OTnews August 2020 | Page 32

FEATURE NEURODIVERSITY
Together, we are
all kinds of minds
A group of neurodiverse occupational therapists talk to OTnews
about how they experience the world around them
© GettyImages/DrAfter123
As a group of seven people, we embody
a wide range of diversity (both neuro
and otherwise). Each of us has a unique
profile of skills, interests, abilities,
disabilities, difficulties, strengths, challenges, and
lived experience of occupation.
We all identify as neurodivergent; as people with
diverse ways of thinking and perceiving, due to our
different wiring, and we all have a broad and inclusive
approach to neurodiversity. It is estimated that
approximately one in seven people are neurodivergent,
meaning that their brains function, learn, and process
information in different ways to their neurotypical
counterparts (ACAS 2019).
Neurodivergence can either be genetic and innate
(such as autism and dyslexia), occur as a result of
a brain-altering experience (such as trauma), or be
a combination of the two (Walker 2014). It includes
cognitive and behavioural divergences, whereby a
person’s neurocognitive functioning diverges from
dominant societal standards of normal.
These differences and divergences include relatively
well known diagnostic labels such as autism, attention
deficit disorders, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dyspraxia,
epilepsy, and Tourette syndrome. It also includes other
neurological differences resulting from affected brain
development.
However the concept of neurodiversity is not
without controversy, particularly in regards to its
defining features. The term has increasingly come to
be associated most strongly with autism spectrum
disorders, and some commentators suggest that
medical conditions (such as epilepsy) should be
excluded.
Our experiences
Neurodiversity challenges the idea that there is
one normal or healthy neurotype. With its origins in
the Autistic Rights Movement, the Neurodiversity
Movement recognises that neurological differences
need to be recognised, accepted and respected like
all other human variations, and not be pathologised.
32 OTnews August 2020