Let's Talk Neurosense: the Psychology of Neurodiversity

Richard has spent his whole career working with autistic adults. He initially worked in a diagnostic assessment service before moving into his current role in an intensive support team for autistic adults. He is a prolific poster in online discussions about neurodiversity, and has written about some of this on his Substack.

Richard’s Substack

In this interview, Richard explained how his experience has enabled him to look beneath behaviour and the formal diagnostic criteria to identify underlying processes common amongst autistic people. He tells us how he thinks that those who criticise concepts such as masking miss the serious impact on autistic people’s lives.

He talks about how he feels that better awareness and less stigma has enabled more people to come forward for diagnostic assessment, and how he sees this as a positive change.

Join Naomi, Richard and I as we wrestle with some of the big questions, such as whether masking is unique to autism, the specificity and reliability of an autism diagnosis, how funding and resources should be allocated and whether we should be talking about diagnosis at all.

We certainly don’t agree on everything, but I do think we manage to hold space for different perspectives and put some of the popular ideas in neurodiversity discourse under the spotlight.

Do let us know what this episode brings up for you.

When Chrissie’s son Daniel started school, the teacher asked her on first day why they had not told her that he had an emotional disability. Later, he explained that he was terrified of being inside tall buildings. He was scared and so he hid under tables.

Daniel found school expectations hard, and school found it hard to manage Daniel. The school needed extra support and wanted to refer him for a diagnostic assessment. Chrissie and her husband Paul could see that everyone needed more help and extra funding - but they didn’t want to give Daniel a label that he would have no choice but to carry with him for life.

Since then, Chrissie and her family have been navigating education and social systems that increasingly understand the world in what they consider to be binary or overly simplistic ways. She describes here the difficult position of trying to be an appreciative friend to other parents and thoughtful psychologist whilst opposing the languages and practices that risk defining children and reducing possibilities for wellbeing and change.

Daniel is now in his twenties, and Chrissie tells us how they have found ways through the system for him. She also told us how she thinks this has been for Daniel, and how it has affected how he sees himself. She is talking to us with his consent.

This is a really unusual story and we hope you’ll find it interesting.

Does it help, being a psychologist when your children have additional needs? Or can it make things more complicated?

This week we are delighted to talk to Rosie Gilderthorp. Rosie has worked in forensic and learning disabilities services and she now runs the Psychology Business School, which helps other psychologists to find their way in private practice as well as working clinically. Two of her children are AuDHD and the third is in the process of assessment. She is a military wife, which means that much of the time she is parenting solo. These different strands of her life interact and inform each other, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Guardian readers were asked last week to ask themselves if their parents might be neurodivergent. Apparently up to 97% of autistic adults over the age of 60 are undiagnosed, and the Guardian is here to guide their adult children in how to broach the subject. That is, by our calculations, 194,000 people.

Guardian article

So what does this mean? What is the research this is drawing on and what are the assumptions being made? Would we all be happier if everyone who could receive a diagnosis had one?

In this new quick turn-around episode, Dani and Naomi unpack the headlines and ask whether we should all be encouraging our parents to get onto a neurodevelopmental waiting list.