Neurodiversity-lite describes a surface-level, performative use of neurodiversity, using language and phrases like “different, not less” without the deeper commitments to disability justice, systemic change, and lived experience that define the neurodiversity paradigm.

The term neurodiversity-lite was coined by Shain M. Neumeier (2018) in their article ‘To Siri With Love’ and the Problem With Neurodiversity Lite‘. It refers to a marketable, diluted version of the neurodiversity movement that looks inclusive on the surface but deep down often reinforces the same ableist and harmful systems. This blog explores the differences between performative inclusion and genuine neurodiversity-affirming practice, why “neurodiversity-lite” approaches cause harm, and how we can protect the radical roots of the neurodiversity movement.

Dr. Nick Walker states:

“Neurodiversity is the diversity of human minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.

Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a belief, a political position, or a paradigm. That’s the neurodiversity paradigm, not neurodiversity itself.

Neurodiversity is not a political or social activist movement. That’s the Neurodiversity Movement.

The Neurodiversity Movement is a social justice movement that seeks civil rights, equality, respect, and full societal inclusion for the neurodivergent,”

Dr. Nick Walker

What Is The Neurodiversity Paradigm?

The neurodiversity paradigm is not just a set of nice words, it’s a political and cultural framework rooted in disability rights and the social model of disability. It recognises neurological differences as part of human biodiversity, calling for societies to adapt rather than expecting individuals to “overcome” their neurology and be “fixed” or “treated”. It demands accessible environments, autonomy, and an end to ableist structures.

Neurodiversity Lite, by contrast, adopts this vocabulary but discards the politics. It swaps liberation for awareness and swaps systemic reform for inspirational slogans, and grassroots leadership for token representation. This diluted framing can appear affirming while reinforcing control over Autistic, neurodivergent and disabled people’s bodies, choices, and our narratives.

Why “Neurodiversity-Lite” Is Harmful

The word neurodiversity is increasingly turning up everywhere, in workplace diversity statements, educational campaigns, media reports and in corporate training packages. At first glance, it can feel like progress and a step towards inclusive practice as the language once confined to small communities is now more visible in mainstream spaces. However, if you look closer, this reality can be hollow. The same barriers often remain, the same systems demand our conformity, and the same power structures control whose voices are heard (and whose are still silenced). Under the surface you may find that there is really not enough progress beyond a tokenistic use of language and that is why we need to look deeper.

Honoring Difference

Neurodiversity and being neurodiversity-affirming shouldn’t be a slogan people use without thought and understanding the wider political reasons of the neurodiversity and human rights movement. To understand neurodiversity we need to acknowledge that both individual differences and social contexts shape experiences of disability. As Dwyer (2022) suggests, this means researchers and advocates must:

• Learn from both individuals and their environments, recognizing strengths and challenges.
• Reflect on their own biases so they don’t overwrite neurodivergent perspectives.
• Center research questions around neurodivergent people’s lived experiences rather than abstract frameworks.

Neurodiversity-lite erases this complexity as it flattens and invalidates our lived experiences as neurodivergent and disabled people and it ignores the political, social and sensory barriers we may experience.

What we need is not just training about neurodiversity but
neurodiversity-affirming training about neurodivergence.

Problems with Super Power Framing

Going to the other extreme of embracing a neurodivergent “super power” type of framing can be just as harmful as pathologising language. While it can feel like a welcome rejection of deficit-based approaches it often replaces one oversimplification with another.

When neurodivergence is framed a gift or super power, it can:

• Creates unrealistic pressure for neurodivergent people to constantly demonstrate exceptional abilities. It leaves no space for meaningful rest, no understanding of the fluctuation of needs and spiky profiles. It ignores the reality of what support may really be needed.
  
• Erases those who don’t fit the expected mould, including those with higher support needs, more complex communication styles and sensory differences. It ignores or tries to fix traits that aren’t viewed as advantageous to productivity which is especially harmful for those with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities. It creates hierarchies within society and undermines people’s unique strengths and ways of being, it promotes independence over seeing the value of interdependence.
  
  
• Enables tokenism, where organisations or media highlight certain neurodivergent individuals only when they are seen as assets to productivity, creativity, or innovation. It risks reducing people to what they can “offer” rather than recognising our intrinsic worth, rights, and dignity.
  
• Deflects responsibility for accessibility, suggesting that barriers can be “overcome” by individuals rather than dismantled through systemic change.

This “super power” narrative, like neurodiversity-lite, leaves wider structures unchallenged and ignores the very real needs that neurodivergent people experience. It reinforces a hierarchy within neurodivergence where only some people are deemed worthy of inclusion and it doesn’t account for spiky profiles and fluctuating capacity and energy.

Authentic neurodiversity-affirming advocacy lives in the space between these extremes. It acknowledges that neurodivergent people can have unique strengths but we also experience very real challenges. Neurodiversity-affirming approaches centre the voices and lived experiences of neurodivergent and disabled people. They call for systemic and environmental change, recognising that true belonging cannot be conditional to meeting neurotypical standards, whether those standards are framed through deficit models or dressed up as “super powers.” Neurodiversity-affirming practice values and accepts us as we are, it values our own authentic ways of being, it doesn’t seek to fix or change people and it rejects any behaviourist approaches.

Where Neurodiversity-Lite May Show Up

• Corporate PR and Work Places
  Companies that celebrate “neurodivergent talent” in glossy campaigns, but their workplaces still remain inaccessible, inflexible, and hostile to differences. They highlight productivity and “unique skills” without addressing sensory overload, rigid schedules, or discriminatory hiring practices or making meainngful accommodations for employers.
  
• Therapy and Education
  Roberts in their article, Performative Neurodiversity – the appropriation and watering down of a Human Rights Movement for profit in The Therapist Neurodiversity Collective (2021) describes how some services market themselves as “neurodiversity-affirming” while still pursuing compliance-based goals rooted in deficit thinking. In these cases, neurodiversity becomes a label for old harmful approaches such as ABA and PBS rather than a commitment to genuine inclusion.
  
• Academic Spaces
  Robert Chapman (2025) notes that a new wave of neurodiversity-lite appears even in academic spaces. By softening critique, it makes the paradigm “safer” for established systems while sidelining the actual voices that challenge them who need change. This is especially harmful as many institutions draw on academic and evidenced based research to form their policies and this reinforces harm in so many sectors.

Why Neurodiversity-Lite Is Harmful

On the surface, neurodiversity-lite may look positive and a step in the right direction, as it means more people are talking about neurodiversity; more organisations are seemingly thinking about and a bit more aware of disability and peoples differences. However, beneath the surface, it undermines the neurodiversity movement’s goals in lots of harmful ways, such as:

1. Language without change
   Feel-good words can create the illusion of progress while leaving ableist systems intact. If workplaces, schools, or services don’t address structural barriers, no amount of re-branding will deliver real inclusion and will continue to cause harm, for example through approaches such as Positive Behaviour Reward Systems in schools which are sometimes sugar coated in a neurodiversity-lite way.
   
2. Erasure of the most marginalised
   When neurodiversity is framed only through “superpowers” or high-achieving individuals, those with higher support needs, multiply marginalised identities, and those that don’t easily fit into systems are erased further, and their needs and voices vanish from the conversation.
   
3. Maintaining neurotypical control
   Decisions about inclusion often happen for neurodivergent people rather than by us or with us. In this way acceptance is often conditional and shaped by what neurotypical stakeholders and policy makers find comfortable, whilst disregarding genuine needs and access.
   
4. Weakening the movement
   Chapman (2025) warns that this dilution of the neurodiversity paradigm, especially when cloaked in academic legitimacy, makes it harder to push for the transformative change. The radical origins of neurodiversity movement risk being forgotten or rewritten to fit into systems that promote neuronormative domination.
   
5. Masking ongoing harm
   As the Therapist Neurodiversity Collective points out, co-opting the language of human rights while continuing harmful practices not only misleads people, but it also perpetuates the very harm the neurodiversity movement exists to challenge.

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From Neurodiversity-Lite to Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice

Neurodiversity-Lite	Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice	Key References
Marketable, apolitical branding	Grounded in disability justice & rights frameworks	Walker (2021); Chapman (2020)
Controlled by institutions; professionals and those in power set the agenda	Led by neurodivergent and disabled communities	Botha (2020); Milton (2012)
Token awareness days & slogans and using language of neurodiversity without action	Structural change, accessibility, and autonomy	Walker (2021); Doherty, McCowan & Shaw (2023); Kapp (2020)
Individual “inspiration” stories	Collective belonging, care, and interdependence	hooks (1999); Kapp (2020)
Maintains neuronormative domination	Challenges systemic ableism & oppression	Botha & Gillespie-Lynch (2022); Walker (2021)
Isolated from wider struggles and lived experience	Intersectional solidarity with justice movements	Botha (2020); Botha & Gillespie-Lynch (2022); Walker (2021); Crenshaw (1991); Yergeau (2017)

Beyond “Lite” & Embracing Neurodiversity

Naming Neurodiversity Lite is not about gatekeeping language; it’s about protecting meaning, agency and autonomy. Language matters. When words are stripped of their context, they lose their power to challenge injustice and make institutions accountable.

Resisting and calling up neurodiversity-lite practice means refusing to settle for surface-level representation, it means:

• Asking who holds the decision-making power in “neurodiversity” initiatives.
  
• Questioning whether policies and practices REALLY match the language being used.
  
• Centring those whose needs are least represented and considering intersectionality.

As Chapman (2025) reminds us, the point is not to make neurodiversity palatable, it’s to make the world more just.

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Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice

The neurodiversity paradigm emerged from Autistic, neurodivergent, and disabled communities fighting for recognition, rights, and respect. It is a living, evolving framework that must remain rooted in those struggles. We need to be mindful of “neurodiversity-lite” approaches that flatten complexity or serve only surface inclusion.

The deeper work of neurodiversity-affirming practice is to dismantle systemic barriers, centre lived experience, and create cultures of genuine belonging. This is not just about survival, it is about cultivating spaces where we can thrive together. As bell hooks reminds us in All About Love (1999), “rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” The neurodiversity movement embodies that communion, rooted in solidarity, sustained by interdependence, and alive with the possibility of creating a world where all neurodivergent and disabled people are valued, connected, and able to flourish in their own unique ways.

FREE EBOOK:
What does neurodiversity-affirming really mean?

Download the FREE E-BOOK in my shop.
What does neurodiversity-affirming really mean?
Created based on the webinar by Jess Garner from GROVE for The PDA Space.

Inside, you’ll find:
✨ A plain-language introduction to the neurodiversity paradigm and movement
✨ Why behaviourist approaches can harm neurodivergent people
✨ How to spot “neurodiversity-lite” and performative inclusion
✨ Practical ways to be neuro-affirming in education, parenting, and services
✨ Key concepts, language guidance, and red flags to watch for
✨ Links to further reading and community resources

This is more than just a language guide, it’s a call to shift mindsets, challenge deficit-based models, and create environments where neurodivergent people can thrive.

Download for free and take the first step toward truly neuro-affirming practice.

Seeking a supportive neuro-affirming practitioner?

Check out: Thriving Autistics’ Directory of Neurodivergent Neuro-Affirming Practitioners.

Discover more…

Therapist Neurodiversity Collective

Neuroqueer.com

Neuro-Affirming Language Avoiding the Harm of Neurodiversity-Lite – GROVE

Performative Neurodiversity (Neurodiversity Lite)

Neurodiversity Affirmative Autism assessments

Hartman, D., Kavanagh, M., Azevedo, J., O’Donnell-Killen, T., Doyle, J., Day, A., & Day. (2023). The Adult Autism Assessment Handbook: A Neurodiversity Affirmative Approach. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Kavanagh, M., Day, A., Hartman, D., O’Donnell-Killen, T., & Doyle, J. K. (2025). The Neurodiversity Affirmative Child Autism Assessment Handbook. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

References

Correcting misinformation about autism

Efua Andoh (September 1, 2025). Recent policy shifts have stoked fears of stigma and surveillance and undermined crucial care American Psychological Association. Vol. 56, No. 6 Print version: page 24

Botha, Monique. (2020). Autistic Community Connectedness as a Buffer Against Minority Stress. 10.15126/thesis.00854098. https://openresearch.surrey.ac.uk/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Autistic-community-connectedness-as-a-buffer/99512577202346

Botha, M., & Gillespie-Lynch, K. (2022). Come as you are: Examining autistic identity development and the neurodiversity movement through an intersectional lens. Human Development, 66(2), 93–112. https://doi.org/10.1159/000524123

Chapman, R. (2025, May 4). Neurodiversity Lite is Still Evolving. Biopolitical Philosophy. https://biopoliticalphilosophy.com/2025/05/04/neurodiversity-lite-is-still-evolving/

Chapman, R. (2020). Neurodiversity, Disability, Wellbeing. In N. Chown, A. Stenning, & H. Rosquvist (Eds.), Neurodiversity Studies : A New Critical Paradigm Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429322297-7/neurodiversity-disability-wellbeing-robert-chapman

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039

Doherty M, McCowan S, Shaw SC. (2023). Autistic SPACE: a novel framework for meeting the needs of autistic people in healthcare settings. Br J Hosp Med (Lond). 2023 Apr 2;84(4):1-9. doi: 10.12968/hmed.2023.0006. Epub 2023 Apr 17. PMID: 37127416. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37127416/

Dwyer P. The Neurodiversity Approach(es): What Are They and What Do They Mean for Researchers? Hum Dev. 2022 May;66(2):73-92. doi: 10.1159/000523723. Epub 2022 Feb 22. PMID: 36158596; PMCID: PMC9261839.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9261839/

hooks, B. (2001). All about love: New Visions. Harper Collins.

Kapp, S. K. (Ed.). (2020). Autistic community and the neurodiversity movement: Stories from the frontline. Palgrave Macmillan.
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/23177

Simon Baron-Cohen (2021), Neurodiversity-lite, and the History of Eugenic Thought
https://criticalneurodiversity.com/2021/09/05/why-are-cambridge-men-so-great-simon-baron-cohen-neurodiversity-lite-and-the-history-of-eugenic-thought/

Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/62639/1/Double%20empathy%20problem.pdf

Neumeier, S. M. (2018, February 9). ‘To Siri With Love’ and the Problem With Neurodiversity Lite. Rewire News Group. https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2018/02/09/siri-love-problem-neurodiversity-lite/

Roberts, J. (2021, October 2). Performative Neurodiversity – the appropriation and watering down of a human rights movement for profit. Therapist Neurodiversity Collective. https://therapistndc.org/performative-neurodiversity-the-appropriation-and-watering-down-of-a-human-rights-movement-for-profit/

Walker N. (2014) Neurodiversity: Some basic terms and definitions https://neuroqueer.com/

Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer heresies: Notes on the neurodiversity paradigm, autistic empowerment, and postnormal possibilities. Autonomous Press.

Yergeau, M. (2017). Authoring autism: On rhetoric and neurological queerness. Duke University Press.