Communication Differences Are Not Deficits
Thinking about neurodivergent people as a cultural group, rather than as being disabled by our neurotypes
“We aren’t in the same class. Just don’t forget that some of us watch the sunset too.”
— S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders
If you look up the word culture on thesaurus.com, one of the synonyms listed is perception. This is very telling. In perceptual psychology, perception is defined as “a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something.
Neurotype-dependent differences in perception affect the creation of shared understandings of experiences. In other words, people of the same neurotype understand each other better because they experience the world in similar ways.
Conversely, when we perceive things differently, we understand and interpret them differently. Our experience of the world differs.
A little anecdote
I live in a military town so, of course, there are a lot of military families here. One family we have gotten to know and really like are Francophone Quebecois, meaning they’re from Quebec, and their first language is French.
When they first moved here about two years ago, they did not speak a word of English, as they’d lived their entire lives in French-speaking communities. This was a very difficult transition for them.
Initially the move was more difficult for their children, who have to attend school with English-speaking peers. Although it’s a French-immersion school, almost everybody there learned French as an additional language, and most of the students were just beginning to learn.
The children picked up English very quickly, however, and eventually adjusted to this big change. The adults learned to speak English quite well, but it certainly becomes more challenging to learn languages as we get older.
We often get together with this family, whose children are neurodivergent. There is an understanding between the two families because many of us are neurodivergent ourselves, or live with neurodivergent loved ones.
The language barrier, however, has been more difficult to overcome. I speak French, but it’s my third language, and I am not an expert. The parents speak English very well, but it is not their first language, and so each of us is slightly awkward in the other’s preferred language.
Whose “fault” is that? Who is responsible for the language barrier, or for any miscommunications that occur?
No one, of course! We simply communicate differently, so we work together to create mutual understanding. We ask each other how to say words or phrases we don’t know, or we look them up using an online translator.
I really enjoy learning, practicing, and improving my French skills. We help and teach each other. Neither of us is superior to the other, neither of our ways of communicating is better than the other, just different.
(Side note: I fully acknowledge that English is often seen as the “superior” language because it is the most widely-spoken language in the world — but also, because racism).
Where am I going with this?
When we accept that we have different communication modes, and then each does our best to meet the other person halfway, we learn about each other and how to best facilitate effective communication.
As Alyssa Hillary noted when describing their experiences living abroad, studying in a program that was directly teaching cross-cultural communication:
“With understanding from all parties that a cultural difference was present, communication went much more smoothly.” — Alyssa Hillary
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