ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the editors put forward their concluding thoughts on the development of neurodiversity within academic fields and summarise some of the perspectives advanced in this book, along with our own. The neurodiversity paradigm(s) can be seen as one of three perspectives; as lived experiences that informs ways of producing knowledge, of ways of looking and talking back to power – of ‘queering’ the cognitive normative gaze – and finally as an ethical stance. There may be tensions between ‘affirming’ lived experiences and ‘queering’; but both kinds of work are important, since we need to represent neurodivergent experiences and challenge cognitive norms.
Somewhere along the way, neurodiversity in an academic context has, up to a point, become coextensive with critical autism studies. We want to stress the importance of unpicking this, given that this orientation only addresses a limited range of neurodivergent experiences. We argued that it is essential for neurodiversity studies to consider all neurodivergent differences and not to exclude types of neurodivergence that are seen as less culturally palatable.
