Neurodiversity Historiography

Dialogues in Neurodiversity Historiography 

(exchanges between 02/2026 - 05/01/2026 on LinkedIn)

The following exchanges emerged from ongoing public discussions surrounding the historical development, theoretical orientation, and contemporary application of the neurodiversity paradigm. These conversations reflect broader tensions within the field concerning authorship, collective discourse formation, sociological methodology, diagnostic language, institutional co-optation, and the evolving relationship between neurodiversity scholarship and community-based knowledge production.

Rather than presenting neurodiversity as a fixed or universally agreed-upon framework, these dialogues illustrate the field’s ongoing negotiation of meaning across scholars, advocates, autistic and neurodivergent communities, and public intellectual spaces. They also reflect the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of neurodiversity discourse as it intersects with disability studies, sociology, education, critical theory, and questions of epistemology, legitimacy, and social power.

Cole Denisen, PhD:

This misses the point of Neurodiversity a bit. Neurodiversity is not meant to be a replacement or short-hand for diagnostic labels. It is meant to trouble normality and the system which continues to characterize certain groups of people as Other and sort them into hierarchies of value. What is depicted here and what you describe is closer to what neurodiversity scholars have been calling 'neurodiversity-lite'. 

Marita Broadstock

Hi Cole, we have chatted about this stuff before and I appreciate your views as a ND scholar.

"Neurodiversity is not meant to be a replacement or short-hand for diagnostic labels."

I agree! But the umbrella idea (and there are dozens, this one is the broadest conception though not the latest iteration from this source 

https://doitprofiler.com/insight/neurodiversity-co-occurrence-map/) does encourage that use.

And when people use the term to self-identify (for good reasons, as I say), researchers, policy makers and providers are left with trying to work out what a person actually means. Because the commonalities are few and far between in terms of strengths and support needs.

This is in no way a critique of the value of the paradigm itself but a question on how it is being applied because it has taken on a life of its own. Concepts and constructs are not handed down like stone tablets as immutable facts. This is reflected in the DSM being on its 5th iteration as a social document of abnormality and by proxy, normality, one that is being "troubled" as you put.

Cole Denisen, PhD

Application is certainly an issue, as the paradigm and related language has often been misused/ co-opted - usually by those meaning well - which adds further murkiness. It was developed to tease identity away from the diagnostic process. Neurodiversity is also a critical paradigm, which places it in a different ontological/ epistemological realm. It is more akin to queer/feminist/ disability studies, though that part of it often gets overlooked in favor of neuro-pluralism. The co-optation of the language has been the topic of conversation among many of my colleagues. 

And I appreciate you starting the conversation! Judy Singer herself has lamented in blogs and interviews about what Neurodiversity has become, referring to the way the idea has been applied as polyanic. It has certainly taken on a life of its own.

Marita Broadstock

 Indeed (and personally I found Pollyanna very irritating!) By moving away from pathologising labels, there is a real risk that neurodivergence (mislabeled as neurodiversity) has become - in public consciousness - a euphemism for having a quirky personality with a side order of "superpowers" that feed the capitalist machine. That so many people are putting neurodivergent in their Linkedin Bio's work in the employment sector as trainers and mentors is contributing to this skewed perception, I think. "Not that there is anything wrong with it" as Jerry Seinfeld says, but it does narrow the focus to a group of people who can mask and sufficiently "pass as NT". Indeed the ability or inability to mask is arguably a useful discriminating variable in lived experience. But that's a thought for another post.

Thanks for engaging :)

Judy Singer

Cole Denisen, PhD Marita Broadstock please refer to my discussion at www.neurodiversity2.blogspot.com/p/what.htmlmhashtag#Diversity is a *measurement* of variation in a given environment. It has nothing to do with disability. I coined it, intuitively, as a catchy name for a moment for valuing human diversity.

Cole Denisen, PhD 

Trying to find some nuance here: I think this framing collapses two separate questions: whether Judy Singer made foundational contributions to neurodiversity discourse, and whether neurodiversity itself emerged collectively through broader autistic and InLv community discussions rather than from a single originating figure.

I do think Singer’s contributions are sometimes underacknowledged, particularly her role in helping formalize and translate these ideas into academic and public discourse. At the same time, recognizing the collective development of neurodiversity does not erase her contributions. Even Singer’s own writings situate her work within broader conversations already taking place in autistic and InLv spaces among figures such as Jim Sinclair, Martijn Dekker, Jane Meyerding, Tony Langdon, Donna Williams, and others.

To me, this seems less like “dishonesty” or an attempt to “trash” Singer and more like a historiographical disagreement about how intellectual and political movements emerge — whether through singular authorship, collective discourse formation, or some combination of both. In general, intellectual and political movements rarely emerge from a single scholar in isolation.

Judy Singer

Cole Denisen, PhD I appreciate your comments greatly. It is extraordinary that Chapman Walker et al. are academics who seem to be blind to the fact that my work was a sociological thesis! As such it was created by collecting data from a variety of sources, subject to certification by the ethics committee of my university. And they even admit in their open letter that they were not able to find an earlier usage of the term or concept.

Cole Denisen, PhD 

Thank you, Judy. I deeply appreciate this, and I have great admiration for your scholarship and work. I also found it striking that Chapman/Walker et al. appear to overlook the fact that your work was explicitly sociological in nature. I have worked very hard to engage your work thoughtfully and to place it in direct conversation with the broader community discourse.