Normative levels applied to divergent people based on arbitrary measures (such as the ability to speak) that describe external observations of need as it relates to someone’s contribution to or burden on society. Functioning labels are inaccurate, biased, and harmful to all neurodivergent people, acting as gatekeepers to supports and justifications for denial of autonomy.
This concept describes the human tendency to form opinions and biases based on how facts are presented rather than on the logical facts themselves. With reframing, we disrupt those biases by presenting the same facts differently in order to come to a new understanding of the same situation.
This behaviour is a safety-seeking response to distress caused by food. It is similar to ARFID called sensory avoidance, which is when a person has issues with food tastes, textures, temperature, and smells. What avoids the slip into ARFID is the quantity of food a child consumes. As long as a child has enough “safe foods” to find the nourishment their body needs, they remain food averse and not ARFID. Many children, especially autistic children, struggle with this.
This is the medical diagnostic term for a range of permanent neurological and physical conditions caused by exposure to alcohol during pregnancy, leading to lifelong challenges with learning, memory, behaviour, social skills, and growth. There is no known safe amount of alcohol to drink during pregnancy, and the safest approach is to avoid alcohol entirely to minimize risks.
A neurodiversity affirming term defining neurodivergent people’s deep states of attention and absorption to the exclusion of all other inputs.
This is the concept around being a polytropic thinker; neurodivergent people are often pathologised for being ‘inflexible,’ with the assumption that flexibility in thought is the one right way of thinking. This concept excludes the existence and validity of monotropic thinking.
The movement needed by some people in order for them to do their best thinking; the capacity to regulate our attention and our behaviour is a limited resource, and some of that resource is used up by suppressing the very natural urge to move.
The process of abandoning self for the purpose of attending to the needs of others with the (subconscious) aim of securing safety; a fawn response occurs when a person’s brain unconsciously perceives a threat and compels survival behaviour to keep them safe.