User:JJlemus/Neurodiversity

Neurodiversity and the Workplace (Place before controversy section)
Neurodiverse individuals are subjected to bias when applying and interviewing for job positions. Specifically, neurodiverse individuals can have their social engagement style compared to neurotypical individuals, and it can affect their ability to obtain a job position. Neurodiversity stigmas, especially against autistic individuals, and cognition challenges in social situations can hinder an individual's ability to perform well in a traditional job interview.

Once in the workplace, neurodiverse employees continue to run into barriers. In a systematic review that considered developmental dyslexia (DD) as "an expression of neurodiversity," it was suggested that neurodiversity is not yet an established concept in the workplace, and therefore, support from social relationships and work accommodations is minimal. Furthermore, another systematic review that focused on intervention studies for supporting adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) discovered that there were few workplace-based intervention studies. The covered studies mainly assessed pharmacological and combined (pharmacological and psychosocial) interventions. Additional research needs to be conducted to figure out how to best support neurodiverse employees in the workplace.

When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, remote work became more common, and researchers like Yael Goldfarb began looking into digital transitions and the implications for employees with autism. Goldfarb's study suggested that these individuals would benefit more from remote work as it allowed them to engage in their interests, but social engagement is still necessary for productivity and performance. Another study that assessed remote work employees with autism supported Goldfarb's findings and stressed the need for redesigned work and social conditions to be more inclusive for individuals with autism.

Controversy
Further information: Controversies in autism § Advocacy initiatives

The neurodiversity paradigm is controversial in autism advocacy. The dominant paradigm is one which pathologizes human brains that diverge from those considered typical. From this perspective, these brains have medical conditions which should be treated.

A common criticism is that the neurodiversity paradigm is too widely encompassing and that its conception should exclude those whose functioning is more severely impaired. Autistic advocate and interdisciplinary educator Nick Walker offers the distinction that neurodivergences refer specifically to "pervasive neurocognitive differences" that are "intimately related to the formation and constitution of the self," in contrast to medical conditions such as epilepsy.

Neurodiversity advocate John Elder Robison argues that the disabilities and strengths conferred by neurological differences may be mutually inseparable. "When 99 neurologically identical people fail to solve a problem, it's often the 1% fellow who's different who holds the key. Yet that person may be disabled or disadvantaged most or all of the time. To neurodiversity proponents, people are disabled because they are at the edges of the bell curve, not because they are sick or broken."

"Critiques of the Neurodiversity Movement", a 2020 review, argued two basic observations:


 * Many people who do not have an autism diagnosis have autistic traits. This was known by researchers as the "broader autism phenotype". So, there was no clear bimodal distribution separating people with and without autism. In reality there were not two distinct populations, one "neurotypical" and one "neurodivergent".
 * "Neurotypical" was a dubious construct, because there was nobody who could be considered truly neurotypical. There was no such standard for the human brain.

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.