Let's start with a question most of us have never been asked: Who decided what a "normal" brain looks like?

It's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. And yet for most of human history, we've built our schools, our workplaces, and our social systems as if the answer were obvious. As if there were one standard way of thinking, and everyone else was just a variation to be managed.

Neurodiversity challenges all of that. And once you really understand it, you can't unsee it.

What is neurodiversity?

At its simplest, neurodiversity is the recognition that human brains vary — naturally, significantly, and valuably. Just as biodiversity describes the natural variation in life on Earth, neurodiversity describes the natural variation in how minds work.

It's not a metaphor. It's not a support group. It's a fact of human biology.

John Elder Robison puts it plainly: “Neurodiversity is the idea that neurological differences like autism and ADHD are the result of normal, natural variation in the human genome.”

The deeper question - the one Thomas Armstrong posed - is this: How do we actually decide whether any given brain is abnormal? The more honestly you sit with that, the more the concept of "normal" starts to unravel.

Who coined the term “neurodiversity”?

For decades, Judy Singer has been widely credited as the originator of the term. But recent scholarship tells a more collective story.

Botha et al. (2024) clarify that the neurodiversity concept was not coined by one person but co-developed within autistic activist communities on early online forums such as Independent Living in the mid-1990s. Singer herself never claimed to have invented the word - she used it in her sociology thesis, later published in 2016, but only in passing.

Public perception shifted after Steve Silberman’s best-selling book NeuroTribes (2015) credited Singer with coining the term and Harvey Blume with first using it publicly. Yet, as Botha and colleagues note, Silberman’s claim lacks corroboration and consistency in early writings.

In truth, the phrase “neurological diversity” was already circulating by 1996. The exact origin may never be known - but perhaps that’s fitting. Neurodiversity, after all, was never about a single voice. It was - and remains - a collective movement built on shared experience, mutual recognition, and the rejection of deficit-based narratives.

Why neurodiversity matters - especially at work

Here's where it gets practical. Neurodiversity isn't just a philosophical idea. It has real consequences for how we design workplaces, evaluate talent, and define success.

The traditional workplace was built around a particular cognitive profile: one that handles open-plan offices, back-to-back meetings, rigid hierarchies, and unwritten social rules with relative ease. That profile was treated as the default. Everyone else was expected to adapt.

But what if that default was always just one option among many? What if the colleague who processes information differently, who hyperfocuses for hours, who spots patterns no one else sees - what if they weren't the outlier, but the asset?

Embracing neurodiversity isn't charity. It's strategy. It means valuing creative problem-solvers, pattern thinkers, big-picture innovators, and deep specialists - traits found across neurodivergent profiles. Cognitive diversity, when supported properly, drives better outcomes.

Controversies: the social model and its limits

Neurodiversity theory intersects - and sometimes clashes - with the social model of disability, first developed by disability advocates in the UK (UPIAS, 1975; Oliver, 1990).
This model argues that disability doesn’t arise from pathology within the person but from society’s failure to accommodate differences.

In other words, barriers are built, not born.

However, critics like Shakespeare and Watson (2001) call the model inflexible, noting that if disability is caused solely by society, then there would be no reason to prevent biological impairments - a problematic conclusion.

For neurodevelopmental differences such as autism, this tension becomes clearer. Even in a fully inclusive society, many autistic people would still experience sensory, cognitive, or communicative challenges (Ballou, 2018). The reality is complex: both biology and environment shape the lived experience of neurodivergence.

Author thoughts

I believe every mind works in its own rhythm: unique, complex, and never quite the same as another. The world may feel vast and connected all at once, but difference is what keeps it alive. It’s not a flaw that people think, feel, and act differently. It’s the essence of being human.

As a neurodiversity advocate, I’m proud to live in a time when we’re finally learning to value those differences - not to fix them, but to understand and celebrate them. Diversity isn’t just something we include. It’s something we honor.

Let’s keep building a world that doesn’t just make space for difference, but thrives because of it.

Keep reading

Want to dive deeper into who is neurodivergent, how neurodiversity reshapes leadership, education, and the future of work? Explore more insights at The Business Psycho - where we keep unpacking the science of difference.

References

1. Armstrong, T. (2015). The myth of the normal brain: Embracing neurodiversity. AMA Journal of Ethics, 17(4), 348–352.

2. Ballou, N. (2018). Autism, society, and the limits of the social model. Disability & Society, 33(8), 1235–1250.

3. Botha, M., Chapman, R., Giwa Onaiwu, M., Kapp, S. K., Stannard Ashley, A., & Walker, N. (2024). The neurodiversity concept was developed collectively: An overdue correction on the origins of neurodiversity theory. Autism, 28(6), 1591–1594.

4. Chapman, R. (2020). Neurodiversity theory and its discontents: Autism, schizophrenia, and the social model of disability. The Sociological Review, 68(1), 219–234.

5. Dawkins, R. (2006). The selfish gene. Oxford University Press.

6. Goodall, C., et al. (2023). Neurodiversity: Guidelines for inclusive practice. Australian Journal of Education, 67(2), 125–139.

7. Jaarsma, P., & Welin, S. (2012). Autism as a natural human variation: Reflections on the claims of the neurodiversity movement. Health Care Analysis, 20(1), 20–30.

8. Oliver, M. (1990). The politics of disablement. Macmillan Education.

9. Robison, J. E. (2013). Neurodiversity: An insider’s perspective. Autism Advocate, 5(1), 33–35.

10. Shakespeare, T., & Watson, N. (2001). The social model of disability: An outdated ideology? Research in Social Science and Disability, 2, 9–28.

11. UPIAS. (1975). Fundamental principles of disability. Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation.

12. Walker, N. (2014). Neurodiversity: Some basic terms & definitions. Neurocosmopolitanism.