Why do disabilities exist at all? Any why do some of the cognitive disorders seem to empower entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, and academics? To answer this, we need to dig down to first principles; are there reasonable causes for neurodiversity? There are three primary causes of what we variously call mental disorders, neurodivergence, or learning disabilities:
- Genetic Evolution. In the human evolutionary process, there were likely a range of characteristics that selectively were attractive for health and mating. Some of these traits were likely strength, awareness, focus, and social skills for collaboration. These traits not only lose their power when they are averaged, but some like focus and awareness are opposites and are stronger when they are dominant or extreme. So the survival of a stone-age band would be enhanced by differing cognitive strengths.
- Cultural Evolution. As humans created cities, religions, fashions, and aesthetic ideals, mates were selected and families were largest among those who were most culturally desirable.
- Errors and Accidents. Thomas Edison suffered a hearing loss as a boy when an adult “boxed his hears” as punishment. Auto accidents and military injuries cause all kinds of physical disabilities like lost limbs and sensor disabilities like blindness and deafness. It’s now recognized that war and other traumatic experiences can cause “Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome,” not usually called a learning disability because it happens to adults more than children. Errors in DNA replication can cause genetic abnormalities that may result in neurodivergence. And finally, the experiences and environment within which a child grows up determines what memories and knowledge the child has compared to other children. This last cause is probably underrated by the clinical community.
The DISABILTY aspect of neurodiversity is well known in the education and clinical community; their emphasis is on identifying and labeling the condition, then prescribing an IEP or Individualized Education Plan to help the child succeed in the school environment. The treatment may acknowledge that the disability will not be “cured,” but the child (in the U.S.) is still expected to meet the same academic standards in all areas as her neurotypical classmates. Sometimes there are suggestions in the IEP for teaching strategies that students may enjoy so they become more deeply engaged. Rarely, however, does the IEP emphasize a student’s strengths and interests more than their academic and behavioral deficiencies. So, here’s an important question:
Do people grow more and learn more through their strengths or through their weaknesses? Should a child with musical interests be given double math work or additional musical opportunity? The 4-minute video below suggests that while core skills like reading and math must be learned, disabilities should not define a student or the adult they become:
Recall the quote from Hans Asperger that every scientist and artist may have a “dash of autism.” It isn’t severe autism that produces their scientific and artistic success, but rather it is one or more ways that autistics process information that helps their particular career focus. The video below from the National Center for Learning Disabilities is one of the few authoritative descriptions of how some neurodivergent ways of thinking can be superior to the neurotypical. Watch Strengths of Students with Learning Disabilities and Other Disorders, 2013, 8:30-min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYHzJGTA6KM
Professionals can diagnose learning and other disorders, but can they identify learning and behavioral strengths? Our psychological tests for school-age children look for the disabilities more than the abilities. They certainly don’t look for anything that might be a “superpower.” Here’s a question that should haunt us. How can a neurotypical person, teacher, parent, or professional identify a way of thinking that they do not possess? Wouldn’t that be like expecting a color-blind person to recognize and appreciate “colortypical” vision? What neurotypical teacher or clinician can really understand how Temple Grandin “sees in pictures?”
Entrepreneurs provide an interesting case study of AD/HD traits that they say benefit them. We know that people with AD/HD require higher levels of stimulation to be engaged. That often translates to higher levels of novelty and risk, just like an entrepreneur experiences every day. Until they get bored and start a new company! Let’s learn more about real entrepreneurs and their AD/HD traits. John Torrens is an entrepreneurship professor and founder of a company to support kids with disabilities. Here’s his personal and professional perspective on AD/HD as an Entrepreneur’s Superpower |(2018 TEDx, 15-min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdT4DIiX7Nk
Cognitive and Behavioral Disabilities are still critical disabilities. These spectrum disorders require some to be institutionalized because they can never live an independent life. Others go through life never knowing of their disability. Autistic people are SEVEN TIMES more likely to commit suicide than non-autistics. AD/HD students maybe FOUR TIME more likely to drop out of high school. One of the persistent comments of cognitively and behaviorally disabled adults that they were not properly understood or helped as young people in school. Schools too often treat disabled children as “sand in the gears,” lowering their school’s test scores and disrupting the orderly flow of instruction. The school rarely understands the experience of the disabled child.
Here’s the perspective of woman whose husband and male children are AD/HD (AD/HD affects four times as many males as females). She shares her frustration with school structure and suggests that the “root cause of failure” of AD/HD students lies, to a larger degree than we’d like to admit, with the school. Rebecca Hession’s TEDx talk is titled, Not wrong, Just Different: ADHD as Innovators. (2011, 18-min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60wX9jf5RPg
Let’s acknowledge the positive difference that school’s have made. Their early diagnosis of learning disabilities and early treatment, especially of Dyslexia, have helped millions. But adults suggest that the biggest effect of schools may be the loss of confidence and hope that the stigma of Learning Disability label creates. Some cognitively and behaviorally disabled children and adults are ashamed of themselves. A primary role for school perhaps should be focus on the strengths while they help address critical weaknesses (and avoid shame at all costs). Here’s a short article on the shame felt by a successful AD/HD adult (4-min read), “No One Hates Me Like I Hate Me. How ADHD Causes Shame”: https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/no-one-hates-me-like-i-hate-me-how-adhd-causes-shame-b5a46cbaee85