Published on 12, July, 2020
I've always had a lesion in my brain and I've had epilepsy for as long as I can remember, so I was pretty neuro atypical long before I got this autism diagnosis as an adult just one or two years ago. I don't think you can say that someone you never met and know nothing about is "neurotypical" It's just a complete assumption and it's rude.
I guess the term neurotypical is not used to make an assumption about an individual per se but more to classify a group of people. It’s a short hand way of discribing people who do not have any neurological divergence. I think also, that some people, including myself, like to be able to classify people and their psychological make up (or anything really) into nice neat clearly defined categories. I know the reality isn’t so black and white but it’s easier for my brain to understand things in this way. I know also that people are defined by more, much more than just their neurological makeup. I think partly it is a backlash against always being labelled and marginalised by the majority, so the majority has now been given a label!
Yes, and society is very quick to label. Some people are afraid of getting a diagnosis of autism, because they fear getting a label. Personally, I'd sooner be labelled 'autistic' than 'slow', 'disruptive', 'unfocused', 'weird', 'anti-social', 'naive', 'clumsy', 'strange', and so on.