Disability and Neurodivergence – we’re all unique!

Terminology

I often hear and see generalisations made, particularly on social media, about disability and neurodivergence. For instance, parents ask whether their autistic child should go to a mainstream school or special school. The answer is that it depends on the child – it’s not a one size fits all approach. There are so many factors that determine which school is right for an individual. It depends on their sensory needs, communication, the level of support they require, their academic ability – the list could go on!

I hear a lot about how everyone is different and the fact that we all have brains which work in different ways. However, something I don’t hear as often is discussion of the variation within those of us who are neurodivergent, even amongst those of us who have the same condition. As explained in the example above, we’re all very different. This is something I wanted to discuss in this blog post. It sounds obvious but it’s something which, I feel, can be forgotten about.

To some extent, categorising people is unavoidable. It’s something that we all do subconsciously; it’s part of human nature and how our brains are wired. Whilst categorising is natural and part of how society works, it does have its downsides. Not forgetting about the discrimination that can consequently occur, it can also lead to stereotyping and generalisations being made.

An example of a huge generalisation was the conversation around blue badges, when their eligibility was extended for individuals with hidden disabilities, which I blogged about at the time. People assumed that it applied to every single hidden disability, when in reality it was only those who met certain criteria due to the severe effects of their disability. Lots of people with dyspraxia believed they would suddenly be eligible. Whilst dyspraxia affects our balance and coordination to a certain extent, it doesn’t severely affect our ability to walk across a car park (unless the individual has acquired dyspraxia – a different type of dyspraxia caused by a brain injury or a stroke which is less common but tends to be more severe). It’s something I went into more detail about in my blog post but is another example of how generalisations are made from a particular category, in this instance ‘hidden disabilities’.

I have had comments from people before where they’ve made generalisations about my disability based on someone else. A couple of times I’ve even been compared to somebody with a completely different disability! Whilst in primary school, my teacher commented that I should be able to skip with a skipping rope because she’d taught an arm amputee a few years before who could. There are so many ways that generalisation doesn’t make sense! Dyspraxia causes completely different difficulties to someone who is an amputee.

Some disabilities have more visible differences between individuals. For example, cerebral palsy is a disability in which you can often see how it affects people in different ways; some people might be affected in just their legs, whilst others may be affected down one half of their body (although there are also many other, sometimes invisible, differences between individuals with CP). 

In contrast, with dyspraxia the differences between individuals aren’t always obvious at first glance. If you spend some time with us, you might gain some insight into the things we find difficult and some of these things might be more visible, such as coordination difficulties. However, if you walked into a room full of people with dyspraxia (*cue visions of something being spilt or dropped!*), you wouldn’t immediately be able to tell how each individual was affected.

Therefore, with hidden conditions, like dyspraxia and autism, the differences between us aren’t always immediately obvious and it takes more conscious thought to consider how we might be affected in different ways. Yes, there are diagnostic criteria we would have all met in order to be diagnosed with a particular condition, like dyspraxia, but there are a great number of differences between each of us. Just a few of these differences include sensory sensitivity, organisational abilities, processing difficulties, motor skills difficulties and social skills difficulties.

I have to admit, I have been a bit guilty of forgetting this myself in the past. There have been times where I have seen something about someone online, such as a dyspraxic gymnast, and have thought to myself “Well how can they do that if they have dyspraxia? That doesn’t make sense!” What I’ve come to realise is that firstly, that’s probably taken a great deal of effort on their behalf to get to that stage and, secondly, I’m not them. Just because dyspraxia affects me in a certain way, it doesn’t necessarily mean that others will be affected in the same way. We all will have physical difficulties to a certain extent, that’s a core part of the condition, but maybe that particular individual struggles more with their fine motor skills than their balance, for example.

In some situations, generalisations about disability are necessary and unavoidable, such as in the disability sport classification system. But these are outnumbered by the many situations where it’s important to look at each person as an individual. It does take time, and getting to know the individual, but I know it’s something that I would greatly appreciate and I’m sure many others would agree. If we don’t recognise these differences between individuals, it can lead to assumptions being made. I’ve heard a lot about how huge assumptions are made about autistic individuals. This is something that needs to change, as these assumptions can result in further misinformation and misunderstanding. You wouldn’t assume that two neurotypical people have exactly the same strengths and weaknesses, so why make that assumption for someone who is neurodivergent/has a disability?

Natalie 🙂