Language Shapes Perceptions ?!

 I have often heard this statement from many stakeholders ; Why is language so important in the context of neurodiversity ? Here we are , talking about a group that , for most part , has been misunderstood and marginalised. Many members of the community are routinely denied access to appropriate education and work opportunities and a quest for accommodations is perceived as a demand for some kind of a special treatment . Healthcare professionals tend to brush off many of our issues under the garb of sensory differences, often making us the favourite target population for weird and unscientific ‘diets, medications and therapies’ that promise miraculous relief and cure . 

With so much at stake , shouldn't our focus be on  research to figure out ways and means to alleviate and work around some of these challenges, so that we can learn, work and live to the best of our ability ? Does language even matter in such a context ?

I sat down to think about this and realised that it does matter indeed , for language shapes perceptions and our perceptions define every single one of our thoughts and actions . 

Autism and other neurotypes were historically looked at from a medical lens, which resulted in a lot of focus on our deficits ; the things that we could not do . The language used to describe us borrowed heavily from this deficit centric approach , thereby creating a perception of us being ‘less able’. It is surely worth pondering whether such a perception may have contributed to exclusion from mainstream education and creation of pre defined notion about the kind of jobs we can do and those that we cannot .

The term ‘neurodiversity’ was first coined in the late 1990s by Judy Singer, a sociologist . Along with this term came the language that described neurotypes like autism and more as a mere difference in the way one perceives the world around and relates to it and different is not necessarily wrong . With this language came the understanding that the society maybe disabling us more than our diagnosis in itself , and thus began the ever so slight shift in the way society perceived us neurodivergent. Among other things, it paved way for the development of assistive technologies and individualised learning programs aimed to build skills and improve the quality of life . I like to believe that when we perceive someone as capable of learning, working and living to the best of their ability, provided they are given certain accommodations , we are more open to providing these accommodations and also creating other options to make optimal living a possibility . So language is a catalyst for change, after all .

Today , nearly three decades after the term ‘neurodiversity’ was first coined, I believe that there is a need for a new term that best describes us as a group and here's the reason why . Our collective understanding of neurotypes like Autism, ADHD and more has significantly changed and we have come to realise that these neurotypes have probably always existed at the current numbers , but what may have happened was that many of them went undiagnosed . In short , our brains may not be wired like a majority of the people, but we are a significant minority - the Neurominority.

Being a minority means being different , and different is not less!. This is an understanding that evokes hope about research finding solutions that help us live to the best of our ability and solutions that help in creating an equal world for all .