In 2024, we published an evidence summary on supporting neurodivergent people and their families. In this summary we drew on the social model of disability and neurodiversity theory to give people working in social care guidance to deliver strengths-based support to neurodivergent people.
We emphasised that many neurodivergent people struggle, not because there’s something wrong with them, but because the world around them is not accessible to them. The evidence summary describes the neurodiversity paradigm and uses that approach to suggest how we can reduce barriers and tailor support when working with neurodivergent people.
In this blog, I focus on three neurodiversity theories. The common thread for all three is understanding that the world can be harmful to neurodivergent people. The theories provide us with some concepts and language that disrupt our understanding of what’s ‘normal’ and explore how we can help neurodivergent people accessing care and support to thrive.
Positive cultures
Social Care Wales and Care Inspectorate Wales have recently produced guidance on supporting positive cultures in social care. The first principle of a positive culture is to protect, promote and support people’s rights. This includes recognising and understanding what matters most to people and respecting their ideas of what makes a good life.
In our evidence summary on supporting neurodivergent people and their families, we explore how social care workers can use a strength-based approach to provide effective support without minimising the challenges people face and to enable them to live a good life according to what that means to them.
Neurodiversity and normality
One school of neurodiversity theory looks at the way that everyday life, and the workplace specifically, disables people. The researcher Robert Chapman in Empire of Normality writes about how neurodivergence is both a social construct and something that really affects people. Chapman traces the idea of normality and abnormality through history. They argue that due to the rise of capitalism, social norms, especially workplace productivity, have narrowed our idea of what counts as 'normal' or neurotypical. This means that more and more people, who in other circumstances might not be disabled, become so because the environment around them is more and more prescriptive.
Chapman argues that in order to make sure neurodivergent people are not disabled by society they need more than just specific concessions. According to Chapman, neurodivergent people need to advocate and organise to change the world in much broader terms to stop people from being disabled. They connect neurodivergent liberation with a critique of capitalism and press for wider societal change – to abolish workplace systems, which disable people through narrow definitions of what’s normal.
Neurodiversity and social justice
Some researchers and activists have argued that we must understand neurodiversity within the framework of intersectionality. Intersectionality refers to how a person’s multiple identities or characteristics, such as race, gender, class and sexuality, may interact. For example, people from ethnic minority backgrounds might get judged more harshly than white people for behaviour linked to neurodivergent conditions. For example, the Care Quality Commission has expressed concerns that Black and Black British young people in Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and on learning disability wards had much higher rates of placement in prolonged seclusion than their white peers.
One prominent activist and theorist looking at intersectionality through the lens of racial and intersectional justice is Ly Xīnzhèn Zhǎngsūn Brown. Brown writes about the way that different forms of oppression and disadvantage intersect in people’s lives and that it’s important to address them at the same time. This means looking at how neurodivergent people with other characteristics are affected differently.
Focusing on people who face multiple inequalities can help us improve things for everyone. The emphasis here is on the importance of viewing neurodiversity within the context of broader justice movements. Without that context, efforts to be inclusive might only make things better for people who have already had more opportunities and support in their lives.
Neurodiversity and LGBTQ+ rights
Another way that neurodiversity theorists challenge ‘normality’ is through the idea of neuroqueering. Nick Walker, who co-developed the concept, makes connections between being LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent. This is important within neuroqueer theory not just because a lot of neurodivergent people are also LGBTQ+, but because these theorists believe that the norms that narrow down what’s acceptable in terms of how we act in the world should be questioned. They argue that society is heteronormative and cis-normative. This means that people tend to see being heterosexual and cis-gender as the norm. Similarly, neurodivergent people face oppression because only certain kinds of neurotypes are accepted.
Neuroqueer theory can help us think about how our ideas of normality may not be serving anyone well. Walker uses the term Neuroqueering to talk about people’s active efforts to change the environment in a way that allows us all to value differences.
Delivering better social care for everyone
In social care, we can use these theories to deepen our understanding about the challenges neurodivergent people face and how different forms of inequalities and oppression interact and overlap.
All of these approaches view neurodiversity theory and activism as something that not only affects individuals, but can help us improve society more widely.
The neurodiversity paradigm helps us understand how neurodivergent people are disabled not through there being anything wrong with them, but by the world not being accessible to them.
The theories in this blog allow us to explore why things are the way they are and how we can provide social care and support in a way that makes everyone better off.
