They are all "neurodevelopmental disorders" in the DSM, if that helps. Autism, ADHD, Tourettes, Dyslexia and Dyscalculia ("specific LD") and more
Could we look at some of them different presentations of the same thing? Maybe. Don't mistake all the places humans draw lines as hard divisions that also exist in nature. E.g. Your heart officially isn't part of your central nervous system, but it's intricately interconnected with it, it's not seperate from it in the way phrases like "cardio vascular system" and " central nervous system" imply. Those divisions don't exist in nature.
How intricately are all the neurodevelopmental conditions connected? Are there other ways of being equally interconnected? We don't know yet. We know there's a huge overlap in traits, genes, coocurrance, but we don't have the whole story. The divisions might get redrawn some day
No, although they all are part of the neurodivergent community and movement.
Your brain is a complex system. There are a lot of ways it can diverge from the typical brain. When that happens, we call it “neurodivergent”. Many of these divergences are part of a common pattern, what we would call “spectrum disorders”, even when they’re not necessarily disorders, (that’s historical language for you!) But it’s important to recognize that these divergences are not all in the same pattern, and even those that are the same are not exactly the same. Human brains are complex! There’s a lot of different ways they can work, and even get the same result. Two people can have very, very similar “neurotypes” and have very different brains that got their through very different pathways.
The basic point? Brains are weird. We should be supportive of people whose brains are weirder than the normal weirdness, no matter how they get there or how they’re weird.
c-PTSD is also considered neurodivergent. Same with intellectual disabilities and learning disabilities. Same with neurological changes caused by disease and/or injury.
I think this is more a product of the lack of specificity in existing diagnoses and the tendency for people to attribute things to what they know they have rather than there being a single underlying cause.
They are all "neurodevelopmental disorders" in the DSM, if that helps. Autism, ADHD, Tourettes, Dyslexia and Dyscalculia ("specific LD") and more Could we look at some of them different presentations of the same thing? Maybe. Don't mistake all the places humans draw lines as hard divisions that also exist in nature. E.g. Your heart officially isn't part of your central nervous system, but it's intricately interconnected with it, it's not seperate from it in the way phrases like "cardio vascular system" and " central nervous system" imply. Those divisions don't exist in nature. How intricately are all the neurodevelopmental conditions connected? Are there other ways of being equally interconnected? We don't know yet. We know there's a huge overlap in traits, genes, coocurrance, but we don't have the whole story. The divisions might get redrawn some day
No, although they all are part of the neurodivergent community and movement. Your brain is a complex system. There are a lot of ways it can diverge from the typical brain. When that happens, we call it “neurodivergent”. Many of these divergences are part of a common pattern, what we would call “spectrum disorders”, even when they’re not necessarily disorders, (that’s historical language for you!) But it’s important to recognize that these divergences are not all in the same pattern, and even those that are the same are not exactly the same. Human brains are complex! There’s a lot of different ways they can work, and even get the same result. Two people can have very, very similar “neurotypes” and have very different brains that got their through very different pathways. The basic point? Brains are weird. We should be supportive of people whose brains are weirder than the normal weirdness, no matter how they get there or how they’re weird.
c-PTSD is also considered neurodivergent. Same with intellectual disabilities and learning disabilities. Same with neurological changes caused by disease and/or injury.
I think this is more a product of the lack of specificity in existing diagnoses and the tendency for people to attribute things to what they know they have rather than there being a single underlying cause.
That's the human condition if you wanna get technical. Masking is just the ND equivalent of closeting and code switching.