cavernio (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cavernio) wrote,@ 2007-02-20 10:21:00 |
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neuro-typical
I'm neuro-typical since I'm not autistic, apparently.
While looking up grammar rules for the fairly unimportant control condition task for the mental rotation study I'm about to start testing for, I came across a blog that seemed to be focused on autism. The entry in particular had little to do with autism except that it had been used as an example for an essentially, 'are fetuses living' discussion. http://partprocessing.blogspot.com/2
A couple of times, NT is used, and only near the end is it apparent that it stands for neuro-typicals. I've heard the term used before online, and I thought it was just that particular person or a fairly small group of people who used that term, and I'm kinda shocked and definitely disappointed to find that it's accepted to the point of abbreviation such that anyone in the blogosphere about autism will apparently know what it means.
I dislike the term. A lot. The very words mean that unless you're autistic, (probably largely those diagnosed with Asperger's specifically anyways, since I'm assuming that those are the autistic people who have entered the blogosphere ARE) your neurons are 'typical'. I'll give it that they probably think they're arranged typically, and that people with Autism have neurons arranged atypically. It ignores completely that neurons control waaaaay more than the relatively small differences in function between autistic people and non-autistic people. You could call people who don't have ADHD or depression neuro-typical too. Hell, you could call all right-handers NTs. It's a terrible, blanket term which I suspect some Vulcan-like person with Asperger's came up with to make themselves feel superiour. The first time I saw someone use it was in a post saying that people with Asperger's were superiour to those who don't have it, because they're more intelligent and don't have to worry about emotions and sex getting in the way of their thinking. And maybe that initial use of the term has scarred any further use of the word for me in that I can't shake the rest of the implication that that particular person put with it.
Maybe only people who think Asperger's or autism is better than not having it use it as a term. Afterall, the blog, although not focusing on it at all, said they heard examples of people who say "Selecting an embryo with genetic markers for autism over an embryo without such markers is the same thing as making a nonautistic child autistic!", and it seems a really, really odd for people to select for autism, or even suggest that they might/do.
Regardless of any 'that means I'm better than you' connotations used with the word though, it's still a very poor term.
I'm neuro-typical since I'm not autistic, apparently.
While looking up grammar rules for the fairly unimportant control condition task for the mental rotation study I'm about to start testing for, I came across a blog that seemed to be focused on autism. The entry in particular had little to do with autism except that it had been used as an example for an essentially, 'are fetuses living' discussion. http://partprocessing.blogspot.com/2
A couple of times, NT is used, and only near the end is it apparent that it stands for neuro-typicals. I've heard the term used before online, and I thought it was just that particular person or a fairly small group of people who used that term, and I'm kinda shocked and definitely disappointed to find that it's accepted to the point of abbreviation such that anyone in the blogosphere about autism will apparently know what it means.
I dislike the term. A lot. The very words mean that unless you're autistic, (probably largely those diagnosed with Asperger's specifically anyways, since I'm assuming that those are the autistic people who have entered the blogosphere ARE) your neurons are 'typical'. I'll give it that they probably think they're arranged typically, and that people with Autism have neurons arranged atypically. It ignores completely that neurons control waaaaay more than the relatively small differences in function between autistic people and non-autistic people. You could call people who don't have ADHD or depression neuro-typical too. Hell, you could call all right-handers NTs. It's a terrible, blanket term which I suspect some Vulcan-like person with Asperger's came up with to make themselves feel superiour. The first time I saw someone use it was in a post saying that people with Asperger's were superiour to those who don't have it, because they're more intelligent and don't have to worry about emotions and sex getting in the way of their thinking. And maybe that initial use of the term has scarred any further use of the word for me in that I can't shake the rest of the implication that that particular person put with it.
Maybe only people who think Asperger's or autism is better than not having it use it as a term. Afterall, the blog, although not focusing on it at all, said they heard examples of people who say "Selecting an embryo with genetic markers for autism over an embryo without such markers is the same thing as making a nonautistic child autistic!", and it seems a really, really odd for people to select for autism, or even suggest that they might/do.
Regardless of any 'that means I'm better than you' connotations used with the word though, it's still a very poor term.
