neurotypical perspectivelessness—the institutional erasure of neurotypicality as a cultural standpoint that allows its sensory, cognitive, and communicative norms to appear neutral and universally shared.
Speaking from the in-between: Neurotypical perspectivelessness, neurodivergent authority, and the politics of knowledge – ScienceDirect
neurotypical perspectivelessness: a world organized around someone else’s sensory, cognitive, and emotional reality, while insisting that reality is neutral, natural, …
neurotypical perspectivelessness: the institutional erasure of neurotypicality as a cultural standpoint, allowing its sensory, cognitive, and communicative norms to masquerade as neutral.
…institutional structures, policies, and interpersonal interactions reproduce epistemic marginalization by naturalizing neurotypical modes of time, communication, affect, and executive functioning.
Findings demonstrate that students encountered a pervasive neutrality claim that positioned neurotypical interpretations as the only legitimate readings of behavior, knowledge, and presence. This perspectivelessness intersected with race, gender, sexuality, and class, shaping how neurodivergence was made hypervisible, invisible, or morally suspect. Yet participants also enacted neuroqueered praxes which reveal neurodivergent students as theorists and expert knowers whose embodied insights expose the limits of neurotypical common sense.
Overall, this study reframes neurodivergent struggle not as individual deficit but as the predictable outcome of perspectiveless institutional design. Meaningful inclusion requires moving beyond accommodations toward dismantling the epistemic frameworks that render neurotypicality invisible. Centering neurodivergent expertise reveals the borderlands of institutional life as generative spaces of critique, creativity, and resistance, offering pathways toward more just educational futures.
This perspectivelessness, in which systems present themselves as neutral while excluding marginalized experiences, functions as a mechanism of systemic oppression. As Crenshaw (1988) argues, claims to objectivity suppress conflict by erasing the relevance of particular perspectives and positioning analytical stances without cultural or political context. In education, policies framed as neutral often uphold structures that benefit privileged groups. Without critical reflection, adherence to these norms reproduces inequity regardless of intent.
Demi-rhetoricity
In this framing, autistic bodyminds are objects of study rather than authoritative knowers—a condition Yergeau terms demi-rhetoricity. Such narratives ensure continued non-autistic dominance and shape contemporary contexts, including higher education, where ostensibly neutral systems continue to uphold non-autistic norms under the guise of benevolence or expertise.
Epistemic Disconnection
Patterns of epistemic disconnection—where marginalized experiences are overshadowed by dominant perspectives—are not unique to neurodivergent students. Similar dynamics have structured institutions serving other marginalized groups.
The resulting disconnection devalues disabled and neurodivergent ways of knowing while reinforcing able-bodied, neurotypical realities as standard. Within such systems, neurodivergent students are only partially recognized as rhetorical agents—granted participation but denied full authority over their own knowledge and expression (Yergeau, 2018).
Dysconscious Ableism
Complicating these dynamics is the gap between intentions and outcomes that Broderick and Lalvani (2017) identify as dysconscious ableism. Drawing from King’s (1991) concept of dysconscious racism, they define dysconscious ableism as the uncritical acceptance of the normative divide between able and disabled identities. In their study of pre-service teachers, participants frequently reproduced ableist norms even while articulating anti-ableist commitments. Yet Broderick and Lalvani (2017) also argue that naming dysconsciousness offers “concrete and actionable guidance” for developing anti-ableist pedagogies (p. 903). Taken together, compulsory able-bodiedness, perspectivelessness, and dysconscious ableism reveal how ostensibly neutral or benevolent systems in higher education continue to reproduce epistemic disconnection and reinforce neurotypical dominance.
