awesome-neurodiversity / awesome-neurodiversity

Collection of resources, events and people from the Autistic community and wider neurodiversity movement, maintained by @ajhalili2006.

Awesome Neurodiversity

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Neurodiversity is a term to describe natural variations in the human brain, which relates to differences in the ways we think, process, learn and behave. (from TextHelp)

Maintained with ❤️ under Recap Time Squad

Under Community Lores, our documentation arc for all things documentation projects and even this one, Recap Time Squad is currently where Andrei Jiroh mostly host his open-source projects like this.

Trivia: Did you know that Andrei Jiroh founded Recap Time Squad under its former name The Pins Team as a future YouTube channel in 2018, but in its current form is a hub for open source projects, whenever its software or not, among other things.

If you love this project, please star it, or even better, support Andrei Jiroh finanically via the sponsor links in the GitHub repo by clicking Sponsor.

Usage

Use "Find in" (shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd + F) feature in your browser to find a resource here.

Can't find it? See also resources listed in the Public Neurodiversity Support Center and/or file a new issue via GitHub.

Contents

⚠️ Warning: This is currently a work in progress, as @ajhalili2006 is ironing things behind the scenes. Patches and tickets are welcome, but please do check the contributing guidelines for details.

• Primer on Neurodiversity
• Learn More About Each Neurotypes
  • ADHD
  • Autism
• The Neurodiversity Community
• On Non-speakers
• Neurodivergent Creators
• Science Behind Neurodiversity
• Neurodiversity and Intersectionality
• Neurodiversity at Work
• Neurodiversity in Open-source and Tech

Primer on Neurodiversity

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

Treat this as your starter pack/basics on the neurodiversity paradigm + movement.

• What is Neurodiversity? - A short introduction to an enormous topic from the Public Neurodiversity Support Center (PNDSC)
• Neurodiversity In The Classroom: A Teacher's Guide - A teacher's guide for making the curriculum accessible to every child.

Learn More about Each Neurotypes

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

🚧 There are way more neurodivergent traits than currently existing neurotypes like unnamed costellations. We'll update this list as soon as possible once the community in collaboration with the scientific community named new ones, although just like at PNDSC, we suspect that the future of Neurodiversity is actually a movement away from discrete neurotypes and towards a more deconstructed, trait-oriented taxonomy. ? While the lead maintainer himself does know a lot about autism and ADHD, we need help in compilng more resources for other neurotypes too.

Autism

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From Neuroqueer's page about Autism:

"Autism is a genetically-based human neurological variant. The complex set of interrelated characteristics that distinguish autistic neurology from non-autistic neurology is not yet fully understood, but current evidence indicates that the central distinction is that autistic brains are characterized by particularly high levels of synaptic connectivity and responsiveness. This tends to make the autistic individual’s subjective experience more intense and chaotic than that of non-autistic individuals: on both the sensorimotor and cognitive levels, the autistic mind tends to register more information, and the impact of each bit of information tends to be both stronger and less predictable."

Also explained in Neuroclastic and Public Neurodiversity Support Center.

• So Someone Told You You Might Be Autistic, Huh? - An essay by the creator of the Public Neurodiversity Support Center in fine tradition of Autistic people getting diagnosed as adults, burning out, and then dedicating their lives to helping others avoid their fate.¹
• The Big "You Might Be Autistic If" Twitter thread - An precussor to the essay mentioned above, although the author also states that these also overlaps with ADHD.
• @Schnumn#twitter.com's commic on the overlap between Autism and ADHD - An comic where the artist addresses questions about why some people think ADHD and autism are part of the same spectrum and why some people disagree.

ADHD

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

From the Public Neurodiversity Support Center's article:

"ADHD is perhaps the worst named neurotype in existence. Ostensibly “Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder”, ADHD can be at least as much about emotional regulation, time blindness and rejection sensitivity as it is about attention. This is fundamentally a difference in the way dopamine is released in the brain. Neurotypical brains receive dopamine for achieving tasks; ADHD brains receive dopamine for satisfying curiosity. This means our motivational systems are fundamentally at odds with everyone else’s, and it explains why our executive function can be so debilitatingly bad."

• How To ADHD YouTube channel - Gives a ton of useful advice to ADHDers (and also other neurodivergent people and allies), and the person who runs the channel has ADHD and has made a lot of really helpful/practical advice on managing the symptoms of ADHD.
• @Schnumn#twitter.com's commic on the overlap between Autism and ADHD - An comic where the artist addresses questions about why some people think ADHD and autism are part of the same spectrum and why some people disagree.

The Neurodiversity Community

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

• Autism 101: Resources from the Autistic community (from Neuroclastic) - An community starter pack on how the Autistic community operates by #ActuallyAutistic individuals themselves.²³
• #ActuallyAutistic - A hashtag used by the Autistic community, originally in Tumblr (alternative tag)⁴, but also exists in other platforms like Twitter and DeviantArt.
• #AskingAutistics (also Ask An Autistic YouTube series from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network member and autistic advocate Amythest Schaber + its related hashtag, #AskAnAutistic) - If you have an burning question about all things autism and neurodiversity (whenever you're neurotypucal/non-autistic, autistic/neurodivergent yourself or an ally), use the hashtag in your posts.
• r/AutismTranslated - A subredit founded by the creator of Public Neurodiversity Support Center, based on a Twitter thread.

On non-speakers

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

We use the term "non-speaker" over "non-verbal" because we belive in the use of alternative and augmentative communication (AAC). We'll be working on adding resources to AAC, especially on sign language in the future.

• On Using NonSpeaking, Minimally Speaking, Or Unreliably Speaking Over “Non-Verbal”: NonSpeakers Weigh In (from Neuroclastic) - A different between these terms, especially from non-speaking autistics/NDs.

Science behind Neurodiversity

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

A friendly reminder from the maintainers: We try our best to review every single scientific paper and article relating to each neurotypes for any signs of ableism, disablism and/or eugenics, please expect (expectionally high) usage of medical/pathological model of diability in language.

• I’ve heard that autism and ADHD are related. Is that true? (from Understood.org) - TL;DR: While traits are similar and can be both diagnosed since DSM-V, they are (still) different neurotypes.

Neurodiversity and Intersectionality

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

Musings around the intersectionality of neurodivergence and disability, alongside other facets of one's identity, especially in context of discrimination.

• Inspiration Porn: Unintentional Ableism - An Medium article by Lauren Beller on how "feel-good" imagery not only demeans the disabled community but also perpetuates harmful stereotypes.
• I'm Not Your Inspiration, Thank You Very Much by Stella Young - An TED Talk mentioned earlier in the aforementioned Medium post above.

Neurodiversity at Work

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

• Neurodiversity resources in GitLab Team Handbook - Although specific to GitLab team members, these can be also applicable and adoptable to your workspace too.

Neurodiversity at Open-source and Tech

🆙 Go back to contents | 📝 Submit a resource via GitHub or Google Forms

⚠️ Warning: We'll working on this section soon.

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License

This work (including any contributions) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Footnotes

1. While autism is usually diagnosed in children (like in the case of @ajhalili2006), most Autistic adults were undiagnosed for decades due to numerous reasons, including stigma and finanical reasons. We don't want to gatekeep self-diagnosed people here, although we believe in quitable access to official diagnosis (jump to section). ↩

2. Some links might be broken (especially domains and pages that are no longer existent), which we may plan to contact the Neuroclastic editiorial team soon about using web.archive.org for these links. ↩

3. Also applies to other neurotypes, especially in things like Person First vs Identity Language, on functioning labels and ABA. ↩

4. https://autisticadvocacy.tumblr.com/post/95007096162/what-is-with-the-tags-actuallyautistic-which ↩