Surely you've heard of the
Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical
No?
Then I implore that you all to click this link before continuing to read.
http://isnt.autistics.org/
This very important advocacy organization sponsors research on Neurotypicals, seeks to inform the general population about this national epidemic, and conducts outreach activities aimed at families, governments, and the public. We are all affected by the neurotypicals in our lives. In fact, you very well could be one without even knowing it!! Take this quiz to find out:
http://isnt.autistics.org/ntscreening.html
As noted at the top, this site is a parody.
If you're out of the loop on the term "neurotypical", here's the Wikipedia definition:
Neurotypical (NT) is a term coined in the autistic community as a label for people who are not on the autism spectrum.[1]
However, the term eventually became used for anyone who does not have
atypical neurology, in other words, anyone who is not autistic,
dyslexic, dyspraxic, bipolar, or ADD/ADHD, and has been replaced by some
with 'allistic', which has the same meaning as 'neurotypical'
originally did. [2] The concept was later adopted by both the neurodiversity movement and the scientific community.[3][4][5]
You know, those people. Those normal people. What, you don't know them? Let me try to give you some examples:
My son. 10 years old. Loves sports. In fact, at age 2 had memorized every hockey team in the NHL. By 4, his love of hockey had led him to hours of lining up NHL cards on the living room floor in abc order and reading the names aloud (Achtymichuk, Kovulchuk, Ruotsalainen, Zalapski...). Thanks to hockey, he also developed an bit of an obsession with Canada. When we went to Thrasher's games, he would sing "Oh, Canada" while the rest of the crowd was trying to hit the high notes on our national anthem.
He also fears buttons. The kid will not, under any circumstances wear buttons. No button down shirts, no cargo shorts. As a child, he once threw an unholy tantrum when his well-meaning Grandmother gave him a button down shirt with an NHL logo for his birthday. He wore it eventually, but only after we cut the buttons off. As I mentioned before, he is now 10. And no, he still won't wear buttons. He also won't cut his hair or wear a shirt without a sports logo on it...but that's for another day.
My Dad. Every night as a child my brother, sister and I squealed with excitement as he pulled into the driveway. And then we'd wait. And wait. Because Daddy had rituals. Open and shut the gate 4 times, wiggle the doorknob two times to the left, once to the right, open and shut the door twice. Then, into the house with big hugs! To this day, my quirky cool Dad maintains these rituals. He's not big on change. My parents' house is a shrine to Daddy's idyllic Alabama childhood. The old man has kept everything from his childhood. From matchbooks and napkins left over from holiday parties, to a pack of stale Pall Malls and an unopened bottle of moonshine that once belonged to his father. Mercifully, my patient and creative Mom somehow keeps the house from looking like an episode of Horders.
Me. Typical conference between my parents and an elementary school teacher: "So, Amanda is a very smart girl. I just wonder where her mind is. She seems to check out for much of the day and misses a lot of material." Check out? Why didn't they understand, I wasn't checking out? Did they not notice that the crack in the wall next to my seat looked like a lost continent? How could they not want to watch the baby birds outside the window? If I could only tell them about the movie I was writing in my head during math class!
We didn't have "letters" back in the day (mine, I now know, are ADD...leave out the H). Through a lot of trial and error (a double order of error, please), and a pretty damaged self esteem, I pushed on through and somehow made it through school. And then college. And then graduate school! Yes, I had to work twice as hard as a lot of folks, but I developed some pretty creative strategies to help make it through.
I now rely heavily on strategies to help me navigate the treacherous waters of adulthood/parenthood. I have three daily calendars; anything I need to commit to memory must be handwritten by me; on my last long car trip to Florida, I wrote every single step of the directions on post it notes (19 in all) and stuck them to my dashboard. After completing each step, I removed the post it. And I still got lost somewhere in south Georgia. Sigh.
So, never mind. I don't really know any of these so called "neurotypical" people. Actually, I think my son, father and I might be the most "normal" folks in my family. The rest of my family reads like a Faulkner novel. On acid. From the peculiar to the bizarre, to just plain out of control, I can't seem to find a single case of Neurotypical behavior no matter how hard I look.
And for that, I am grateful. Neurodiversity is what makes us interesting. It gives us character. It gives us stories. It gives us creativity. Neurodiversity is a gift to be embraced.
But it's not always easy to be different. Especially in an educational system that so values conformity. The belief that everyone learns the same way, at the same pace is just plain silly. However, the belief that everyone CAN and WILL learn is an absolute.
That belief was driven home as I sat in conferences last week, talking about all that your children have accomplished this year. Congratulations on having such wonderfully creative "neurodiverse" children. They are truly gifted.
According to my calculations, ALL students have improved their reading levels in since tested in early December. Also, this class has seen an average improvement of almost 32 percentile points on the KeyMath assessment...that's an average of 1 school year and 4 months! Shelley also noted great gains on the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI). I know, numbers only count for so much (although they are sure fun to throw around when they are in your favor!) I promise you, though, this class looks much different than it did in August. We are more focused, confident, interactive, reflective. We can talk about our feelings, both good and not so good. Though we still have work to do, we have so, so much to celebrate!
