Glossary
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Develop a Language in Which We Can Both Understand and Challenge the World
The shift from the pathology paradigm to the neurodiversity paradigm calls for a radical shift in language, because the appropriate language for discussing medical problems is quite different from the appropriate language for discussing diversity.
THROW AWAY THE MASTER’S TOOLS: LIBERATING OURSELVES FROM THE PATHOLOGY PARADIGM
In politics our frames shape our social policies and the institutions we form to carry out policies. To change our frames is to change all of this. Reframing is social change.
The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate
When we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.
Terror comes in many forms and one powerful expression is when people become too fearful to develop a language in which they can both understand and challenge the world in which they live. Not only does such linguistic deprivation fail to ward off the plague of propaganda, but it also contributes ‘to an annihilation of the self and the destruction of the capacity to recognize the real world’.
Giroux, Henry A.. Pedagogy of Resistance (p. 31). Bloomsbury Publishing.
You Cannot Change a Reality That You Cannot Name
Kimberlé Crenshaw | ‘You Cannot Change a Reality That You Cannot Name’: — FAIR
Language is also a place of struggle.
—bell hooks, Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness
“Language is also a place of struggle.” “Thinking differently requires speaking differently.” “Develop a language in which they can both understand and challenge the world in which they live.”
We may not know it, and be able to talk about it, because there’s been an agenda to erase our capacity to name that reality. And the clear fact is that you cannot change or transform a reality that you cannot name, you cannot historicize, you cannot conceptualize.
Kimberlé Crenshaw | ‘You Cannot Change a Reality That You Cannot Name’: — FAIR
People often take issue against the terms used by marginalized people. We experience this in our advocacy regarding Identity First Language and the terms neurodivergent and neurotypical. These terms were coined to examine power and privilege, which is exactly what some don’t like about them.
Our glossary grows rapidly. We’re defining the small truths and the big truths of our daily existence.
Post-truth is pre-fascism.
Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (p. 71). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.
“Language is also a place of struggle.”
“Thinking differently requires speaking differently.“
“Develop a language in which they can both understand and challenge the world in which they live.”
Language is the most powerful tool we have.
Divisive, demeaning and devoid of feeling: how social work jargon causes problems for families
Let’s use it well.
Latest Glossary Terms
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Accessibility
Accessibility means that people with disabilities can attend and fully participate in a given opportunity. When places and spaces are inaccessible, disabled people are unable to take advantage of the same opportunities as non-disabled people. For example, if an event takes place on the third floor of a building without an elevator, people with certain…
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Feedback Loop
A feedback loop is the part of a system in which some portion (or all) of the system’s output is used as input for future operations. What is a feedback loop? | Definition from TechTarget Since everything is interconnected, there are constant feedback loops and flows between elements of a system. We can observe, understand,…
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Neurome
What is a neurome? It’s the mind equivalent of a biome. It’s a space where quirky minds can thrive and flourish. Where they accepted in their diversity and their associated sensory needs. Neuronormativity, neuromes, campuses and finding a safe space Neuromes can cross time and space too (I think books might be neuromes too). For…
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Digital Gardening
A digital garden is an online space at the intersection of a notebook and a blog, where digital gardeners share seeds of thoughts to be cultivated in public. Contrary to a blog, where articles and essays have a publication date and start decaying as soon as they are published, a digital garden is evergreen: digital…
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Learning Exhaust
Further Reading
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Affinity Group
Through free association, people will find those of mutual interests in every sphere of life to form groups on the basis of their affinity. But whether these various groups meet and coordinate their activity in workshops, gardens, or other spaces of encounter and whether they are invested in maintaining energy systems, growing food forests, or…
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Affinity Space
Today, interest-driven interactions increasingly take place online as people join social media groups or ‘affinity spaces’ dedicated to specific interests. As defined by Gee (2004), ‘affinity spaces’ are loosely organized places (online or offline) built around shared passions, goals, and practices, rather than shared demographic characteristics. Newcomers and experts alike participate in the same space…
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Lowering the Bar
lowering the bar = a racist, sexist, and ableist narrative with no basis in reality that represents diversifying hiring pipelines, attracting candidates from underrepresented groups, and supporting them in the workplace as “lowering the bar” by hiring less-qualified individuals The meritocracy myth and the “lowering the bar” narrative are big barriers to inclusion. This study…
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Media Literacy
Media literacy is: Media literacy today looks like being a critical consumer of media, considering purposes, intentions, but then also in the creation space too. So, creating media and information for authentic audiences. Nick Covington, YouTube and the Death of Media Literacy – YouTube Remember, media literacy isn’t just about how to be a good…
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Autistic Shielding
Autistic shielding is leaning into your neurological differences and behaviours. It is embracing neuro-anarchy: being who you are, doing what you do and bollocks if others don’t like it. Shielding for me is being aggressively Autistic and Attention Hyperactive and doing my OCD rituals and behaviours with no shame. Shielding is liberation; protecting myself by…
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Dopamine Dressing
Dopamine dressing is the practice of wearing clothing to improve your mood. It involves choosing colors, textures, and styles that make you feel good. The term dopamine dressing is often mentioned alongside the neurodivergent community. This is generally due to it coming alongside the process of ‘unmasking’ – the process of conscious stopping trying to…
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Imposter Syndrome
First off, what is Imposter Syndrome? Well, at its heart, it’s a feeling that one doesn’t belong in a given community, or at the level they are operating in a given community. Check Your Imposter Syndrome – Oh TWIST Diagnosis, Gatekeeping, and Imposter Syndrome Diagnostic questioning of self as autistic has been conceptualised as part…
All Glossary Entries
- Ableism
- Abraction
- Acceptance
- Access Intimacy
- Accessibility
- Accommodation
- ActuallyAutistic
- Addiction
- ADHD Tax
- Administrative Burden
- Advice Process
- Affinity Group
- Affinity Space
- Alexithymia
- Algorithm
- Alien
- Allistic
- Allyship
- Aloneness
- Alt Text
- Alternative and Augmentative Communication
- Altruism
- Americans with Disabilities Act
- Anarchism
- Anti-library
- Aphantasia
- Applied Learning
- Art
- Artificial Intelligence
- Artificial Scarcity
- Asynchronous Communication
- AuDHD
- Autigender
- Autism Grievance Parent
- Autism Warrior Parent
- Autistic
- Autistic Chronophobia Theory
- Autistic Joy
- Autistic Language Hypothesis
- Autistic Polling
- Autistic Rapport
- Autistic Rhizome
- Autistic Shielding
- Canary
- Care
- Care Web
- Cavendish Space
- Caves, Campfires, and Watering Holes
- Change
- Checklists
- Childism
- Chosen Family
- Chronic
- Chronic Constellation
- Clumping
- Co-regulation
- Coddle
- Code
- Code-Meshing
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Cognitive Liberty
- Collaborative Morality
- Collective Risk Shift
- Comedy
- Commonplace Book
- Community
- Community of Practice
- Community Organizing
- Compassion
- Competency Network
- Conceptual Portmanteau
- Concision
- Connection
- Conservatism
- Constructionism
- Created Serendipity
- Crip
- Crip Linguistics
- Crip Tax
- Crip Time
- Cripple Punk
- Critical Race Theory
- Critical Thinking
- Critical Wellness
- Cyborg
- Dandelions, Tulips, and Orchids
- DARVO
- Data Void
- Deep Pressure
- Deficit Ideology
- DEIAB
- Demand Avoidance
- Design Justice
- Design Questioning
- Diagnosis
- Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
- Different
- Differentiated Instruction
- Digital Gardening
- Digital Sociology
- Disability Dongle
- Disability Double-bind
- Disability Justice
- Disability Police
- Disabled
- DisCrit
- Diversity
- Dolphining
- Dopamine Dressing
- Double Empathy Extreme Problem
- Double Empathy Problem
- Dress Codes
- Dyslexia
- Dyspraxia
- Echolalia
- Edges
- Education
- Efficiency
- Elopement
- Embodied Attunement
- Embodiment
- Emergence
- Emergent Allostasis
- Emotional Bid
- Empathy
- Empire of Normality
- Employee Resource Group
- Enshittification
- Epistemic Authority
- Epistemic Injustice
- Epistemic Pluralism
- Epistemic Trespassing
- Equity
- Ethodivergence
- Ethodiversity
- Eugenics
- Evidence-Based
- Evolution
- Executive Function
- Experiential Learning
- Expertise
- Exposure Anxiety
- Extractive Abandonment
- Eye Contact
- Identity
- Identity First Language
- Identity Politics
- Imposter Syndrome
- Inclusion
- Infodump
- Inspiration Exploitation
- Intelligence
- Intelligence Quotient
- Interdependence
- Interdisciplinary Learning
- Intermittent Collaboration
- Internalized Ableism
- Interoception
- Intersectionality
- Interviews
- Intrinsic Motivation
- Invisible Disability
- Iteration
- Nature
- Neoliberalism
- Nesting
- Neuro-anarchy
- Neuro-Holographic
- Neuroaffirming
- Neurocentrism
- Neuroception
- Neurocosmopolitanism
- Neurocousin
- NeurodiVenture
- Neurodivergent
- Neurodiversity
- Neuroessentialism
- Neurokin
- Neurokit
- Neurological Pluralism
- Neurome
- Neurominority
- Neuronormativity
- Neuroqueer
- Neurospicy
- Neurosupremacy
- Neurotype
- Neurotypical
- Neurotypical Perspectivelessness
- Niche Construction
- Noncompliance
- Nonspeaking
- Normal
- Parallel Play
- Pathology Lite
- Pathology Paradigm
- Peer Respite
- Peer Support
- Penguin Pebbling
- Performative Neurodiversity (Neurodiversity Lite)
- Phone Calls
- Place-Based Education
- Plain Text
- Play
- Pluralism
- Polyvagal Theory
- Popular Education
- Posthumanism
- Postmortem
- Power
- Precarity
- Predatory Inclusion
- Prepping
- Privacy
- Privilege
- Problem Behavior
- Processing Time
- Progressive Education
- Prosocial
- Psychological Safety
- Punk
- Puzzle
- Sadopopulism
- Safe Space
- Samefood
- Scenius
- School-Induced Anxiety
- Schoolishness
- Scientific Essentialism
- Scientism
- Segregationist Discourse
- Self-Care
- Self-Determination Theory
- Self-Injurious Stimming
- Self-Organizing
- Semiotic Domains
- Sensory Hell
- Sensory Trauma
- Shame
- Shutdown
- Situational Mutism
- Sleep
- Slow Pedagogy
- Social Model of Disability
- Solarpunk
- Somatic
- Somatic Rudder
- Southern Strategy
- Space Bunny
- Space Holder
- Spaced Repetition
- Sparkle Brain
- Special Interest
- Special Needs
- Spiky Profile
- SpInfodump
- Spoon Theory
- STEM
- Stigma
- Stim Listening
- Stim-Watching
- Stimming
- Stimpunk
- Strategic Essentialism
- Straws
- Stress Incoherence
- Structural Ideology
- Subtype
- Suicide
- Support Swapping
- Systems Generated Trauma
- Techno-Legal Solutionism
- Techno-solutionism
- Technoableism
- Tendril Theory
- Theory of Mind
- Thick Data
- Third Places
- Tone Indicators
- Tonic Masculinity
- Toolbelt Theory
- Tourette Syndrome
- Toxic Masculinity
- Toxic Positivity
- Transcendent Thinking
- Transepistemics
- Transformative Justice
- Trauma
- Triple Empathy Problem
- Triskelion
- Trust
- Tryborg
Essential Neurodiversity Vocabulary: The Good, The Bad, The Different
Here’s some essential neurodiversity, disability, and equity vocabulary grouped by the good, the bad, and the different.
Other Glossaries
- Neuro-affirming Language & Glossaries | Autistic Realms
- Neuroaffirmative Neurodivergent Flashcards
- Autistic Glossary – AMASE
- Autism Glossary — Aurora Autistic Consulting
- The Words We Use | CommunicationFIRST
- Words that make me go hmmm… – Rewriting social care
- Parley Vouz Health & Social Care? (An A to Z of Carespeak) – Love, Belief and Balls
- Voices of Neurodiversity: An Inclusive Encyclopaedia
