(Steven Universe Spoilers) Am I reading too much into this?

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Or is the episode Kindergarten Kids about neurodiversity (kind of)?


The way Peridot talks about corrupted gems. Calling them "dumb" and saying that their actions "don't make any sense." Complaining about the gem "waving its tongues in the air for fun" (stimming?)
In general the way she acts in this episode is very ableist. Not that I think she's a bad person/gem. She's been taught to think less of others, to keep the caste system of Homeworld intact. This is just an extension of that, and she's been learning to empathize more since she became a Crystal Gem.
And Steven correcting her by saying "She just thinks a little different." Trying to get her to see that the gem is just scared and overwhelmed, that everyone would lash out if they were in a strange place and constantly being attacked. It's not stupidity. It's primal survival instinct. Kind of like a meltdown?

Or maybe this is just me overanalyzing a kids show again.
What do you think?

Well I would say that it can be interpreted as kind of similar to that. In seeing the episode, I a=had also seen that angle. Another sense of interpreting it, which I had noticed was an autistic sense.
Peridot herself holds traits which are kind of Asperger's like or stylistically similar: hyperlogical, socially awkward, regulates emotions in unusual ways, desires order according to her discernment, and is caught up in her own thinking. In that sense, the can be similar to forming a more pronounced awareness of other's thinking and means for trying to predict them. In that sense the corrupted gem could be a NT, or possibly Kannerian Autistics.
Both the interpretation you had mentioned, and the one I added both seem interpretable to be at play, in the episode.