Neurodiversity Counselling in Auckland | Psychologist & Counsellor ASD, Autism, ADHD, ID | Onehunga, Auckland, NZ | Neil Burton
Description: Reordering the Differences
I recently saw some philosophers discussing – well, more dismissing – the concept of the ‘neurotypical’. This is something I’ve seen a few times now. Personally I think the term is useful. Here I’ll have a go at defining it, offering some historical context, and offering a metaphysics of neurotypicality.
It will be helpful to begin with some history. The term ‘neurotypical’ was first used for part satirical, part political, purposes. Although it may have emerged earlier, it is usually dated back to autistic advocate Laura Tisoncik’s website on the ‘Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical’ (ISNT), launched in 1998.
The ISNT was a fictional institute whose spoof website (archived here ) that was essentially used by autistic people to satirically reverse the psychiatric gaze back on to people considered ‘normal’. On this website, as Tisoncik recalls, a range of autistic writers “picked apart characteristics of neurotypical individuals in the same patronizing, pathologizing, voice in which traits commonly held by autistic people are described, with feigned obliviousness to how such traits might also be useful.”
Neurodiversity Counselling in Auckland | Psychologist & Counsellor ASD, Autism, ADHD, ID | Onehunga, Auckland, NZ | Neil Burton