Neurodiversity past and present - an introduction to the Neurodiversity Reader

The term ‘neurodiversity’ originated initially in 1998 from the work of Australian sociologist Judy Singer, who proposed it as a new category for intersectional analysis, and to suggest it as a banner term for emerging social movements for civil rights for people with various devalued, medically labelled neurological conditions. She based it on the concept of Biodiversity, and its broad argument that the more diversity within an ecosystem, the more resilient and sustainable it would be. She did not define the term, thinking it self-evident, and moved onto the main body of her thesis, which included an evaluation of the social versus medical models of disability, and also explored the notion that perhaps an “ethnicity” or “minority” model was better suited to conditions like “Asperger Syndrome” and “ADHD”. This idea was taken further by others, albeit often taking an approach more aligned with the social model of disability (or variations thereof – for example see Oliver, 2013).