Spot the difference

How an understanding of neurodiversity helps us be more inclusive

When I was little in the 1970s, I joined the ‘Friday Club’ in the local newspaper. Each week, the Deputy Head of my primary school would set challenges for us to solve. Being the child who sat on the ‘top table’ and constantly raised his hand to answer questions in class, I was always trying to win competitions. I got hooked on puzzle books and became a big fan of ‘spot the difference’ and ‘odd one out’ brainteasers.

Despite the skills I honed, I never became a detective. I did become, like many other children back then, rather too talented at noticing when someone was a bit weird or peculiar and, I’m afraid to say, would occasionally tease others for not being ‘normal’. My classmates teased me too – looking back, I was probably bullied for being a swot – and we were rarely disciplined for making fun of other people.

Fast-forward many years and the world is more respectful of individuality and the importance of inclusiveness and accessibility. This is certainly the case regarding gender, sexuality and ethnicity, but the complexity of how our brains work and develop has perhaps meant that our neurodiversity has been less easy to comprehend and consider.

Neurodiversity describes the different ways in which we all think, move, hear, see, process information and communicate with each other. We live in a neurodiverse world where social or cultural norms mean that some people are said to be ‘typical’ and others are said to be ‘divergent’. There are dominant ‘neuro-types’ and we have tended to follow their views.

In truth, we are all neurodiverse and often carry traits of conditions which can be diagnosed and supported if we reach a certain threshold. Examples are dyslexia or autism, or others that are poorly named, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (or ADHD) – poorly, because most people with ADHD are, in fact, attentive to everything, and because the word ‘disorder’ has negative connotations.

Disorder or ‘dys’ at the start of many words used to describe special educational needs perpetuate what is known as the ‘medical model’ of disability, suggesting that something in a person is curable and inferring that what is wrong is their fault. A preferable approach is what is called the ‘social model’, focusing instead on what is causing the barrier in the first place. Another word for barrier is ‘interference’. This word is one of four in a simple formula used in coaching, suggested by the former international tennis star, Tim Gallwey: Performance = potential minus interference

The interference can be selfmade, such as a chosen attitude towards completing a task, but it is more usually the fault of something outside an individual’s control.

The Russian-American psychologist, Urie Bronfenbrenner, characterised this in his Ecological Systems Theory, showing the influence of social environments on human development. In basic terms, a child (or adult) evolves according to their interaction with their family, friends, school, work and society at large. These interactions can change over time and so an individual can discover they are more at ease in certain situations and with certain people than others.

Todd Rose wrote about this as well in his book, The End of Average, wherein he proposes three principles – jaggedness, context and pathways. In turn, these explain our similarities and differences, that we have multiple forms of behaviour according to what we are doing and where we are, and that two people rarely have the same route to success. He describes our addiction to standardisation, which began with the industrial revolution and has perpetuated ever since.

Those who don’t fit the standard or ‘norm’ get excluded as the odd ones out, despite the strengths and talents they may have which aren’t always measured or celebrated. Children with behavioural problems owing to a condition that may or may not have been diagnosed are regularly denied educational opportunities when their ability to think laterally may be the very thing that provides a creative solution to an enigma.

The American journalist, Harvey Blume, compared neurodiversity to biodiversity, suggesting that it “may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general”. If we want to find sustainable solutions to some of the world’s problems, we might be better served to look beyond our differences and include the ‘odd ones’ in order to benefit from a wider range of viewpoints.

The book I have co-authored with Professor Amanda Kirby and Abby Osborne – Neurodiversity and Education – discusses all these arguments and more, proposing more inclusive ways of looking at teaching, learning and assessment. The focus is on what we can do, rather than what we cannot, and reflecting so that we can reduce, remove or rethink barriers to education. Let’s work together to spot the interferences and not the differences.