Many people might not have often read about or heard the word ‘neurodiversity’. On the relative timescale of human science and culture this word is still merely taking its first steps.
In fact, one could pinpoint its debut in wet ink to a 1998 article in The Atlantic, referencing people with autism spectrum disorder. For the next 20-odd years it thrived in a set of related, but narrow niches. It was adopted by parents, educators, healthcare professionals and activists: an alliance of the concerned, people battling to change our minds about the abilities and potential of children and adults with conditions like autism, ADHD and dyslexia.
Now the term appears to be hitting the mainstream. Based on data from Google Trends, a tool for analysing search queries, global interest in the word “neurodiversity” has grown at a compound annual rate of 47% since the beginning of the pandemic. If you were an early investor in “interest in neurodiversity”, you might have hit the jackpot.
Maybe there is no greater indicator of a concept’s growing importance than that a major academic institution has decided to create a whole new project devoted to studying it – the landing page of the Stanford Neurodiversity Project gives us a working definition to follow:
“Neurodiversity is a concept that regards individuals with differences in brain function and behavioural traits as part of normal variation in the human population.
“The movement of Neurodiversity is about uncovering the strengths of neurodiverse individuals and utilising their talents to increase innovation and productivity of the society as a whole.”
Like with many ideas that are in a protean form, the exact boundaries of neurodiversity are fuzzy.
Generally speaking, neurodiversity would include ADHD, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), dyslexia and dyscalculia, various kinds of intellectual disabilities, as well as schizophrenia.
