Things Every Software Engineer Should Know About Neurodiversity
Published: 2022-10-06 21:30:59


## 0. Key Terms

- **Neurodivergent** - The term neurodiversity refers to variation in the human brain regarding sociability, learning, attention, mood, and other mental functions in a non-pathological sense.
- **Neurotypical** - it referred to anyone who is not autistic
- **Neurotypes** - A type of brain, in terms of how a person interprets and responds to social cues, etc.

## 1. About

- _Life-long weirdo who's finally figuring it out._
- **NOT a doctor or medical professional**.

## 2. Neurodiversity

- A subset of biodiversity.
- The idea that different people can have different **neurotypes**.
- Most people's cognition and sensory apparati work more or less the same as everyone else's - **we call these people Neurotypical**.
  - Other people experience various aspects of reality differently - we call these people **Neurodivergent** and doctors have names for various conditions.

## 3. Neurodivergent Syndromes and Diagnoses (a subset)

### 3.1 Autism

- **Autism is hard to define** and seems to be the result of the intersections of several other conditions leading to behavioral and developmental differences.
  - Think of it as a range of possible configurations of the Human Operation System.
  - Hard to define, because **no two autistic people share the same exact profile**.
  - **Note:** Talk focuses on the traits rather than the diagnosis.

### 3.2 ADHD

- _"Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder"_ is a horrible name for a complex and nuanced condition.
  - **ADHD brains process time and attention differently.**
  - Brain's reward centers are stimulated by curiosity rather than goals.
  - Paying attention to things that aren't "interesting" takes sustained hard effort.
  - Often (but not always) includes difficulty regulating strong emotions.

### 3.3 Bipolar Disorder

- Bipolar people can have widely fluctuating emotions that are difficult to regulate. **There are various presentations and treatments.**
  - Used to be called "Manic Depression"
    - **Type 1:** alternating Hypomania and Depression.
    - **Type 2:** alternating Hypermania and Depression.
  - Symptoms are triggered by drug use in some people.
  - Medication exists, but there are tradeoffs.

### 3.4 Dyslexia / Dyscalculia

- If your brain processes visual data faster then your eyes can convey it, then things like **reading and parsing visual details can be a challenge**.
- The brain can process different kinds of information differently.
- These diagnoses don't exist without writing and math, which are technologies.
  - _What's that say about disability?_
- Wide-ranging knock-on effects in life.

### 3.5 Sensory Processing Disorders

- People with OCD are experiencing an epistemological crisis with alarming regularity. This is often a need to be absolutely certain of something.
- **Not everyone has the same relationship to the outer world.**
- Sensory processing is how we make sense of reality.
- People with different sensory needs literally **inhabit a different reality, and we have to respect that.**

### 3.6 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

- People with OCD are **experiencing epistemological crisis** with alarming regularity. This is often a need to be absolutely certain of something.
  - Not a joke - this **can be all-consuming** and leave little space for the rest of life.
  - **Pure O** variant where the behavioral component is cognitive. Hard to diagnose often fills sufferer with shame.
    - The key is to interrupt the brain's reward loop, but it's hard.

### 3.7 Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) happens when you've lived through something so **emotionally painful** that you **haven't been able to process it**.
  - Organize your whole life not to think about the trigger.
  - Now you're having "Flashback", reliving your worst experience.

### 3.8 Complex PTSD

- **Complex post-traumatic stress disorder** is the result of living through a sustained traumatic period. It's a pervasive condition that impacts every part of life.
- **"Emotional Flashbacks"** instead of specific flashbacks - you flashback to how you felt when you were living under trauma.
  - Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn responses emerge uncontrollably under threat.
  - **Spent your life looking for threats**, relating to others through a scared and angry fog.

## 4. Neurodivergent Traits (also a Subset)

### 4.1 Time Blindness

- **Common with certain types of ADHD** as well as dyscalculia and autism.
- The subjective experience of time passing does not map to the external passage of time.
  - _"Whoops did I just spent 4 hours on that?"_
  - Either early or late for everything.
- **NOT a character flaw**- this is literally an inability to perceive time the way NT people do.

### 4.2 Face Blindness (Prosopagnosia)

- **Cognitive disorder** of face perception in which the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition)
  - Rely on hairstyle, voice, clothing, movement, etc.

### 4.3 Aphantasia

- A condition where one does not possess a functioning mind's eye and **cannot voluntarily visualize imagery**.
  - Some people are incredibly rich visual thinkers, are to scour memories for details.
  - Some people cannot visualize anything at all if they're not looking at it.
  - Most people seem are somewhere in between.

### 4.4 Sleep Problems

- Common in Autism and in some ADHD, it can **difficult to turn the brain off** and go to sleep -- or to turn it back on and wake up.
  - Chronic insomnia
  - Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome
  - Chronic Fatigue compounds existing challenges

### 4.5 Rejection Sensitivity

- **Common with ADHD and Autism**, a lifetime of being corrected leads to a heightened awareness of disappointing people and horrific fear of being rejected.
  - Thinking that are no big deals for most people can ruin a day or a week for people with rejection sensitivity.
  - One's sense of self is situated in others, and so one requires validation and approval, or else one's self is "wrong".
  - This **leads to unnecessary isolation** and alienation.

### 4.6 Toxic Shame

- Related to CPTSD and Rejection Sensitivity, some people **feel shame way more strongly than they need to**.
  - Shame is how other people teach you how they want you to act.
    - Some shame is appropriate
  - If you feel constant shame just for being yourself, **that's something you learned and you can unlearn it.**

### 4.7 Sensory Overload

- People who are hypersensitive to various things can become overloaded, resulting in scary and **dysregulating** (impairment of a physiological regulatory mechanism) behavior.
  - Bright lights, loud sounds, specific textures, even strong emotions can be painful.
  - It can lead to meltdown or shutdown, which are not tantrums but rather the body trying to protect itself.
  - Excruciating and embarrassing to deal with.
    - Don't make fun of Bono's sunglasses.

### 4.8 Masking

- The process where **neurodivergent people do their best to as and "pass" as Neurotypical**.
  - Everyone does a bit, it's how _"fitting in"_ works.
  - For Neurotypical people is about avoiding social consequences.
  - Challenge **scales with the degree of neurodivergence**.
    - "Passing Privilege" Analogy
  - This can be soul-destroying, can confuse mask for self.

### 4.9 Autistic Communication

- Many autistic people struggle with understanding, being understood, and finding acceptance.
  - Different things are obvious to an autistic mind than to an allistic mind.
    - Notice different details
  - As a result, we're not always talking about the same things with the same words.

### 4.10 Autism and Gender

- Gender is a social construct, and many neurodivergent people (notably autistic) **struggle to share social constructs with neurotypical people.**
  - A ton of neurodivergent people are also genderqueer.
  - Delta between subjective experience and societal communications and expectations.
  - **Concept of Autigender:** the gender only autistic people experience

### 4.11 Autism At Work

- Moving from a school environment to a professional environment is a culture shock that's poorly documented for autistic minds.
  - Lots to learn, lots of painful trial-and-error.
  - Prioritize feelings and reputations over correctness.
    - Doesn't understand the _"Compliment sandwiches?"_
    - _Oh my god, why can't anyone understand what I'm trying to say it's so obvious._

## 5 Next Steps

### 5.1 Believe People

- **Starting with yourself.**
  - Subjective experience is inaccessible to science and medicine.
  - Nobody can "prove" what they feel, so we have to listen and believe.
  - Kids especially - so much harm later in life happens when our childhood needs go unmet.
- **Believe your children** when they tell you something hurts when they tell you they struggle with a texture when they can't make friends.
  - Early support is the difference between thriving and spending years or decades unlearning toxic coping skills.

### 5.2 Accept People

- **Also; starting with yourself.**
  - Nobody can be other then they are - this doesn't mean that self-improvement doesn't exist, but it's important to understand what can be improved and what's an intrinsic part of someone.
- Try to meet people where they are rather than expecting them to meet your where you are.
- **Understand that many disabilities are invisible**, and you don't know what your colleagues are dealing with.

### 5.3 Make People Safe

- **Also; starting with yourself.**
  - The polyvagal theory argues with some compelling evidence that we cannot be our full or best selves until and unless we feel safe.

## 6. Additional resources

- [Understanding the Challenges Faced by Neurodiverse
  Software Engineering Employees](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/neurodiverse_tech_employees_assets2015.pdf)
- [Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage](https://hbr.org/2017/05/neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-advantage)
- [Neurodiversity Hub - Resources for Students, Employers & More](https://www.neurodiversityhub.org/)