Neurodiversity 101: Remember person-centred is where we are at..the challenges of narrow assessments...

Let me start with words from the great philosopher Winnie the Pooh...

"The things that make me different are the things that make me."

We love to categorise ourselves.

We seem to have an obsession about our personalities and cognitive traits. Huge investment in personality typing has led to an industry supplying this to all sizes of organisations. We have used these methods to drive recruitment as well as team development.

In 1884, British scientist Sir Francis Galton became one of the first people to consider deriving a taxonomy of human personality traits and in 1947, German-British psychologist Hans Eysenck published his book Dimensions of Personality and coined the terms "Extraversion" and "Neuroticism"!

The challenges of personality typing within a neurodivergent grouping

Personality traits are often likened to ingredients that make up who we are, similar to how different foods have different flavours. This analogy becomes more complex when considering neurodivergent individuals, who often use metaphors like "neurospicy" to describe the diversity and intensity of their experiences and how each person sees themselves.

Compacting our personalities

One popular method of categorising personality is the Big Five model, which includes:

1. Openness to experience: Ranges from inventive and curious to consistent and cautious.
2. Conscientiousness: Ranges from efficient and organised to extravagant and careless.
3. Extraversion: Ranges from outgoing and energetic to solitary and reserved.
4. Agreeableness: Ranges from friendly and compassionate to critical and rational.
5. Neuroticism: Ranges from sensitive and nervous to resilient and confident.

The complexity in neurodivergent groups

Personality typing in neurodivergent groups presents some unique challenges:

• Diverse expressions: Neurodivergent individuals by definition are going to be different in how they read and understand questions, how they interpret and respond to this. They may express traits differently and in different contexts. For instance, an autistic person may appear introverted due to sensory overload in a busy noisy place and present this as rather than a lack of desire for social interaction but be sociable in an environment that works well for them and in an area of high intertest. Environment and tasks demand make a difference.
• Overlapping traits: Traits associated with neurodivergent conditions can overlap with those in personality models, complicating assessments. For example, ADHD may influence conscientiousness, making individuals seem more careless or disorganised due to executive functioning differences rather than it being a personality trait. Again context may make the difference between hyperfocusing and not focusing at all.
• Individual variability: Neurodivergence highlights individual variability more strongly than traditional neurotypical models account for, as many neurodivergent people experience fluctuations in traits like openness or agreeableness depending on context and environment.There are greater rates of anxiety/burn out that may influence behaviours seen by others and felt by the person themselves.
• Stereotyping risks: Relying on personality types can reinforce stereotypes, reducing individuals to simplistic labels that overlook the nuanced ways they experience and interact with the world. There can be a sampling error.
• Masking:Many neurodivergent individuals engage in "masking" i.e. adopting behaviours that might not come naturally to them in order to fit in or meet social expectations. This can make their true personality traits less visible and can affect the accuracy of personality typing.

What is cognitive ability?

Cognitive ability isn't just about being good in school or knowing a lot of things from books. It's about how well our brains can understand information, handle different kinds of challenges and reflect and consider what this information means.

“No brain at all, some of them [people], only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think.”

― A.A. Milne

A challenge could be remembering things quickly, understanding pictures, using facts you've learned, finding patterns, solving problems, and seeing what's the same and different between things.

When we talk about cognitive ability, we're talking about different skills that can build and interact with each other, like levels in a computer game. At the top level, there's a big skill called 'general mental ability' that involves being good at thinking, planning, solving problems, and learning new things. Underneath that, there are different 'smaller' skills that help with specific things. These skills are all connected.

What about Intelligence Quotient(IQ)?

IQ testing traditionally refers to a single score derived from standardised tests that are designed to measure cognitive abilities like logical reasoning, problem-solving, and mathematical skills. The idea is to assess a person's intellectual potential and compare it to a standardised average.

IQ tests often focus on skills that are valued in academic and analytical settings such as logical thinking, problem-solving, and math. But human intelligence is much broader, involving creativity, emotional understanding, and practical skills. Some people think of IQ as a single score that tells how clever someone is, but it's not that simple. Using this as a single dimension of skills can limit our understanding of an individual's ability.

Where and when we do assessments effects our performance

Importantly, the way it is being tested, where it is tested ( e.g. in a busy room, or an unfamiliar setting, being observed by others; others making noises) and when tested ( e.g. end of day when someone is tired) can all bias some groups of individual's performances.

Some IQ test questions might also be easier for people from certain cultures or backgrounds, creating an unfair advantage or disadvantage and skewing the scores.

IQ also doesn't measure skills like understanding emotions or dealing with people.

Learning styles... an over-simplistic myth!

Why are we still testing for learning styles?

It seems amazing that we think we can categorise people in 3 ways.. visual, auditory and kinaesthetic! ( What do they mean if you have a hearing impairment, visual impairment or have a co-ordination challenge e.g. DCD)?

There have been many reviews showing the lack of evidence for this approach. Not only is it a waste of time but educators can spend time and money tailoring lessons to certain learning styles for different students even though all students would benefit from learning through various methods. It also depends on the tasks being done and the environment you are in.

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences:

Gardner first proposed the theory of multiple intelligences in his 1983 book “Frames of Mind”. He proposed that intelligence is not a single, fixed entity but a collection of different "intelligences," each representing a unique way of processing information.

He identified several types of intelligences, including verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.

Born with skills

Professor Robert Plomin has led a large scale twins study. One thing, among many, his team has shown is that identical twins’ drawing ability was much more highly correlated than fraternal twins’ drawing ability. Since identical twins share 100% of their genes, whereas fraternal twins share only 50%, these findings indicate that differences between people in basic artistic ability is at least in part due to genetics.

Using the same data set, over half the variation between skilled and less skilled readers was found to be due to genetics.

Can you become skilled?

Yes you can.Motivation and interest can drive you to also practice a skill and get better at it as well.However there are myths about putting in 10,000 hours.

Practising a skill again and again but perhaps not doing it in the most efficient or effective manner that doesn't work for you won't make you better.

The age at which someone gets involved in an activity seems to play a role in their ability to achieve mastery. A huge study from the US showed that fluent language learning declines after 18 but optimally gaining fluency happens mostly before the age of 10 years.We know from language learning, there may be a window during childhood when specific, complex skills are most easily acquired.

It is appropriate practice that's important?

It is not always quantity but the quality of practice that can make you better.

Tim Gallwey, founder of the Inner Game, wa a tennis coach. He theorised that in every player we have two selfs. ‘Self 1’ and a ‘Self 2’. Self 1 is like our voice in our head. It can be a constant critic that stops us doing something and we can end up 'over thinking' our actions. Gallwey created the equation to describe the effect of Self 1’s interference:

Performance = potential – interference

We see this when we have a good coach or trainer and how they can improve outcomes.Sir Dave Brailsford, former performance director of British Cycling, revolutionised the sport using the theory of marginal gains. Brailsford believed that if you make a 1% improvement in many small areas, the cumulative benefits would be extraordinary.

Remember that opportunity makes a difference!

F Scott Fitzgerald said:

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”

So what does this all mean?

We can't use one single measure at one point in time to predict the future... your past experiences and opportunities ( more or less) you have had also have an impact on who you are today.

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” said Albert Einstein.

The world of work is rapidly evolving, and some careers might require skills that aren't neatly categorised.Many careers require a combination of intelligences.

I wonder if we will look back and consider the categorisation processes by which we are trying to squeeze people into relating to specific neurodivergent traits and conditions today will also be questioned as we already understand the co-occurrence between conditions is the rule rather than the exception.

We need to accept and embrace the true neurodiversity of human brains!

Multiple measures over time are going to be more effective in understanding someone's strengths, skills, abilities, interests and motivations.

We need to also be aware of other factors at play, such as societal attitudes and biases and social inequity. It is difficult to show your skills to others if you are hungry, have no home or are fearing for your life!

The blog author

I am Amanda Kirby.I am a parent and grandparent to neurodivergent wonderful kids some of whom have DCD. I have worked with the Dyspraxia Foundation for more than 35 years...

I am a mixed bag of experiences and skills and have 25+ years of working in the field of neurodiversity and running a clinical and research team.

I am a medical doctor, G.P, Professor, and have a Ph.D. in the field of neurodiversity;

I am also CEO of Do-IT Solutions a tech-for-good company that delivers web-based screening tools and training that help 1000s' of people deliver person-centered solutions relating to neurodiversity and wellbeing. Currently also Chair of the ADHD Foundation in the UK.

Theo Smith and I wrote the UK award-winning book?Neurodiversity at Work Drive Innovation, Performance, and Productivity with a Neurodiverse Workforce. My 10th book came out called Neurodiversity and Education in 2023 and there is a new one in the pipeline.

#Neurodiversity #InclusiveThinking #BeyondLabels

References:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2212794120

Rimfeld, K., Malanchini, M., Spargo, T., Spickernell, G., Selzam, S., McMillan, A., Dale, P.S., Eley, T.C., Plomin, R. (2019). Twins Early Development Study: a genetically sensitive investigation into behavioural and cognitive development from infancy to emerging adulthood. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 22, 508-513. doi:10.1017/thg.2019.56