The Other Day I Was Told I Was Neurotypical

It's funny how a casual comment can sometimes lead to unexpected places.

I don’t know why I haven’t been paying attention because I’m sure the term “neurotypical” has been around for a while, but up until a few days ago, I hadn’t heard of it. More than my interest in discovering a new word, though, I was intrigued by my reaction to it. For some reason, thinking of myself as “neurotypical” created a bit of a ruckus in my mind. So, I thought I should find out more.

My investigation didn't get very far. I googled “neurotypical” and discovered that it meant “people who have brains that function in a way that is similar to most of their peers” (Villines, 2022). So, I thought, “Oh good, that’s everyone.” In fact, I found it a bit hard to understand the “most of their peers” part. All brains function in the same way. Well, unless there’s some physical deterioration or damage to that functioning. Actually, the brains of all things that have a brain function in the same way.

A brain is a massively complex and intricate collection of control systems. Some brains only control very simple things like their distance from other entities or the amount of stimulation they prefer. Other brains can control much more elaborate things like the amount of honesty in a statement, the amount of grey to add to the vermilion hue to create the right muting effect, or the sense of respect and fairness experienced at work.

Source:  itchaznong/ID: 206560300/@123RF

Regardless of what it is that’s being controlled, control is constant. Someone might like a lot of stimulation, whereas someone else might like very little. The point is that getting the right amount of stimulation is a control process. It doesn’t mean you’re strange or odd if you like a lot or a little stimulation any more than you’re strange or odd if you like to spend lots of your spare time volunteering for charities or painting Warhammer figurines.

It is definitely the case that we can use various tools and devices to help us control. People might use colored glasses, a wine aerator, headphones, or running shoes with carbon-fiber plates to produce the result they want. When I want to move my body from my home to my office, I make use of a bike or a car if it’s raining. To read the very teensy writing on some food labels I press three times on the side of my iPhone and make the letters and numbers much bigger. We have developed a staggering array of nifty gizmos to help us control all sorts of things. Controlling different things, however, doesn’t change the fact that it’s all still control.

Control is the process of making things the way we want them to be. Whether we're controlling the volume on the TV, the boredom level in a classroom, the amount of intimacy in our relationship, or our sense of autonomy, it’s all control.

Early in my career, I trained and taught first as a preschool teacher, then as a special education teacher. I have no doubt at all that the young people and people with disabilities with whom I was privileged to work were controllers. I worked with children and young people who had been diagnosed with autism, as well as other young people who were described as being “severely to profoundly multiply handicapped." All of the people with whom I have been fortunate to work, without exception, showed evidence of control. They all had clear preferences for some things and very definite dislikes for other things. Even though some of them had very limited capabilities, they did what they could to get more of what they liked and less of what they disliked. That's control.

One of the controlling habits that humans seem particularly fond of is categorizing and sorting. Describing people as neurodivergent or neurotypical seems to be an expression of this. The growing acknowledgement of the importance of diversity and inclusion also seems to reflect our insatiable desire to assign people to various groups. First, we divide people up into diverse groups, then we need to remind ourselves that we’re all in this together.

Would the way we go about organizing our social affairs be more straightforward if we began from the understanding that we are all controllers? Perhaps we would live together more harmoniously if we kept in mind that we all have preferred states of how we like things to be. From this perspective, the secret to successful social living is to build environments in which there are sufficient degrees of freedom so that each person can control the things that are important to them without preventing others from doing the same thing.

Sometimes it almost seems as though the “universe” can help you out in the most astounding ways. As I was writing this article, I received the latest newsletter from Unbiased Science. In this newsletter, Dr Jess Steier and Elana Pearl Benjoseph, M.D., MPH (2025) were challenging the idea that there is an autism "epidemic." Towards the end of the newsletter, they suggested that, “Rather than treating autism as something to be 'cured' or prevented, we should focus on creating a more inclusive society where neurodivergent individuals can thrive.” How wonderful is that? We could even leave out the word “neurodivergent.”

Autism Essential Reads

Meeting People as Individuals, Not Assumptions

Autism Barbie? I’m Not a Fan

Why not advocate for inclusive societies where all individuals (regardless of the particular category we assign them to) can thrive?

But better than that, a few sentences later, Steier and Benjoseph (2025) asked, “Are we building systems that recognize, respect and support different ways of thinking and being in the world?”. What a fabulous question. Such systems would provide the degrees of freedom I referred to.

Perhaps by recognizing our shared controlling humanity we might move a little closer to appreciating and celebrating our spectacularly wondrous kaleidoscopic diversity. Control is key to embracing simultaneously inclusion and diversity so that individuals can thrive and communities can flourish.