The neurodiversity movement - changing the ways people know

Understanding Dyslexia and Neurodivergence

 with Exceptional Individuals

In this thought-provoking video, host Nat Hawley explores the world of dyslexia and neurodivergence. Dyslexia is a specific learning difference that affects an individual's ability to read and write and is often accompanied by challenges with processing information. But what exactly is neurodivergence, and how does it relate to dyslexia?

For most of his life, broadcaster and naturalist Chris Packham didn't tell anyone about the one thing that in many ways has defined his entire existence. Chris is autistic - he has Asperger's Syndrome, which means he struggles in social situations, has difficulty with human relationships and is, by his own admission, 'a little bit weird'. But what if there was a way of taking away these autistic traits? Would Chris ever choose to be 'normal' In this film, Chris invites us inside his autistic world to try to show what it is really like being him. He lives alone in the woods with his 'best friend' Scratchy the dog, but he also has a long-term partner, Charlotte, who discusses the problems Asperger's creates in their relationship - she describes Chris as being sometimes 'like an alien'. Chris experiences the world in a very different way, with heightened senses that at times are overwhelming, and a mind that is constant bouncing from one subject to the next.  Growing up at a time when little was known about autism, Chris wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's until he was in his forties. With scientific advances offering new possibilities to treat his condition, Chris travels to America to witness radical therapies that appear to offer the possibility of entirely eradicating problematic autistic traits, but he also meets those who are challenging the idea that autistic people need to change in order to fit into society. Confronting this deeply personal subject with brutal honesty, and reflecting on the devastating struggles of his adolescence, Chris explores the question of whether he would ever want to be cured himself or whether, ultimately, Asperger's has helped make him who he is today.

What is it like to live with Asperger’s syndrome? Jordan Kamnitzer tries to answer that question in “Perfectly Normal,” this week’s Op-Doc. It’s beautifully directed by Joris Debeij, who frames Kamnitzer’s experiences and ideas with evocative cinematography and editing, giving us a beautiful but challenging glimpse into another way of being.   In a related essay, the writer Eli Gottlieb describes it as “a rare filmic experience of the sensory overload of autism … as Jordan, the articulate middle-aged subject of the film, speaks about his own condition, the music skitters and booms, rapid jump cuts intensify the sense of danger, and in this swelling moment of uncertainty, the viewer experiences a fleeting sense of what it might be like to live in a condition of permanent, anxious neural flood.”  Gottlieb grew up with a severely autistic older brother, but even after 40 years, “find[s] his emotional and cognitive process as fundamentally mysterious as ever. The impenetrability of autism, with its seemingly endless variants and its essential “otherness,” is its hallmark. All this renders Jordan’s testimony that much more useful and intriguing. He is a reporter at a hinge-point of consciousness, able to inhabit his condition while describing it for us — whether we are “neurotypicals” or lodged somewhere on the spectrum — with remarkable precision and insight.”