The Brain: Complex, Effervescent, Unique

Neurodiversity as a concept, is shrouded in stereotypes, misconceptions and scepticism – accompanied, usually, with a healthy dose of prejudice. The purpose of Neurodiversity Celebration Week is about challenging those attitudes and celebrating neurological variety – and the strengths and skills it often enables. The purpose perhaps, is ultimately inclusion and equality – a world where variety is not only accepted, but admired and appreciated.

The annual awareness campaign, founded in 2018 (and held this year on 17–23 March), raises the profile of neurodivergence – in all its forms, ADHD, dyslexia, autism, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, to name a few. It aims to peel back the labels which are so often associated with disorder and deficiency, to reveal “alternative thinking styles” which should be valued in their own right.

With as much as 20% of the population experiencing some sort of neurological difference, it feels limiting to continue boxing this off as a collection of difficult or unmanageable behaviours or learning difficulties which deviate from a perceived “norm”. Indeed, it seems limiting to call it “difference” at all, in itself an othering term. Perhaps it’s more realistic, more helpful, to look at the social and educational systems and parameters in which we expect people to function – ideally thrive. They are very often rigid and unaccommodating, dated and undynamic – especially in the context of the developments in our understanding of brain function and neurological patterns.

We know so much more now about the huge range in thinking styles, how the way we view the world colours the way we learn, and yet most of the systems within which we operate haven’t moved on. Consequently, they simply don’t work for everyone. For some, they are in fact a huge hinderance. Perhaps if those parameters which structure our lives were more flexible, more nuanced, more enabling – a greater percentage of people would be able to thrive. It seems ludicrous to ask more and more people to fit into a specific round hole – regardless of their shape and size, rather than see if that hole can change shape and size to accommodate those that pass through it?

Our education system is a prime example of this rigidity. Structured as it is, for hundreds of years, funneling children through an increasingly narrow criteria, shaving off those that don’t fit at various stages of the process. Granted, there is a growing acknowledgement of neurological variety and an increase in support measures, but awareness is still relatively new – ADHD, for instance, wasn’t recognised by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence until 2000. There is no doubt that those categorised as ADHD, dyslexic, autistic, dyspraxic… are still at a disadvantage in a system that doesn’t serve them well enough. Their experience of school will be more challenging, potentially less rewarding, lonelier, and more fraught.

There’s an argument of course, that change cannot occur until there’s more funding available, until schools can take the time needed to adjust pedagogical approach, employ specialists, change a culture. But in the meantime there are surely, small wins to be made. Celebrating success in all its forms, acknowledging the extra steps some pupils have to take to get to the same place as their peers, indeed understanding what those steps are – how considered, resourceful and ingenious they might be, understanding the obstacles the school system puts in the way of almost a quarter of pupils, recognising outcomes that have been achieved through alternative means – actually facilitating those means, that feels inclusive and a step in the direction of equality.

My own experience of battling my way through the education system with ambitions for a writing career while saddled with undiagnosed dyslexia, was at best frustrating, and at worst almost debilitating. I was predicted low grades, put in lower academic sets and discouraged from higher education, but a diagnosis not only changed my self-perception, but put in place support and strategies that got me here. To a career in writing. I firmly believe that understanding the challenges my brain faces and – more importantly – the ways I can maximise its functionality has completely shifted my capacity. I do things now with confidence and competence that were once (when forced to do them in a certain way) hugely difficult and frustrating. I am now able to do them in a way that supports a dyslexic brain. Accepting that variation has been very enabling, and my achievments have been possible not because I overcame my dyslexia (I’m not sure that’s possible), but because I embraced it.