The definitive, citable version of this essay, along with supplementary comments, can be found in my book Neuroqueer Heresies . The neurodiversity paradigm is a specific perspective on neurodiversity – a perspective or approach that boils down to these fundamental principles:

A lot of people hear neuro and they think, brain. But the prefix neuro doesn't mean brain, it means nerve. The neuro in neurodiversity is most usefully understood as a convenient shorthand for the functionality of the whole bodymind and the way the nervous system weaves together cognition and embodiment. So neurodiversity refers to the diversity among minds, or among bodyminds. Just as the prevailing culture entrains and pushes people into the embodied performance of heteronormative gender roles, it also entrains and pushes us into the embodied performance of neurotypicality—the performance of what the dominant culture considers a “normal” bodymind. And just as heteronormativity can be queered, so can neurotypicality: we can subvert, disrupt, and deviate from the embodied performance of being neurocognitively “normal.” That's neuroqueering (or being neuroqueer). 6, 32Neurodiversity, simply put, is the diversity among human minds. For 15 years or so after the term was coined, it was common for people to speak of neurodiversity as “diversity among brains.” There still are plenty of people who talk about it that way. I think this is a mistake; it''s an overly reductionist and essentialist definition that's decades behind present-day understandings of how human bodyminds 4 work. The first Neurodiversity Studies handbook was just published in the summer of 2020. 18 I've been rather optimistically talking about “the emergent field of Neurodiversity Studies” since about 2012, so it's delightful to see reality catching up to my optimism. There's going to be a lot more work in this direction emerging over the coming years. As one can tell from the recent examples I've listed, though, part of the intrinsically queer and unruly nature of the neurodiversity paradigm is that it can't be confined within the boundaries of a single field, not even a field of Neurodiversity Studies. In recent years a new paradigm has begun to emerge, which I refer to as the neurodiversity paradigm. The term neurodiversity , coined in the 1990s, refers to the diversity of human minds—the variations in neurocognitive functioning that manifest within the human species. Within the neurodiversity paradigm, neurodiversity is understood to be a form of human diversity that is subject to social dynamics—including the dynamics of oppression and systemic social power inequalities—similar to those dynamics that commonly occur around other forms of human diversity such as racial diversity or diversity of gender and sexual orientation.

I mention in the book that I originally came up with the term neuroqueer in early 2008, in a paper I wrote for Dr. Ian J. Grand’s Psychodynamics class in the Somatic Psychology graduate program at California Institute of Integral Studies. We've spent years "Queering" things to make room for ourselves, now we're doing that with Neurodivergence. The pathology paradigm starts from the assumption that significant divergences from dominant sociocultural norms of cognition and embodiment represent some form of deficit, defect, or pathology. In other words, the pathology paradigm divides the spectrum of human cognitive/embodied performance into “normal” and “other than normal,” with “normal” implicitly privileged as the superior and desirable state. Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a belief, a political position, or a paradigm. That’s the neurodiversity paradigm (see below), not neurodiversity itself.Cosmopolitanism is the open-minded embracing of human diversity. The cosmopolitan individual—or the cosmopolitan society—is comfortable with the vast spectrum of cultural and ethnic differences among people and appreciates and welcomes those differences as sources of aesthetic, intellectual, cultural, and creative enrichment. The cosmopolitan individual engages with diversity in a spirit of humility, respect, curiosity, and continual openness to learning, growth, uncertainty, complexity, and new experience. For those of us who seek to propagate and build upon the neurodiversity paradigm – especially those of us who are producing writing on neurodiversity – it’s vital that we maintain some basic clarity and consistency of language, for the sake of effective communication among ourselves and with our broader audiences. Clarity of language supports clarity of understanding. It depends very much on who the people are, and where they’re at in their own particular journeys when they encounter the book. My hope is that each reader will find some message that’s life-changing in a positive way, but that’s going to be a different message for some readers than for others, depending on who they are and the present conditions in their lives.

A neurocosmopolitan individual accepts and welcomes neurocognitive differences in experience, communication, and embodiment in the same sort of enlightened way that a cosmopolitan individual accepts and welcomes cultural differences in dining habits. In a future society that's truly embraced the neurodiversity paradigm, neurocosmopolitanism would be the prevailing attitude toward neurocognitive differences among humans. Shannon, D. B., & Truman, S. E. (2020). Problematizing sound methods through music research-creation: Oblique Curiosities. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. 19 (Open Access) Shannon, D. B. (June 2022). Reciprocity as semiosis: Thinking literacy beyond meaning in ‘Intensive Interactions’. Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education. queer as not about who you’re having sex with, that can be a dimension of it, but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.” bell hooks Shannon, D. B. and Truman, S. E. (July 2018). Queer the landscape: Walking-songing-researching from Melrose to Lindisfarne. Beyond The Pedestrian. Liverpool, UK.

Examples of Incorrect Usage:

This is a central aim of my own work these days, which focuses on the use of transformative embodiment practices to foster realization of neurodivergent potentials for self-actualization and creativity. 16, 17 Some other notable neurodiversity scholars doing particularly interesting and innovative “next level” work include M. Remi Yergeau, whose book Authoring Autism 6 is a masterful critique of the rhetoric of the pathology paradigm but also extends beyond critique and into exploration of how neurodivergent bodyminds can creatively expand and queer the boundaries of rhetoric, communication, intentionality, and experience; Ralph Savarese, whose work with autistic collaborators in See It Feelingly 10 explores how neurodivergent perspectives can provide new layers of creative insight into literature; Erin Manning, who examines the nature of autistic perception and its inherent creative potentials in Always More Than One 22 and other writings and projects 23; and the team of Estee Klar, Adam Wolfond, and the “A Collective,” 24, 25 whose work explores the creative synergies that can emerge from the interrelations and collaborations of autistic and nonautistic bodyminds. Another term you use a lot is “neurocosmopolitan” or “neurocosmopolitanism.” Where does neuroqueer theory fit into a neurocosmopolitan world?