Let's Talk Neurosense: the psychology of neurodiversity

Dr Naomi Fisher and Dr Danielle Drinkwater
  • 3.5 (2)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Semiweekly

A podcast to discuss important issues about neurodiversity. neurosense.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    S3 E5 Concept Creep and Neurodiversity with Nick Haslam

    How does the meaning of words change over time - and what are the implications when those words are clinical terms? Nick Haslam is an academic psychologist, and his work has looked at the expansion of psychological terms like ‘trauma’, ‘abuse’ and ‘bullying’. He suggests that these concepts expand over time, becoming both less extreme (vertical expansion) and broader (horizontal expansion). In this interview, we talk about how that applies to neurodiversity. We discuss how formal terms like ‘ADHD’ have expanded, but also how the emergence of informal terms like neurodivergence have increased the number of people who think that perhaps their difficulties in life are due to their differently wired brains. Nick is at pain to point out noting semantic shifts like this isn’t about judgement, it’s simply an observation. How we use words changes over time - and this has implications for clinical practice. Nick is a prolific researcher and we have just selected a few, free-to-access examples of his work here. Here’s a recent paper about concept creep. Here is some of his work about the mixed blessings of biogenetic explanations. Article in The Conversation about the way that the conversation on social media has shifted over time, with autism and ADHD now dominating. Finally, the two papers by Lucy Foulkes and colleagues, mentioned by Dani and Nick, about the prevalence inflation hypothesis, and the Barry Mason paper about Safe Uncertainty. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurosense.substack.com

  2. Sep 30

    S3 E4 The Invisible Girls of Autism with Nabeelah Jaffer

    Nabeelah got in touch with us because she was concerned. She has an autistic 6-year-old whose autism has been obvious since she was very young and who is minimally speaking. She felt that children like her daughter were invisible. Her family’s priorities are not represented in the conversation about neurodiversity and it’s more than that, she thinks that we are lacking the language that we need to describe important differences between autistic people. The word ‘autism’ is being used to mean too many different things. In this heart-felt episode, Nabeelah told us about the early signs of difference she saw in her daughter and how little support there is available. She looked for early intervention, only to be told by a speech and language therapist that she herself was the early intervention. She sought help in online groups, only to be told she was ableist for wanting to help her daughter stop using nappies. She told us of her daughter’s difficulties - pica, toileting, elopement - and how she doesn’t see organisations or researchers prioritising the needs of families like hers. She told us of how difficult it is even to describe her daughter’s challenges, because all of the language has been problematised. She told us of her love for her daughter and how joyful life with her could be. Nabeelah isn’t denying the reality of anyone’s struggle – but she’s saying that some people are being missed. There has been a re-centring of the autism discussion, away from the severely disabled, and yet we don’t have the words to describe the problem. This conversation is a valuable insight into the world of the families of severely autistic children, and a wake-up call for anyone who might have assumed that, at this end of the spectrum, needs are being met and families supported. Here’s a link to the study Nabeelah mentions which looked at the underrepresentation of those with intellectual disabilities in autism research. For a discussion of PACT and other similar early intervention approaches briefly touched upon in the episode, start here.For information about the Cambridge Attention, Learning and Memory centre click here. Our episode with Amy Lutz, mentioned in this interview - parent of a severely autistic adult child and disability historian. And finally, here is a link to some research on developing the consensus definition for profound autism. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurosense.substack.com

  3. Sep 26

    BONUS: It’s all in the interaction: the nature and nurture of autism with Robert Wright

    “I would love if the phrase nature vs nurture disappeared from the planet. I think it’s really held back a lot of progress. It’s nature and nurture. If we think of science as nature and nurture we are going to make progress a lot faster than if we keep dividing it into separate things because that’s just not how the world works.” Robert Wright Are you confused by the nature vs nurture debate? Are you unsure what it really means to say that ‘autism is genetic’, and why people say that there is ‘missing heritability’ in autism? You wouldn’t be alone. The science of behavioural genetics seem to get more complicated the more closely we look. That’s why when the National Autistic Society stated that ‘autism is genetic’, we wanted to know more. It just seemed too straightforward to be true and we weren’t sure how the evidence matched up. So we were delighted when we found Bob Wright, a paediatrician whose work speaks to exactly this. Bob could not be better placed to help us to understand, drawing on his knowledge not only of paediatrics and neurodevelopment, but also of genetics and the emerging field of exposomics. In this episode, we asked Bob whether the National Autistic Society were right to make this statement, what he thinks they might be missing, and why he thinks that the question of the genetics of autism is far from resolved. He uses stories to bring these ideas to life - look out for the yellow flanked chickens! Bob described himself as an exposomic scientist. Exposomics, in contrast to (but in many way complimentary to) genomics, was first introduced by Christopher Wilde in his seminal paper in 2005. It is the science of the environmental exposures throughout a person’s lifetime and how these relate to health. For Bob, it offers a promising new area of research and knowledge development that could help us both to understand autism better but also perhaps offer hope to families of profoundly autistic children. Bob has a talent for making complex ideas digestible, using stories that really helped Naomi and I begin to get a handle on this topic. We hope that this conversation will resonate with many of you or at least will start some new conversations! Find more from Bob on his Substack page, including in The Miseducation of Autism Heritability and On the Origins of a Specious Argument about Autism Part 2: Twins, where you can find more details of the chicken story and more. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurosense.substack.com

    BONUS: It’s all in the interaction: the nature and nurture of autism with Robert Wright

  4. Sep 23

    S3 E3 Double Jeopardy with Helen Minnis

    When Helen Minnis was tiny, she was affectionately referred to as ‘a nightmare baby’. As an adult, she has a diagnosis of ADHD. She counts herself lucky, because her parents had each other, they had enough money, they had community support - and so they were well enough resourced to look after her. It could have been very different. All of this is very relevant to what Helen researches now. ‘Double jeopardy’ refers to the interaction between neurodivergence (which Helen defines as those who are at the extreme ends of the normal distribution) and childhood adversity. The combination of temperament and environment, and the complex and bidirectional relationships between the two. In this far-ranging interview, Helen tells us about her research and why she thinks this is such an important area to study. We talk about the children for whom parenting really makes a difference, and how it frequently goes unacknowledged that every child is different and each parent has a different task. This interview goes from the research to the personal and practical. Helen’s empathy for parents and children shines through throughout. We hope you enjoy it. One of Helen’s academic papers on double jeopardy with her colleague Ruchika Gajwani- Gajwani, R., & Minnis, H. (2023). Double jeopardy: implications of neurodevelopmental conditions and adverse childhood experiences for child health. European child & adolescent psychiatry, 32(1), 1–4. Robert Plomin is the behavioural geneticist mentioned in the podcast who uses the phrase ‘parents matter but they don’t make a difference’. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurosense.substack.com

  5. Sep 21 ·  Bonus

    BONUS: Is autism simply genetic? with Danielle Drinkwater and Naomi Fisher

    Big announcements this week in the UK autism world. The National Autistic Society have declared that they are stating definitively that autism is genetic and that we can all stop looking for answers elsewhere. The question, they say, is resolved. This statement has been very positively received, with many sharing it and heralding it as a great step forward. But is the science really as cut and dried as this would suggest? One thing is clear, they are not making this announcement because of a scientific breakthrough. There has not been a new development in autism research which has finally resolved the issue of what causes autism. They have based this on a review of 83 different research studies, but the outcomes of these studies are nowhere near as straightforward as the statement suggests. In this episode, Naomi and Dani ask some questions about what ‘autism is genetic’ really means - and why the NAS are saying it now. What is meant by autism, in this context, and what is meant by ‘genetic’? It’s an area that is rife with misinformation and misunderstandings - does the NAS statement resolve any of that? Where do we go from here? Thanks for listening to Let's Talk Neurosense: the psychology of neurodiversity! Subscribe for free. Here are a few more links to topics discussed in this episode. * Journal articles about the heritability of vitiligo and the familial recurrence. * A Substack article by Robert Wright explaining the importance of gene/environment interactions * The National Autistic Society News page and their What Causes Autism? page with a tab for Article Sources (found towards the bottom of the page) * Marriage (and divorce) is heritable. * Autism and polygenic risk factors, explained. * The trouble with Twin Studies * Cambridge study autism and genetics * Link to the BPS Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia document, which provides a succinct summary of the literature referred to in the episode around inequality, poverty, racism and discrimination (Section 6.3, pg. 44) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurosense.substack.com

  6. Sep 16

    S3 E2 Questioning lived experience with Paul Hutton

    What does lived experience really mean? Should lived experience be given the same status as scientific studies? Could it sometimes be used as a shield, preventing ideas from being challenged? Have clinicians historically ignored lived experience, and how can we redress the balance? Talking about these questions is difficult, and Paul Hutton knows that directly. When he started posting about the complexities of working with lived experience on LinkedIn, he was surprised by the strength of the response he got. As a result, we invited him on to the pod. In this conversation, Paul told us why he thinks it could be dangerous to use lived experience to form general beliefs about the world, but also thinks it’s essential that lived experience is listened to, and used to generate new hypotheses. He highlights the importance of empirical evidence - and also how evidence-based practice has historically ignored lived experience. We discussed how difficult professionals find it to challenge something framed as lived experience, and how this is sometimes exploited by researchers and those who do not want their ideas to be scrutinised. This episode, like the previous one with Susie Colbert, explores some of the parallels (and differences) between what has been happening in neurodiversity, and what has happened already in the field of psychosis. Paul brings a great depth of research and clinical knowledge. We hope you enjoy the conversation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurosense.substack.com

    S3 E2 Questioning lived experience with Paul Hutton

  7. Sep 9

    S3 E1 Dyslexia and Diagnostic Dilemmas with Susie Colbert

    Susie brings a number of unique and valuable perspectives to the topic of neurodiversity and joins Naomi and I this week to to help us kickstart season 3. As well as working clinically as a psychologist and having her own diagnosis of dyslexia, Susie works as a tutor on one of the UK’s clinical psychology training programmes. She is also part of the British Psychological Society’s working group supporting researchers using the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF), a non-diagnostic alternative to working with emotional distress. Susie reports having found her dyslexia diagnosis incredibly helpful over the years, yet she also believes, as someone committed to evidence-based practice and to interrogating ideas, that dyslexia deserves the same critical eye (or as she might put it- ‘critique-ical’ eye) as any other diagnosis or psychiatric construct. Together we examine the conceptual overlaps between neurodivergent presentations, psychosis and other psychiatric presentations, as well as areas of difference. We talk about what it means that dyslexia now sits under the neurodiversity umbrella and the various implications of understanding things the way we do currently, as well as posing the question- ‘what’s the alternative?’ Here is a link to the Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia document mentioned in the episode. We’re committed to keeping Let’s Talk Neurosense free, but if you enjoy the podcast and would like to support our work, you can buy us a coffee here- This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurosense.substack.com

    S3 E1 Dyslexia and Diagnostic Dilemmas with Susie Colbert

  8. Aug 24

    BONUS: Why it matters how we talk about ADHD with Danielle Drinkwater and Naomi Fisher

    The Channel 4 documentary The Great ADHD Myth? has sparked a national conversation, and it’s a heated one. For some, it was a much needed balance to the dominant narrative, while for others it was a biased and dangerous polemic. One of the contributors to the Channel 4 programme, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Dr Sami Timimi, argued in his book that the onus should be on those making claims about ADHD having a neurobiological cause to provide robust supporting evidence for such claims. The evidence often cited, he argues, is often overstretched and misinterpreted. Is he right? In this episode, we grapple with some of these issues. Naomi and I consider whether the documentary could have been framed differently, how diagnostic thresholds have changed and what this means for the research, the evidence behind claims that ADHD is a brain-based condition, how we talk about ADHD, and why all this matters. Here are some links to research and other sources referred to in the episode. Here is a link to webpage for Cambridge University’s Centre for Attention, Learning and Memory (CALM), and an ACAMH (Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health) interview with a representative from CALM summarising their research as having “so far revealed that behavioural problems, patterns of cognitive difficulties and neural profiles do not align with specific diagnoses”. There’s also this ACAMH paper’s podcast. Naomi spoke about this NYT article, and the RDoC and HiTOP research. This is the 2025 meta-analysis on brain imaging research we discussed. And for the clinical applications, journal article discussing differences between the ICD-11 and DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for ADHD, and posing the question, amongst other dilemmas and uncertainties- “do we threshold impairment against the average peer or the hypothetical potential of the individual?”. Episode of the podcast series Navigating Neuropsychology examining a detailed case study of a young woman, described as being extremely bright, and therefore whose “areas of personal weakness”, which were not considered to be low for her age group, contributed to her ADHD diagnostic decision. This episode offers a detailed exploration of how diagnosticians might consider differential diagnosis, and the uncertainty often involved with diagnostic assessments, but also shows how such uncertainty can quickly become lost following assessment, as seen in the title of the episode where the clinical case is introduced as a young adult with type 1 diabetes, mental health, and ADHD. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurosense.substack.com

    BONUS: Why it matters how we talk about ADHD with Danielle Drinkwater and Naomi Fisher
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A podcast to discuss important issues about neurodiversity. neurosense.substack.com

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