Hareesh P V (Research Scholar), Dr Aswathy Gopi (Assistant Professor)
Department of Psychology, SRM University-AP
“Aah! My ADHD brain can’t focus on one thing!”
“I am missing letters while typing email to my supervisor, I think I got dyslexia!”
In a day, at least once we would have encountered someone phrasing their daily life issues with a neurodevelopmental label. Sometimes, even a personality trait that one hold on to, has been attributed to symptomsof neurodivergence. Living in such a trend, how can a layperson recognise genuine neurodivergence from the everyday normal variations, and provide the necessary support? By their looks? Behaviour? If yes, what behaviour? There could be some possible answers that goes “They behave weirdly.., like a mental”. Or could argue that “Weain’t clinical psychologiststo do checklist ticking and assess the person”. Well, let me ask, is this how the medical field recognise neurodivergence?
The identification and diagnosis of neurodivergence involves rigorous assessment of cognition and behaviours of the individuals along with standardised psychometric test results. What actually defines a neurodivergent is identifying the unique cognitive profiles that differ from the neurotypicals (normative expectations). Now, to simplify this process for the layperson, we shall dwell into core principles of distinguishing neurodivergence.
Typical behaviours v/s Neurodivergent behaviours
- Starting point
The onset, or what we can say as the starting point of the particular behaviour can reveal whether it is with in the normative expectations or not (Nesplora, n. d.). Neurodivergence generally do not just appear in the adulthood;the underlying factorswill be present from the childhood itself. A person claiming that they started having sensitivity to the noise of people talking in group at the age of 24, is very unlikely to be attributed with autism spectrum. Each individual will have a particular capacity, after which the disturbance will be explicitly visible. Research has found standard expected range of functioning for the individuals’ ageand connecting this with the subjective experiences can help to identify neurodivergence(O’Hearn & Lynn, 2023; World Health Organisation, 2019).
- Context
Similar to the chronology, the context of the behaviours also matters. Neurodivergence is usually not restricted to any specific event or location. A person experiencing clumsiness and attentional issues in their job but not in other daily routines makes it a situational dependent problem. So, most likely the issue came from their work environment. Attentional deficits in ADHD and the difficulties in neurodivergence show up across their personal, social, and other areas of functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2022; World Health Organisation, 2019). After all, the brain wiring ain’t as picky in how it is manifested across situations; unlike some of us! It just functions the way it is structured to be. The brain doesn’t care much about the constructs of 9 to 5 schedules, sitting still for 8 hours, rather it focuses on the reality as it is.
Reason behind the atypicality
If we face a non-typical behaviour, the first question must be “why did it happen?”. Focusing only on what we see and not the underlying reason leads to false evaluations. Children with autism spectrum disorder are sometimes observed to scream loudly or hit themselves. For a typical person, this looks like throwing tantrums, but it could be behaviour they found themselves to cover the disturbance caused due to sensitivity or trying to communicate it to the nearby person. Neurodivergent brains often are highly sensitive to the daily background noises that typical brains can easily filter out (Summers et al., 2017). After all, when is the last time you got distracted by the ticking of your wristwatch and could not come back to the important task you were doing (Okay! I believe you had such an experience, now read along).
Symptoms of major neurodivergence
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- It was these many years until you realised, ADHD is not a deficit of attention! Yes, unlike the name suggests, the actual difficulty that an individual with ADHD face is in directing their attention to the required task. Their brain consistently shifts from one to other tasks that do not innately is highly stimulative or distractable for the typical person of similar age.The body refuses to stay idle and show cases excessive movements. Further, there will be uncontrolled response from the individuals with ADHD to the immediate events or stimuli, without being concerned about the consequences (World Health Organisation, 2019). These symptoms are persistent for the person regardless of specific context. So, the next time you see someone say, “I can’t focus in the class, only Instagram reel songs are playing in my head, I think I have ADHD”, send them this article!
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
- Autism spectrum disorder is associated with the divergence in social communication, cognitive flexibility, and sensory processing. Individuals with ASD often fail to reciprocate the social interactions in the daily life and expresses very rigid, repetitive behaviours that are uncommon for their age. These behaviours could be repeating of same words or phrases or being stuck in a particular topic or interest that are unusual. They may not give proper eye contact during conversations and sometimes may not respond to basic queries like what their name is. Their expressions may not match the content of speech and finds extreme difficulty in adjusting to a different social event.Their interests would be restricted to fewer things and the brain captures many details from the surroundings that neurotypicals usually neglect. This overload of stimuli causes the person to act differently in the situation. In short, autism is not single common symptom disorder, but a spectrum of characteristics (National Institute of Mental Health, 2025; World Health Organisation, 2019).
- Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)
- Despite the educational support received and having normal intelligence as per psychometric tests, certain individuals face difficulty in the basic academic skills such as reading, writing, or mathematics. Specific learning disorder is an umbrella term that includes dyslexia (reading difficulty), dysgraphia (writing difficulty), and dyscalculia (mathematical difficulty). Such individuals consistently struggle with distinguishing the sounds of language, confuses alphabets while writing, skips words while reading and finds difficulty in visualising quantities in the mind. This is not a one-day or one week issue. They often continue for years if therapy is not taken. Mild difficulties could be coped as the individual moves into adulthood and gains better experience in handling it (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Keep in mind your friend who is scoring low in exams despite the teaching efforts of educators should not be labelled dyslexic. The struggles of a child with learning disorders are beyond scoring low in exams.
Distinguishing neurodivergence
The recognition of neurodivergence not only helps the individuals to get better support but also provides clarity for us to understand their needs. Not every neurodivergent person has a disorder. They would have found their own healthy ways to cope with the different wiring of their brains. So, instead to approaching them with sympathy, be more empathic. They experience the world different than you. It’s not wrong, rather fascinating to explore how. In conclusion, the goal of simplifying diagnostic approaches isnot to make every layperson become an armchair psychologist. Rather, understanding how psychologists distinguish these profiles and shifts the conversation from judgment to curiosity and support.
They are a little different, but one among us. Like you, like me….
