# Things Every Software Engineer Should Know About Neurodiversity ## 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/)