What do you mean by N.T. 's?

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Is everyone who is not on the autism spectrum a neurotypical? Or does it mean anyone who is considered neurological normal? Are Schizophrenics N.T.'s? What about Bipolar people? People with Dissociative identity? Are they neurotypicals? I once checked out a sociopaths forum just out of morbid curiosity and discovered that they refer to non-sociopaths as neurotypicals. Well are sociopaths N.T.'s? They are certainly not neurological normal.

I guess I am wondering since there are numerous people besides those of us somewhere on the spectrum that are certainly not considered neurologically "normal" - do we consider other neurologically atypical people to be neurotypicals even if they are not on the autism spectrum?

Last edited by r2d2 on 20 Oct 2014, 7:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

It is a social construct used by one group to define everybody else different to them.

Autistics are referred to as NT by sociopaths, just as sociopaths are referred to as NT here.

I agree with this.

It sometimes makes discussion on this forum difficult when people subscribe to the notion that 99% of the world's population are 'neurologically typical', when nothing could be further from the truth.

Furthermore, it is sometimes said in defence of use of the term 'neurotypical' for people who have other mental disorders than ASDs, that most of those mental disorders do not stem from a neurological 'hard-wiring'- as if that matters for the psychological issues that these people face in a majority-'normal' world.

I continue to find it a very problematic term with a vague definition that differs per user, and I've yet to encounter a scientific paper that explores the nature of a 'neurotypical mind'.

Not autistic to me.

NT are people who brains are wired properly and not badly miswired like people on the spectrum.

I think I tend to use it in regards to people who are classified by society as "normal" and who feel like they fit in with society and understand the typical social cues and chit chat. However, I don't think that's really a good use of the term, either. *shrug*

To me, an NT is anyone without a neurological disorder, of any kind.

I answered option #2.

But, since technically 99% of the world's population is not exactly NT, then I could say something like this:

"In highschool, the positively NT people would be the A-group. "

They are the quickest and easiest to socialize into groups and establish sub-hives or group-think.

I try to draw my line using less subjective criteria. I separate the two based on individual perception of reality and what is used as a primary means to draw conclusions (conscious thought or intuition).
Using this method, the percentage of NTs would be up in the 90's.

I would agree, around 90% of the people are rather neurotypical. The boundary is not sharp, and the beyond the neurotypical behavioural archetype there are the autistic and the psychopathic archetypes and potentially others that are even less well understood, which together make up roughly 10%.

Using it here, 99% of the time I am simply referring to non-autistic people in general. But even in this context, I wouldn't really include sociopaths or schizophrenics in the category of neurotypical, I assume that it's kind of implied that I am just referring to people who would be considered "normal" by the general population. To me it's just a general term, and I don't think it would really work well in a more professional context.

NT means not neurologically typical

Allistic means not autistic.

You can be allistic and non-neurotypical at the same time.

The word neurotypical was initially coined by the autistic community to simply mean not autistic or not on the autistic spectrum, so I will still use it for that purpose. The word "allistic" was coined recently to replace the word neurotypical after it was adopted by others.

It doesn't really matter how it was originally meant if others have adopted it. It does literally describe them.

Indeed, as others have suggested, I think NT was a term invented by people on the spectrum to describe people who generally speaking don't have Autism type issues. I think there can be stereotypical NTs in the same way that there can be stereotypical Aspies. If I see a group of lads round town on a Saturday night one with a can of lager in his hand, one with an arm drunkenly round an other and the third one with an arm in the air singing a football song out loud, I'll immediately think "Well theres a group of NTs", but the quiet student with glasses reading quietly in the corner could be NT.

So NT isn't all about being a social animal with no inhibitions. We do however think of NTs as people who can hold down jobs and can pick up on non-verbal cues and struggle less with life than people with AS. We don't think of people with learning difficulties as being NT. I think originally people with other neurological disorders such as dyslexia, AD(H)D or Bi-Polar disorder were not taken into account, but having just done a quick spot of research they are not classed as NT, although to call all dyslexic people autistic would seem a bit strange.

To be honest, I don't think there is a hard and fast answer. Its more a case, that if someone has absolutely nothing known to affect their brain that they are considered NT.

For me, NT means the average person who does not have a neurological disorder.

This link pretty much wraps up my theory of the term ''neurotypical''.

http://autism.about.com/od/autismterms/ ... ypical.htm

I know a woman who has a grown-up son who is not on the Autistic spectrum but has Down's Syndrome and lots of intellectual issues and she only works part time so that she can take care of him. He went to a special school all his childhood life, and now he can't hold down a job or drive or anything. I wouldn't consider him NT, just because he doesn't have an ASD.

I do get really irked when people refer NTs as 99% of the population, however atypical from the norm a person may be.