ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two different kinds of "thinking differently"—the neurodiversity movement and neural engineering, a field that seeks to create devices designed to engineer certain aspects of their thinking, in order to help them with neurological processing. It explores an overview of the neurodiversity movement and its claims regarding medical research and advocacy campaigns designed to treat and/or prevent the conditions in question. The chapter also explores a look at how neural engineers are developing technologies that may affect how they think or perform neurological processing and that are designed to aid people with neurological disorders in order to improve their quality of life. Some critics of the neurodiversity movement argue that only the most high-functioning people are able to make such claims and that for many other people with atypical modes of thinking, no such "gifts and talents" really exist.
