Embracing Neurodiversity: A Historical Perspective

Imagine a world without Mozart or Michelangelo, Einstein or Edison. Famous for their creativity, a "mysterious force" that psychiatrist and ADHD expert, Ed Hallowell, says is a commonality in neurodiverse people. Neurodiversity is a relatively new term, but the thinking behind it has been going on for a while. There’s increasing evidence that what we know today as Autism, ADHD, BipolarDisorder, Schizophrenia, and Dyslexia may have been a way for us to extend our species chances of survival. And yet the thinking around brain variations like ADHD is that it's a deficiency, something that needs to be fixed. Sandra Bourque's two-part series, The Myth of Normal traces the social and cultural response to neurodiversity and whether there's a way back to seeing this way of thinking as an advantage.