Innholdsfortegnelse for Understanding Neurodiversity i Understanding Neurodiversity

One in seven people in the UK have been diagnosed with some kind of neurodiversity, but what does that mean? Diagnoses of autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia – among others – are on the rise, so how can we understand these conditions? We’ve spoken to experts to understand how neurodiverse brains work, from how to find out if your child is neurodiverse, to what to do if you think you are yourself. We’ll also explore the strengths of the neurodiverse mind, and how to handle any anxieties and self-doubts that so often plague those with neurodiversities.…

The term neurodivergence was first used by people with autism. It was then quickly adopted by people with ADHD, dyspraxia, dyscalculia and dyslexia. Medically, these are labelled as developmental disorders since they first manifest themselves in childhood. Recent research, particularly on autism, has started us towards understanding what happens. As the brain develops, billions of new connections between neurones are made as the baby learns to move, talk and walk. The brain is literally wiring itself up for future life. But in doing so it creates millions of unnecessary connections. Between the ages of two and ten, this process goes into reverse and the developing brain starts pruning synaptic connections. Developmental disorders such as autism appear to be a result of the brain pruning less in some areas than normal.…

While recent years have seen a rise in awareness about the signs and symptoms of neurodiversity, the process of receiving a diagnosis can sometimes be lengthy, confusing, and even expensive. Navigating the healthcare system doesn’t have to be tricky, though, and this article will explain how you can access the support that you or your loved ones need. Doing the research There are lots of resources available, and you can find information about a variety of conditions in this title. Other places to look include charities and national health organisations, such as ADHD UK and the National Autistic Society. Other websites can easily be found online, or through books from your local library. Don’t worry too much if you feel confused – lots of conditions do overlap, and it’s common…

A first cousin of the writer of this article is probably autistic – but he’s never been diagnosed and now he never will be. He’s become comfortable in his skin and is not looking for any explanations as to why he is the way he is. Besides, as he is 61, for most of his life no such diagnosis would have been possible. He’s capable, fluent in language (speaks Italian, German and English) and lives his own life. But he also never realises when he’s speaking too loudly, misses social cues and, once fixed on a plan, finds it impossible to change it. These are classic signs for autism today but that wasn’t always the case. For most of his life, he wouldn’t have been diagnosed with autism even if…

The World Health Organisation estimates that 1 in 100 children has autism globally, though this doesn’t consider those who are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and there is also little data from low-and middle income countries. The actual prevalence is likely to be higher. The National Autistic Society estimates that there are around 700,000 autistic adults and children in the UK; and data from the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network in the USA puts prevalence in the country at around 1 in 36 children. The definition of autism has also changed and developed over time, as our understanding of the condition and the way it can impact on people has evolved. Autism is a spectrum condition, meaning that it’s a disorder that covers a broad range, affecting people in lots…

Caring for someone with ADHD, whether they’re a child or a vulnerable adult, can be difficult in a number of ways. It’s therefore important that carers are also able to receive the support they need and are able to look after themselves. Some organisations, including CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), provide free resources and training for adults who are looking after children with ADHD. This includes training written by parents for other parents, as well as content for and by teachers. It also runs an online forum where parents and caregivers can discuss their concerns and difficulties with the community. Visit www.chadd.org for more. The ADHD Foundation (www.adhdfoundation.org.uk) hosts a large resource hub, including an extensive section for parents and carers covering a wide range of topics. In…

Often considered to be a neurological difference similar to dyslexia, dyscalculia is a condition that describes a difficulty with numeracy skills. It’s thought that 6% of all people have dyscalculia, and that individuals with dyslexia are 60% more likely to also have difficulties with maths. Like dyslexia, dyscalculia can also be passed down through families, but it also has a link to foetal alcohol syndrome – something that occurs when babies are exposed to alcohol before they are born. While many people struggle with learning numeracy skills, dyscalculia is found to cause more severe difficulties, which will have been present from an early age. Those with the condition may experience high levels of anxiety about maths, and struggle to understand how numbers relate to each other. They might also find…

Despite a staggering one in four people in the UK experiencing a mental health problem each year, the invisible nature of it means there’s often a tendency to ignore problems and just get on with it. But, as Stephen Buckley, head of information at mental health charity Mind, says, “Mental health is just like our physical health: everybody has it and we need to take care of it.” He adds, “Thankfully, we’ve seen the national conversation on mental health move forward, but those with mental health problems still face barriers.” The topic remains taboo, especially for older generations – a YouGov survey revealed 25% of over-55s think it’s more difficult for them to discuss mental health than younger people. Some 71% felt this was because, in the past, anxiety and…

The cycle of anxiety is perpetuated by distraction. Anxiety before writing an important essay can be relieved by looking at cat videos on YouTube, the instant release of tension brought through procrastination leading to a further deepening of the cycle. However, there are times when feelings of anxiety can become so overwhelming that simply relieving them becomes more important than anything else. In these cases, effective and non-harmful distraction techniques can be both helpful and necessary. Among the most effective of these are exercises that intensively use the most conscious part of our brains, the pre-frontal cortex. This is also the part of the brain that is most prone to worry, so finding something else for it to fixate upon can allow the rest of the brain to slowly relax.…

Feeling overwhelmed a lot of the time and for a long time can lead to burnout. Burnout is caused by long-term stress triggering the brain and body to essentially ‘shut down’. Burnout can cause symptoms like chronic exhaustion, anxiety, irritability, physical issues, an inability to focus, insomnia and feeling unable to cope. Neurodiverse people may be more likely to experience burnout due to the extra challenges they face in having to adapt to an environment that’s not optimised for them. This can be especially true if someone spends a lot of time masking in order to fit in at work or in social situations, or adapting and engaging in situations in which they don’t feel comfortable. Some studies show that neurodivergent people may experience burnout differently to neurotypical people, and…

If you are a parent, building a healthy and trusting relationship with your child is probably one of the most important things you will ever do. You are effectively helping to shape another human being’s self-esteem, and providing them with a good grounding for later life. “When you communicate well with your child, it leads to a strong relationship, greater cooperation, and feelings of worth,” confirms therapist Zinny Perryman, who has specialised in working with children and family interventions. “If the opposite is the case, it can lead to your child switching off, conflict and feelings of worthlessness. They are far less likely to open up about any difficulties or worries and it can be easy to lose touch with what is going on for them.” She advises: • Be…

Some people are tall, others short. There are people with blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes, green eyes and a few even have different colour eyes. The writer of this feature has UK size ten feet; yours are probably another size. The simple fact is that people are different. It’s so unremarkable that we do not even notice it. The only time this difference does become noticeable is when we meet people who are not different: identical twins stand out from the rest of the population precisely because they look just like another person, not because they look different. People are strange It is the fact of difference across a range that unifies us. If you mapped out the heights of everybody alive in the world today, it would form…

The curious case of Phineas Gage On 13 September 1848 a railway worker, Phineas Gage, was tamping an explosive charge down into a hole drilled in the rock his team was clearing. Distracted by some of his men, Gage turned his head to speak to them. At that instant, sparks set off the explosives. The iron rod he had used to push the explosives into the drill hole shot out like a bullet and into Gage’s head, going through his upper jaw, on up behind his left eye and through his brain before shooting out through the top of his skull. In a time when health and safety rules were non-existent, this was just one of thousands of workplace accidents. But what made this unique was the fact that, extraordinarily,…

Deciding whether or not to pursue a formal diagnosis is a personal choice, and only you can decide whether it’s something that’s right for you and your family. There are a wide variety of potential benefits from receiving a diagnosis, including the opportunity to understand yourself or your child better. If the diagnosis is for you, you’ll be able to request reasonable adjustments at work, in order to ensure that you have the necessary support to complete your role in a way that works for you. If it’s a child or young person who receives the diagnosis, they should be able to access support from their school. Although receiving a diagnosis can be very beneficial, it can also be highly overwhelming. The process can be long, and might require you…

NHS assessment is all very well but what do you do if your GP refuses to refer you? Unfortunately, a significant number of people have encountered this problem. However, it’s not the end of the road; there are other ways to get your diagnosis. If your GP refuses to make a referral, you are within your rights to ask for a second opinion. You can make a formal request for a second opinion or you could simply make another appointment but ask to see a different GP at the practice. If you do the latter, you do need to tell the doctor about your previous conversation. Should there be no other GPs available at your practice, you can change practice. You could also decide to have a private assessment for…

A common coping behaviour experienced by people who are neurodivergent, masking occurs when people adapt their behaviours to fit in with those who are neurotypical. This happens because of a real or imagined pressure in society to behave in ways that are seen as socially acceptable, and can be detrimental to people with ADHD. Research has found that masking behaviours are more likely to occur in girls and women, as well as people from racial or ethnic minority groups. Masking behaviours themselves can vary, but examples in ADHD can include: • Individuals hiding their true feelings to avoid triggering rejection sensitivity• Making the effort to appear organised by setting multiple alarms and reminders• Coming up with excuses for being late or missing important events• Working extra hard to meet deadlines…

A common form of neurodiversity, dyslexia is a type of specific learning difficulty (SpLD), which means that people learn and process information differently. With dyslexia, this often manifests in difficulty with literacy skills such as reading, writing and spelling, but very importantly, doesn’t impact their intelligence. Up to one in ten people in the UK are thought to live with dyslexia, and without support, this can cause difficulties at school and at work. The earlier that someone is diagnosed, the easier it is for them to be supported, and people with dyslexia often excel in the creative and visual industries. All people with dyslexia experience the condition in unique ways, and it’s important to see each person with dyslexia as the individual they are. While the cause of dyslexia is…

A wide range of charities exist in the UK that can support people who live with dyslexia. One of the largest is the British Dyslexia Association (www.bdadyslexia.org.uk), who not only provide information and services to support people in the community, but also strive to raise awareness of the condition by working with the government. Its website is a particularly useful place to find out more about the signs and symptoms of dyslexia, access assessments, find training for professionals, and much more. Other charities include The Dyslexia Association (www.dyslexia.uk.net), which provides a variety of services for children and adults, including a free national helpline. Made By Dyslexia (www.madebydyslexia.org) is another useful resource, which operates across the world and is led by people who have dyslexia. It champions dyslexia thinking and the…

While most people with dyspraxia would cheerfully wave goodbye to the condition, they would also nevertheless agree that learning to live with it has formed who they are. Dealing with the difficulties lead to a number of traits that many people with dyspraxia share, such as high levels of determination and motivation. Because doing simple tasks requires more effort than normal, dyspraxics internalise and normalise unusual levels of determination and perseverance. Although short-term memory can be a problem, long-term memory is a strength. People with dyspraxia can generally tell you in detail what happened a year ago even if they find it difficult to recall instructions given a minute ago. The hard knocks (sometimes literal) of dyspraxia produce people who are resilient: they’ve had plenty of practice of picking themselves…

Rainbow grounding is a relaxation technique that works particularly well with anxious children. The pandemic and the government response to it produced major increases in anxiety among children so this might be a useful exercise to help an anxious child. Again, it is based on moving attention out from the internal world to the world around us. Look around and try to see the rainbow in the colours of the things in your surroundings. Start with red, then move through the other colours, yellow, green, orange, purple and blue. It’s probably best to skip indigo as most people are a bit vague as to how indigo differs from purple. As you see each colour, really look at it to see what shade it is, its texture, the way the light…

If you’re looking at your to-do list and feeling overwhelmed, here are some tips for prioritising your tasks. Not everything is urgent When you write a list, it gives everything equal urgency. One method to prioritise is the Eisenhower Matrix, which breaks tasks down by urgency and importance, separating tasks into Do Now (things that are important and urgent), Decide Later (things that are important but not urgent), Delegate (things that are urgent but not important) and Delete (things that are not urgent or important). Do quick tasks Handle any tasks that will take less than 5 minutes right away. This is great for those little tasks like washing up, taking laundry out of the machine, opening mail, etc, that can easily turn into bigger tasks if not done. Some…

Those with ADHD in particular often struggle with emotional hyperarousal, which causes thoughts, reactions and feelings to be more intense. Criticisms have more of a long-term effect on those with emotional hyperarousal – but so do feelings of love and pleasure. This makes it easier for people to love bomb them as they will associate them with the intense happiness, but also means any criticisms will be taken very personally and profoundly affect their self-esteem. It also elevates the risk of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other disorders that can arise out of trauma, such as dissociative disorders, depression, anxiety disorders, borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive or paranoid personality disorders.…

Self-awareness helps us to learn who we are as a person, accepting those things that challenge us and focusing on our strengths. It can be hard to go on this journey of self-reflection at first, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. It means getting to know yourself, your traits, your habits and your feelings. Finding your triggers and responses, your experiences and your opinions. Some people find it helpful to use a journal to write this down; other might prefer a more visual form of expression. It can be useful to talk to someone you trust to get started; ask them what they think your strengths and unique traits are. This could be a family member, friend or even a professional. They often see strengths in…

A paranoid schizophrenic who hears voices telling them to kill their child’s teacher definitely sees the world differently from most people, and their mind works differently too. So by a simple definition of neurodivergence, paranoid schizophrenics are neurodivergent. The same could be said of people suffering from clinical depression, bipolar disorder and other severe mental-health conditions. In one sense, this is true. Everyone suffering from severe mental illness is neurodivergent – if they weren’t, then the majority of the population would be mentally ill. However, in the case of mental illness, the neurological difference can be devastating to the life of the sufferer and the people around them. A good example is the different ways people with autism and OCD experience routines. An autistic person, particularly a child, will use…

In the UK, under the Equality Act passed in 2010, employers must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that employees with disabilities, or mental or physical conditions, are not prevented from doing their jobs. This crucial piece of legislation has been a boon for people suffering from physical disabilities but it is only more recently that it has started to be properly applied to neurodivergent people. By the terms of the act, reasonable adjustments don’t just apply to people who have always been neurodivergent but also to those who have become neurodivergent. For instance, someone who has suffered a stroke, and partially lost the ability to speak, could be accommodated by having their work moved into writing. Reasonable adjustments would also include the employer allowing the employee extra time off for…

Rates of diagnosis of all the different types of neurodivergence has surged over the last decade but none has increased as dramatically as ADHD. In 2012, the NHS prescribed medication for ADHD for 8,000 people, of whom more than 6,000 were children. By 2022 that number had surged to 26,000, with the gap between adults and children narrowing rapidly. This is just the number of people prescribed drugs to treat ADHD; the number with a diagnosis but who have opted not to use medication is much larger. This rise has prompted concerns that it’s all just a social-media trend. On TikTok, there are millions of posts tagged #adhd and they’ve had billions of views. Some doctors have worried people are diagnosing themselves through online questionnaires, while others suggest that there…

A common form of neurodiversity, ADHD is a condition that usually begins in childhood and lasts for someone’s entire life. Although it can cause a variety of difficulties in everyday functioning for both children and adults, people with ADHD also have many strengths that make them fantastic family members, friends and employees. It’s likely that you know someone who has ADHD – it’s estimated that three to four per cent of adults in the UK live with the condition, with around five per cent of children meeting the diagnostic criteria globally. Recent years have seen increased awareness about ADHD, predominantly due to social media, which has led to an increase in individuals seeking a diagnosis. What are the different types of ADHD? ADHD is an umbrella term that can be…

As with other types of neurodiversity, dyslexia often occurs alongside other conditions. This can include other specific learning difficulties like dyspraxia, dyscalculia and Developmental Language Disorder, as well as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and autism. People with neurological differences like dyslexia are also much more likely to experience mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. This can be worsened when individuals compare themselves to others, particularly if they struggle with skills that involve reading and writing. Some children in particular might experience a phenomenon known as ‘failure to succeed’, where learning at slower rates to their peers can result in low self-esteem and disengagement from learning, which can further impact their progress. This is why it’s really important for dyslexia to be identified early, and for appropriate support…

It can be difficult for carers of people with dyslexia to know how to support them in a way that is effective. To help with this, many organisations run training sessions and workshops that can teach parents and guardians how to guide children and support them in their learning. The Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity run virtual and on-demand courses on its website, which includes reduced fees for families who come from low-income backgrounds. Support groups for parents of children and young people are also run by local dyslexia associations, which operate in counties across the UK and provide a variety of services. This can include their own helplines and advice services, befriending, conferences, screenings and assessments. The contact information for these local organisations are listed on the British Dyslexia Association…

There has been a huge rise in the rate of autism diagnosis: a massive 787% rise between 1998 and 2018. Additionally, more and more adults have been diagnosed as autistic. So it’s no surprise that autism has dominated the debate about neurodivergence. But Autism Spectrum Disorder is just one among the many conditions that lead to people thinking and experiencing the world differently. Over the following pages, we will look at four other conditions that change how people think, feel and behave, and how they affect their day-to-day lives. Tourette Syndrome It’s an unfortunate fact that the form of Tourette’s best known to the public is coprolalia. That’s the form where the sufferer’s dialogue (and it is most commonly present in males) is best represented as ‘Bleep bleep, bleepity bleep…

Talking to someone about being bullied might feel almost as tough as dealing with the bullying itself, but it’s essential. Even if you feel it will be upsetting or embarrassing, don’t let that, or any threats about speaking out, stop you. Who you tell will depend on who you feel most comfortable with. As an adult, it could be a friend, colleague or partner. If you suspect or know your child is being bullied, encourage them to talk to you or perhaps a teacher or another relative. If you don’t get the response or the help you hoped for, choose someone else and carry on until you do. In addition to advice on dealing with bullying, there are numerous organisations that are set up to offer help, some with helplines…

How do you get on with those around you – your partner, children, parents, siblings, even colleagues? Would you describe your relationships as good, or do things often feel strained with definite room for improvement? When we talk about relationships in general romantic ones first tend to spring to mind, but our attachments and interactions with other people in our life can be similarly significant. “Relationships are key to our health and happiness and give meaning and purpose to our lives,” confirms chartered clinical psychologist and author Dr Jessamy Hibberd. “We’re highly social beings and early humans needed to live together and get on in a group to ensure survival. This means we have a deep need for social inclusion and research shows that a lack of social support is…

Anger, like joy or sadness, is a normal emotion, one that we have all experienced and will continue to experience. It’s a natural response to a situation in which we’re frustrated, irritated or provoked. In situations that trigger us, the body gets ready for ‘fight or flight’, with anger readying us for the fight option. It’s normal, even good for us, to feel anger sometimes, especially when it’s justified – anger enables us to express a negative reaction to a situation, rather than bottling it up inside, and it makes us want to seek out solutions to problems. But for the neurodiverse, anger can become all-consuming, an instinctual reaction to simple frustrations or difficulties that can negatively impact your day-to-day life. While it might be one of the ‘basic’ human…

Understanding neurodiversities Learn about ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia and more, and see how it can affect your life Harness your superpower! Being different isn't a bad thing – discover your uniqueness and build your self-confidence Is my child neurodiverse? Experts share their advice on spotting the signs and supporting neurodivergent children Moving beyond the trauma of bullying Why are neurodiverse people so often bullied, and how can you let go of your suffering?…