people w/ other disorder besides autism arent classed as Nt?

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There are many other psychological conditions that arent on the autism spectrum but also dont define a person as 'typical', but it seems a lot of people here only think non-autistics are all Nts, which is like saying '99% of the population are normal'. How come the 1% on who happen to be on the autism spectrum get split up into another group? Who's to say people with severe conditions like mental retardation are Nts? Maybe it isnt meaningless, but it just feels strange to only have 2 existing labels; 'you're either autistic or Nt'. A bit like saying all life-threatening diseases are cancer, when there are lots of other life-threatening diseases that arent cancer.

Does anyone agree, or despite the fact that Im Nt myself, do I just need to be educated on the term 'neurotypical'?

NTs according to this form are non-autistic just for convenience not that non-autistic are all NTs.

Several other conditions are not considered NT. Schizophrenia, Bipolar, Tourette's, personality disorders, etc. Most of this site is set for a particular branch of non-NT's, those on the autism spectrum. However, there is a section of the forum that is specifically set up for people with other conditions to discuss the particulars of there conditions or to search out others with there conditions etc. (not that they cannot participate in the other sections).

I've met people in my life with different conditions other than an ASD, and their conditions had more to it than what I thought. Like with Tourette's, it's not just a case of shouting a few swear words, there's more to it than that, it can affect their personality and it can also lead on to other issues too, like anxiety for example. And anxiety can be rather disabling for a person, (I know that for a fact). And I have a friend with ADHD, and his disorder is not just a case of acting hyper. He also has some intellectual delays too, and it also affects his ability to keep friendships and relationships, and I remember at school he did feel left out a lot, even though he didn't have AS with it.

So, yeah, it's a bit naive to define everyone except Autistics as NTs. Otherwise there wouldn't be any meaning to ''neurodiversity''. It's not as simple as ''are you NT or Autistic?'' (Sits in a wheelchair unable to speak due to Mental Retardation) ''Right, you're NT then, go and join the rest and socialise''.

Dont forget ADD, or ADHD, or whatever they call it nowadays.

Basically if you're in one of the above categories your other than neurotypical.

Correct, thank you. I was trying to think of a list with out looking up anything. I knew I was missing lots of things so I just put in an "etc" to try to cover what I was missing.

I don't like using the term "neurotypical" to refer to people with, for example, ADHD or TBIs but not autism.

The term for people who don't have autism is just "non-autistic".

There are many people who have unusual brain structure but who are not autistic. That's why we have the term "neurodiverse" to describe them. If NT meant "anybody who isn't autistic", then the term "neurodiverse" wouldn't be needed.

NT has been casually used to mean "non-autistic", but it really shouldn't be; that causes confusion.

Like so:
--Somebody who is gifted is neurodiverse, non-autistic, and non-disabled.
--Somebody who has ADHD is neurodiverse, non-autistic, and disabled.
--Somebody who has a spinal cord injury is neurotypical, non-autistic, and disabled.
--Somebody who has Asperger's is neurodiverse, autistic, and disabled.
--Somebody who was diagnosed with autism, but has since lost the diagnosis due to lack of impairment, is neurodiverse, culturally autistic, and non-disabled.
--Somebody with a brain in the typical range is neurotypical, non-autistic, and non-disabled.

As with all discussions of labels, we must remember that labels are shorthand to talk about general groups of people which are only as well-defined as the traits of the people within them. And, because people are very diverse, the more we talk about specific people, the less any generalizations about the labels tend to apply to them.

Callista, I always love your clear thinking.

I don't understand why all these conditions are considered to be examples of non-neurotypicality. Is there evidence that ADHD and personality disorders are caused by atypical neurology?

What about someone with dementia or aquiring a brain injury? Are they no longer neurotypical, though they used to be? Can someone lose being NT?

The only people I've heard actually claim NT includes non-autistic neurodiverse people are those who criticize the term. Show me an example of someone using the term this way seriously, please.

I've never used NT that way. If I want to refer to 'anyone who isn't autistic, including people with other differences', I say either 'non-autistic' or 'allistic'.

ADHD probably is; ADHD brains will look different on brain scans, and develop differently. Personality disorders... ehh. It's more like a person with a personality disorder is running different software on the same hardware, while somebody with autism has different hardware to begin with.

But it's not quite like a computer, because a brain's "hardware" is changeable, especially when you're very young, or over large amounts of time. When you learn a new skill, your brain changes in tiny but scientifically measurable ways. People who have long-term struggles with mental illnesses start to have measurably different brains. For some disorders, like schizophrenia, there's a physical and a chemical component. So you could very well say that personality disorders represent neurodiversity, too, because they are life-long behavior patterns which create distress or dysfunction, and if life-long behavior patterns don't change your brain at least somewhat, I don't know what would.

Thankfully for psychology students like me, who know how hard it is to classify mental differences in general, "neurodiverse" is more of a social label than a medical one. It just means "someone whose brain isn't in the average range". What you define as average is pretty arbitrary; mostly, "neurodiverse" as a concept starts to apply when your experience of the world is significantly different from most people's because of the structure of your brain. Maybe you have synestheia and numbers have colors for you. Maybe you're dyslexic; or maybe you learned to read when you were nine months old. Maybe you have manic episodes, persistent tics, or epileptic seizures. Is it different enough to make you neurodiverse? I think, if it's a different enough brain to matter to you, then it's different enough for you to call yourself neurodiverse.

Well, I have AS, but I see what you're saying. For example, if I was to have been born without AS or something, I would still be neuro diverse, because I have Lexic Synesthesia, and OCD, even though they are not on the spectrum.

The term neurotypical was created in the autistic context, so even if literally it means anyone who is mentally normal it was created to refer specifically to nonautistic people.