Neurodivergent identities — autism, ADHD, and related ways of being — have long been treated as deficits to be corrected, their carriers subjected to systems designed to normalize what is fundamentally a different cognitive architecture. The neurodiversity movement argues instead that these are genuine variations in human cognition, each with its own strengths and costs, and that the appropriate response is accommodation and understanding rather than pathologization. Many people who discover their neurodivergent identity as adults describe it as a key that finally explained the shape of their whole life.
Each step builds on the last.