Article Title:
Editorial Perspective: Neurodiversity – a revolutionary concept for autism and psychiatry
Year: 2017
Journal: Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
Author: Simon Baron-Cohen
Summary & Thoughts
Dr. Baron-Cohen presents a different perspective on previously long-established beliefs about autism spectrum disorder. In the article, he challenges the assumption that autism is characterized as a disorder. The term disorder implies a lack of order that is typically present in the natural world, or randomness. He argues that this definition does not properly describe autism. Over the past 50+ years, researchers have been focusing on exploring autism and its related causes, associations, and characteristics. With increasing studies examining autism, comes increased knowledge and awareness of it in society. The author presents various arguments (genetic, neural, behavioral, and cognitive) against autism as a disorder:
Genetic
- Autism is not characterized by a genetic mutation
Neural
- Autistic individuals have larger amygdalas in childhood and smaller posterior
portions of the corpus callosum, showing brain size differences
- Autistic individuals have less cell apoptosis or cell death, wherein extraneous
neurons are pruned; their brains display overconnectivity between neurons
- Autistic individuals display significant differences in sensory processing, which is
the neurological process of how humans interpret and respond to internal and
external sensory input from the environment
Behavioral
- Autistic children have an object bias over a face bias (they prefer to look at objects,
and do so for longer, than at faces; which is opposed to neurotypical children)
- Autistic children show differences in play, preferring object play over social or peer
play
- Autistic individuals prefer repetitive play and repetitive tasks, likely due to the
predictable nature of these tasks
Cognitive
- Autistic individuals require extra support for cognitive empathy, which is the ability
to cognitively understand another person's emotional states or experiences (although
they do display similar if not more emotional empathy than neurotypical people,
which is the ability to feel and take on the emotions that others are feeling)
- Autistic individuals require extra support for cognitive flexibility, which relates to
problem solving and adjusting when plans go awry
- Autistic individuals require extra support for social cognition and skills such as
interpreting and responding to social cues
All of the above points don't necessitate pathology or disorder, rather mere difference. The author presents autism as more fitting to be considered a disability rather than a disorder. A disability implies that the challenges are often contextually-bound, such as how a person who is tone-deaf might only be "disabled" when they are required to sing or imitate singing a song.
Autism should now be viewed through the lens of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity is a framework which includes those individuals who learn differently from the neurotypical individual. Neurodiversity describes neurological differences as a normal part of human variation.
The neurodiversity framework should be used to capture the experience of people whose brains learn differently, and these individuals' experiences and needs should be supported rather than pathologized.
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