posting in April, 2013. Thank you! Karla McLaren. KarlaMcLaren (talk) 20:21, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No, you should be bold and make any changes that you feel will improve the article -- of course you are welcome to discuss anything you have doubts about. The two things to bear in mind are (1) our articles should be neutral, that is, they should present facts and not advocate for points of view; (2) Wikipedia differs from academia in that the preference here is to minimize the number of references, because huge numbers of refs make an article hard to maintain.  In practice that means relying whenever possible on review papers rather than the primary research literature -- see WP:MEDRS for more information.  In short, feel free to ask questions but also feel free to be bold. Looie496 (talk) 21:44, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! KarlaMcLaren (talk) 20:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I was somewhat bold in my first edit, but the formatting on Wiki is so convoluted that I didn't want to make larger changes until I saw what these ones did. Let me know how this flies before I become bolder still. Thanks KarlaMcLaren (talk) 22:26, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * On a quick scan, it looks fine to me. It's way more important to get the information right than the formatting.  If you mess up the formatting, any "wikignome" can come along and fix it.  We have way more wikignomes around here than people with subject matter knowledge.  Regards, Looie496 (talk) 23:43, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Wikignomes is a fun term! I'll be adding more data and continuing my edit over the next week or so. KarlaMcLaren (talk) 21:07, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

3 May 2013
Hello again! After my second edit, I have two questions. First, the warnings on this page, about lack of balance and the need for a rewrite of the lead (which I rewrote) -- who decides when these issues have been dealt with satisfactorily? Second, a formatting question: The first Blume excerpt in para 3 of the History section is in a pull quote format, but his next excerpts aren't. Is this a convention, or an omission? Thank you! KarlaMcLaren (talk) 21:34, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If you look at the top of the article, you'll see a tab called "History". If you click on it, you get access to the entire editing history of the article -- every edit, who made it, when it was made, and what was changed.  It often takes a good bit of work to figure out who was responsible for what, but it's all there.


 * The "article tags", I find, were added by on October 4, the same date as the message from him/her that you can see higher up on this talk page.  I have removed them.  There are very few cases, in my opinion, where tags like that have any value, and it's always difficult to know how to handle them.  The message here on the talk page really serves the same purpose, and doesn't mess up the article.


 * Regarding the quotes: an earlier version of this article had three long pull-quotes from Blume.  Pull-quotes are useful sometimes because they give maximum emphasis, but there is a general principle that having a large fraction of the text consist of pull-quotes is bad style.  In November 2011 the article was extensively edited by, one of our best copy-editors, and among many other edits she changed the style of those quotes. Looie496 (talk) 22:58, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your response and your explanations. I wanted to understand the quoting convention before I added more quotes, and I agree with Sandy Georgia's decision to pull-quote where she did, since that is the first public mention of the term.KarlaMcLaren (talk) 05:08, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I edited this article years ago, when I was still a relatively novice editor. The article is over-quoted (then and now); the current recommendations for using blockquote can be found at WP:MOSQUOTE, but more of the article should be written in our own words.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 11:44, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Questions about section header, quotations & controversies
Hello and thank you all for your support. I've just completed a large edit and added updated information in two sections (History and Controversies). I have three questions:

New section names: Is there a place for a new section along the lines of Neurodiversity Organizations or something like that? I don't mean to be a promoter of specific organizations, but there are places people can go to learn more. I couldn't find a rule for section header names, and I'm not sure if this would be an acceptable addition.

Page references: When quoting sources more than once in a para, do you re-reference after quotes?

Controversies: I struggled with one subject that is controversial, but I'm not sure how to frame it. The DANDA reference at the bottom of the History section is important because it shows neurodiversity moving outward from the autism community. However, for some reason, UK neurodiversity sites present ND conditions in terms of disability, disorder, debility, difficulty, and problems (http://www.danda.org.uk/pages/neuro-diversity.php), which is the exact opposite of what Singer, Sinclair, and Blume intended neurodiversity to mean. This misuse of the term is an important controversy, and it separates the UK and US neurodiversity movements decidedly, but I could use some direction on how to frame it within the scope of this piece. Thank you again. KarlaMcLaren (talk) 22:59, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * You shouldn't repeat the article name in section titles, so "Organizations" would be better than "Neurodiversity Organizations". Describing organizations should be fine as long as you do it in a neutral way and as long as you can find reliable sources of information that are independent of the organizations themselves.


 * Regarding page references, this is always a challenge. On one hand, having citations densely scattered through the article is annoying to the reader -- on the other hand, the reader needs to be able to figure out which reference is the source for the particular thing that the reader is looking at.  Basically you should just do what seems best to you, and allow it to be copy-edited later if necessary.  Also, be careful about over-using quotes.  Ideally they should only be used when it is specifically important that the information comes from a particular person or was worded in a particular way.


 * Regarding the controversy you mention, the main principle to keep in mind is neutrality. You should feel free to say that a discrepancy exists and to describe the views and actions of both sides, but you shouldn't use the voice of Wikipedia to pick a winner, unless one of the two sides is overwhelmingly dominant in the mainstream of opinion. Looie496 (talk) 16:48, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree. The article have been polluted with the disability view which is contrary to the initial intention. It's even liked to various disability categories. Rdos (talk) 08:51, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * On section names, please see WP:MEDMOS. On the idea of including a list of organizations, please see WP:NOT (Wikipedia is not a directory, not for advocacy, etc).  Unless an independent secondary source discusses the connection of advocacy organizations to the concept of neurodiversity, including a list or section here would be original research and a breach of WP:NOT. On sources, all quotes should always be directly cited right after the quote.  Text gets moved around and citations may be lost-- in fact, that seems to have happened in your edits.  Regarding your question on controversies, you seem to be engaging in original research (quite a bit of which has crept into this article over the years).  Writing for an encyclopedia is different than writing a university paper, or even a scholarly journal paper:  we only publish conclusions of independent secondary sources, and we can't string together unrelated sources to publish our own, original thoughts -- which is what your paragraph above on "controversy" is.  By the way, I don't believe a "controversy" section is warranted here (I agree with Criticism that all content should be worked throughout the article seamlessly, to avoid creating POV or giving undue weight to any one view-- as the article stands now, one view-- published by an independent scholarly source-- has been marginalized by referring to it as a "controversy").  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 11:54, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Please review WP:MSH, WP:MEDRS, and please also take care with primary sources, WP:SYNTH, WP:OR, weasel words, over-quotation, accurate representation of sources, and to avoid plagiarism and copyvio. I have tagged and cleaned up some of the issues in the article-- there are more. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 12:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion of scientific neurodiversity
The current article has a too big focus on non-scientific definitions of neurodiversity as well as a sociological model. There is a recently published scientific definition of neurodiversity in the peer-reviewed journal Sage Open (http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/3/3/2158244013497722.abstract). Conclusions abount neurodiversity as well as the scientific definition should be added. Rdos (talk) 08:09, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In this case, "open source" appears to mean "self-published" (by the author of the concept)-- there is no other reliable mention anywhere. I have just been through this article and found the use of many primary sources, misrepresentation of sources, uncited text, WP:MSH issues, weasel words, and multiple items needing clarification. I have tagged and checked only a small portion of same-- there is much more to be checked (and the article is overquoted).  I also found plagiarism, so the entire article should be more carefully checked for accurate representation of WP:MEDRS-compliant sources.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 12:35, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It doesn't mean "self-published". Sage Open is peer-reviewed (look it up). Your opinion of a concept you dislike has no importance here. I have no idea why you even frequent this article as you obviously only deal with the disorder view. Your claim about plagiarism is ridiculous as SageOpen has extensive anti-plagiarism detection. It just shows that you don't know what you talk about. Rdos (talk) 13:21, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

So has the disease people scared-off all the neurodiversity advocates here as nobody seems inclined to read the study and add important content? Rdos (talk) 08:34, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

From the conclusion of the paper: "The data from Aspie Quiz contradict the view that neurodiversity is a cultural or social construct, as all the traits are correlated to each other, pointing to an inherited rather than social component." This should be added as another POV. In addition to that, the scientific neurodiversity definition should be added "Neurodiversity was defined as the primary factor output by factor analysis of a data set of human behaviors which contains evenly distributed traits of all sorts that cover all of human diversity. Neurotypical function was defined as the second factor.". The validity of this method could be cited from Results - Factor stability that concludes that these factors were highly stable and independent of what exact neurodiversity issues are used. Support for the idea that personality is related to neurodiversity is presented in table 5 where extraversion and neuroticism is found to be highly correlated to neurodiversity Rdos (talk) 09:59, 10 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Articles for deletion/Aspie Quiz. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:05, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * This has nothing to do with the deletion or not of the Aspie Quiz article. Primary sources like this can be used in other articles without being notable enough to motivate their own article. Rdos (talk) 09:20, 12 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Without an independent secondary sources that cites it, it cannot be shown that WP:DUEWEIGHT or even WP:FRINGE is satisfied.   20:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The paper is not WP:FRINGE in this article since it is about neurodiversity as human variation, the very topic of this article, and this has been found to be a notable subject. There can also be no WP:DUEWEIGHT as nothing from it is cited yet. More likely we have a WP:POV bias here by not citing evidence for neurodiversity being inherited. This is in fact a very common view on autism-related forums, so is not a minority view. Rdos (talk) 07:00, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with Zad68; without independent secondary sources that cite and discuss this article, we have no "evidence for neurodiversity being inherited". We have one paper, a primary source, written by you (please see WP:COI); autism-related forums are not reliable sources.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 11:32, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism allegation
Among other things the journal "Dyslexia" is noted as "unreliable medical source". How could a journal with a focus on one of the components of neurodiversity which is not considered a disorder be unreliable in the context of neurodiversity? I'll just have to remind Sandy Georgia that this is not a medical article (despite falsely being categorized as such), but about the personality-aspect of several psychiatric diagnoses. Rdos (talk) 13:48, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The word "vandalism" should only be used for edits that are deliberately intended to damage the encyclopedia. You will find that using the word to describe well-intended edits that you disagree with will greatly reduce the chances that other editors will pay attention to what you are saying. Looie496 (talk) 15:18, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Please review WP:TALK and alter the section heading above. Not only have you used "vandalism" incorrectly, but you have singled out an editor in a section heading.  The reliability of those sources is not dependent on whether or not neurodiversity is a medical topic or a disorder or psychiatric or not; it has to do with statements about health.  The source tagged is a primary source; it could be tagged with RS or MEDRS equally, but MEDRS does a better job of explaining the use of primary sources when discussing health matters. If you have a secondary review that discusses that primary source, it could be included without being UNDUE; when primary studies are unreviewed by secondary sources, any number of sourcing issues arise.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:02, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The "Dyslexia" journal is owned by the Brisish Dyslexia Association, which has funding from the Orton Gillingham remedial program providers, and is similar to Orton Gillingham's main marketing arm the International Dyslexia Association which owns the "Annuals of Dyslexia" journal. dolfrog (talk) 16:16, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * What you try to tell me is if somebody has done non-medical treatment programs of Dyslexia, they disqualify as a credible source. I suppose that if somebody invented a drug that would treat Dyslexia nobody would see any problem in including that as a reliable source, right? Rdos (talk) 08:25, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * First you claim that it doesn't matter if neurodiversity is a medical topic or not, and then you claim that it is about health and that that would motivate requiring using medical sources only. That's really illogical. Do you claim that personality types should be referenced from medical sources also, arguing that any variation from typical personality traits (like being introvert, which in fact is a neurodiversity trait) is a health issue? Rdos (talk) 08:17, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I have corrected the section head per talk page guidelines to remove the inaccurate personalization. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 18:16, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Synthesis
There is synthesis, original research, weasel words, and puffery throughout ... I tagged some, removed some that was obvious, and this piece is pure synthesis: I've removed it to talk in case someone can cite it. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 02:56, 12 August 2013 (UTC)"Many conflicts over the neurodiversity approach focus upon the assumptions of people like Jaarsma and Welin (above), who believe that neurodiversity activists don’t want any treatment or supports. However, this does not take into account the work of neurodiversity-focused organizations such as the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Autism Women’s Network, The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, and Autism Network International, all of which advocate for direct support (such as inclusion-focused services, accommodations, communication and assistive technologies, occupational training, and independent living support)."
 * Agree this is problematic content and correct to remove until sufficient sourcing can be found/improved.  20:22, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I can't make the citations on talk work, but the entire paragraph seems to be constructed as original research by the person who wrote it, stringing together unrelated sources to synthesize a conclusion. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 11:40, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I got the reflist-talks to work by adding required magic parameter "close=1" (why would a parameter like that be optional to specify but required to make it work??).   14:00, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Synthesis 2
Additional synthesis, original research, moved here for discussion. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 12:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC) "This lack of attribution may be due to the possibility that Singer's conceptualization of neurodiversity had already been adopted by an international online community of people on the autism spectrum, to which Singer belonged, and which Blume studied for an article he wrote in 1997."

Synthesis 3
Moving another to talk; sources claim weblinks, but there are none, and WP:SYNTH, and questionable WP:RS considering no source or publisher is given. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 20:42, 13 August 2013 (UTC) "However, the argument could be made that rejection of the broader claim on the basis of 'low functioning' autism ignores the experiences of neurodiversity advocates who would be considered 'low functioning,' some of whom directly address these issues"

Clarification in Controversy Section
I had a question about this specific section: "Additionally, as the term neurotypical refers to not having a developmental disorder; it could be argued that one is neurodivergent when they have been born without a neurodevelopmental disorder. Since most people with mental illnesses are born without a developmental disorder, they are considered predominantly neurotypical from birth. Mental illness could be triggered by environmental causes or traumatic events in one's lifetime, whereas developmental disorders are present at birth and continue into adulthood." I understand this section is informing about controversy in neurodiversity advocacy, but where is the source for this conclusion? Or did someone come to this conclusion on their own? On Wikipedia, we are supposed to provide information without forcing a connection or conclusion of our own making. JJlemus (talk) 03:38, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I feel like someone just came to this conclusion on their own. The coiner of the term neurodivergent has stated that the term refers to anyone with a divergent brain, and a lot of the community would agree with that, in conflict with what the controversy section says. As such, neurotypical would simply describe someone who is not neurodivergent. That part of the controversy section should probably be removed or reworded. HaiFire3344 (talk) 05:46, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply! I have removed the segment. JJlemus (talk) 01:22, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

"Neurodiverse people"
"Autistic" is not a dirty word. Neither is "neurodivergent." You wouldn't call a Black person "diverse," so please give people with disabilities and divergences the same dignity. If the article uses the term, then the quote can be included as a quote.

Were the article more encyclopedic, I might not complain, but there's an obvious social justice bent and if we can't have an informative article, let's at least be reasonable and inoffensive. Individuals are not "diverse," communities are. 2603:7081:1603:A300:BDC7:731E:1907:FDAF (talk) 23:49, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Neurodiverse psychiatrists
I would like to add a section about neurodiverse psychiatrists, including individuals like Victor Kandinsky, who despite suffering from schizophrenia, made significant contributions to psychiatric science. What do you think of this? – Mariâ Magdalina (talk) 20:30, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't think that's relevant. The article is specifically about the concept and framework. Including a list of individuals would, first of all, imply that they are definitely neurodivergent and implicitly treat the paradigm as accepted/accurate, both of which are pretty strong claims to make. Further, those people might actually object to the framework or not subscribe to it; in that case, listing them in the article would be pretty rude.
 * Finally, it would be very specific without any good reason why. This article is about a particular framework, not about contributors to psychology or psychology in general. Would the argument be that listing "neurodiverse" psychiatrists is relevant because they were notable neurodiverse people in psychiatry, and this is an article about neurodiversity which is a school of thought in psychology, and psychology is related to psychiatry? I would be more amenable to a list of proponents of/contributors to the model, but even that seems unnecessary as it would be too excessively detailed. Aos Sidhe (talk) 21:49, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone
— Assignment last updated by Mewallac (talk) 22:19, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Coiner of the word Neurodivergent
Kassiane Asasumasu is the person who coined the words neurodivergent and neurodiverence and should be credited. Dr Nick Walker on her website https://neuroqueer.com/neurodiversity-terms-and-definitions/ in her 2014 essay on neurodiversity terms and in her 2021 book Neuroqueer Heresies (page 38, publisher Autonomous Press) states both words were coined by Asasumasu in 2000.107.77.205.126 (talk) 00:05, 30 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Yup, I completely agree that they need to be credited. I'm not sure the best way to address this on this article myself, but I've noticed that Wikipedia in general is lacking a lot of information about the terms neurodivergent and neurodivergence, to the point where the concept has no dedicated page and just redirects here, where it is barely expanded on. This seems rather odd to me; considering the antonym neurotypical even had its own page at one point but was merged here. HaiFire3344 (talk) 17:02, 8 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Also note that the term "neurotypical" is significantly older (early 1990s) than either "neurodiversity" and "neurodivergent" and is also used to just mean "non-autististic" in mainstream academic research and clinical contexts, rather than denoting the opposite of "neurodivergent" or being associated with neurodiversity as a political position/world view. Hence, I believe that it makes sense to have a standalone article on "neurotypical".
 * The German Wikipedia's entry on "neurotypical" has just been largely rewritten and contains mostly English-language sources that could be used here as well: neurotypisch.--TempusTacet (talk) 17:35, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think a few problems right now are that neurodiversity is often confused/conflated with neurodivergence, folks often think that one or both of said terms only include autism, ADHD, and maybe a few other conditions, and there isn't much information about the more general uses of neurodivergent and neurotypical where the former simply refers to having a brain that diverges and the latter refers to not being neurodivergent (this is how I tend to see the words used online). A lot of this has to do with the separate origins of neurodivergent and the way these terms are still used in mainstream academic and clinical contexts. If there is the possibility of giving neurotypical a standalone entry again at some point, maybe more information and sources can be found about the social aspects of neurodivergence, and then a separate section (and eventually a standalone article?) can be made about that as well. I wonder if the German Wikipedia entry has anything that expands on neurodivergent in particular. HaiFire3344 (talk) 18:54, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that all terms surrounding neurodiversity are poorly defined and are used by different people with various different meanings.
 * The German Wikipedia does not say much about "neurodivergent". In the article on "neurotypical" it just states that "neurotypical" is sometimes used as the opposite of "neurodivergent" (just as you said in your first comment) and briefly discusses that "neurodivergent" and "neurotypical" are problematic concepts in the "Kritik" section. Almost all of this is based on English-language sources, in particular this book chapter, which you'll probably find interesting. The entire book is open access.--TempusTacet (talk) 19:06, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Why do we got a "Neurodiversity Movement" thing if it redirects to "Autism rights movement"?
"Neurodiversity" and "autism" are not synonyms, never were nor ever will be. What do we have a redirect link at the top? Why not we just make it a category page because there are literally several other neurodiversity movements and awareness days! Sheragirl10 (talk) 22:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that seems wrong to me. Neurodiversity encompasses ADHD and other things too. That redirect should probably be removed, if there is not a separate article for the neurodiversity movement (and there probably does not need to be, since the neurodiversity article should cover advocacy efforts too). There are some other links in this article that seem to imply that neurodiversity and autism rights are synonymous, which is incorrect. Hist9600 (talk) 22:38, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I believe that this is a historical decision made by early Wikipedia editors. The autism rights movement fully formed in the 1990s and the neurodiversity movement for a large part grew out of it starting in the late 1990s but did not reach the mainstream until well into the 2000s, at which point Wikipedia already existed. Also, people that have been around when the neurodiversity movement first started might have the impression that it is but a sub-movement within the autism rights movement. (Similar to terms like "neurotypical" or "neurodiversity" itself which once were slang and are now relatively widely known and used in non-activist contexts.)--TempusTacet (talk) 06:10, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * You can nominate it for redirects for discussion or propose a split for the article. Abby Pereira (talk) 23:08, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Autism heavy, ie - unbalanced
Understandings of Autism and 'not autism' have been central to the history and spread neurodiversity concept (especially the neurodiversity movement online) but this article should be giving an overview of : -all sorts of neurodiversity -discussing the boundaries of neurodiversity - such as the history of whether certain things are included, & when/who says

Each section is very Autism-focused to the point it makes it confusing to read.


 * Other - dyspraxia, adhd, synesthesia .... etc
 * debated - mental illnesses, life experiences that have neurological effects, other brain variation .... etc

The article could provide and overview of how different labels in the neurodiversity umbrella have operated within the neurodiversity paradigm or not; and where they have or contributed to it. 78.149.120.57 (talk) 14:31, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell the page is not protected/locked, you're welcome to edit and improve it.--TempusTacet (talk) 15:50, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

'Neuronormative'
Hi. Use of the word neuronormative is a way to circumvent the epistemological issues with the word neurotypical (and therefore neurodivergence) - that are raised in this article.- [ Neurotypical section - see 'reception']

Unfortunately sometimes the word neuronormative is misunderstood to be part of a framework where neurotypical is 'normal' and so-called neurodiversity 'abnormal'. What it actually means is that neurotypical behaviour and strengths have been positioned as social norms, and neuro-atypical people - ADHDers, Autistics, Dyspraxics, Dyslexics, the Learning disabled etc, have then had to navigate a world which has, to date, privileged people without those conditions.

It might require an understanding of the concept of 'normativity' (see Normativity & Social norm) to understand the idea, for those who do not already have an understanding of the constructedness of language and concepts.

The use of the word neuronormative  inherently questions the current 'normalisation' of certain peoples ways of thinking and behaving (and 'abnormalisaiton' of others), and questions the status quo of aspects of our societies that are supportive and helpful to some neurotypes whilst being unhelpful and discriminatory towards others. It is therefore actually a progressive way of understanding neurodiversity and so-called neurodivergence. Use of the term is also a current trend - for instance the term is used in some academic papers about neurodiversity topics. So therefore I feel it should get at least some explanation or mention somewhere in this article. ee 84.65.96.97 (talk) 12:02, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

"recent addition of text-based options"
Recent… first, "recent" has no place in an encyclopedic article. Recent when? Second, it doesn't make sense given that social media started text-based (Twitter, Facebook, and their grandparents were all (pure) text). Third, the abstract of the paper doesn't say so, as far as I could see. jae (talk) 01:24, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Neurotypical/Term needs a sensible rework
So in its current state the page seems to work from the idea that some people are neurodivergents whereas most are not, even if J. Singer earlier in the archives clarified that she did not intend "neurodivergent" to be a descriptor for individuals. Anyway, under Neurotypical/Term the text jumps from the classic inclusions such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia to include "mental and behavioral traits, such as mood, anxiety, dissociative, psychotic, personality, and eating disorders."

I believe this section needs stronger sourcing or argumentation for it to stay. The latter conditions are mostly considered treatable and curable to some point, while autism, dyslexia, and to some level ADHD are not. Seeing as most of the population will qualify for mood, anxiety, dissociative, psychotic, personality, or eating disorders at some point in their life it also seems to undermine the concept as explained earlier in the article, and sounds like overinclusion to the point of rendering the term useless. Autism not necessarily being pathological or suitable for a medical/psychiatric model is easy to understand, why the same would be true for mood, anxiety, and eating disorders is harder to understand and not explained in the article. I'd consider removing it myself if I was more well versed in the editorial process, hope someone more experienced will consider it. Evilfiredad (talk) 08:33, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Edit to 1st Paragraph in "Within disability rights movement" section
The first paragraph in the "Within disability rights movement" section was lacking clarification and stronger sources. I edited this section to help it flow better and replace/add some stronger and more recent sources. Kassafrass (talk) 18:42, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Double Empathy Problem theory needs different illustration
The well-meaning illustration at Double empathy problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity#/media/File:Autism_Double_Empathy_1.png) appears biased by showing the difference between the 2 as the neurodiverse person's mind being a rainbow and the other person's less interesting or even black and white, simply by the fact that it is representing what is typical. The reality is that what is typical is also a rainbow. :-D  The entire point of neurodiversity is that there is inherent beauty in the way all of our minds/selves work and all ways are part of the creative good of the universe, including those which are present in more than 50% of the population (thus neurotypical). Please use a graphic that shows mutual communication difficulty without it looking like the graphic has an empathy problem itself. (this observation is being made by an autistic person) 76.114.197.177 (talk) 08:57, 8 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I totally agree! I will go ahead and make this change to replace the illustration with one that is more suitable to help embody that section. Kassafrass (talk) 18:43, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Disability, Communication and Visual Culture
— Assignment last updated by Allyson103 (talk) 01:49, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Neuroscience
— Assignment last updated by BerryERo (talk) 18:38, 26 October 2023 (UTC)