‘A Lovely Safe Umbrella to Describe Yourself With’ or ‘Meaningless’ : An Online Survey of UK-Based Neurodivergent Adults’ Views of Neurodiversity-Related Terminology

Introduction

Language is powerful; it can shape and reinforce views in society, including stigmatising underserved groups (Hall, 1997). Accordingly, the language used about and by neurodivergent people matters. From the 1970s, the disability rights movement argued for the use of non-pathologising language (Campbell & Oliver, 1996), and this suggestion has been reinforced by proponents of the neurodiversity movement (Kapp, 2020; Stenner et al., in press). The neurodiversity paradigm's central thesis is that societal structures are set up to favour neurotypical individuals, at the expense of neurodivergent people (Walker, 2021). This impacts all areas of life, including physical spaces, communication and the empathy shown towards neurodivergent people, impacting on wellbeing (Bertilsdotter Rosqvist et al., 2020). Accordingly, the neurodiversity movement argues robustly for a more equal society, where differences related to neurodivergence are normalised and accepted, including through the use of non-pathologising language (Kapp, 2020). However, medical model language, including words like ‘disorder’ within diagnoses, have been commonly used in neurodevelopmental diagnostic criteria (NICE, 2021; Stenner et al., in press). These medicalised discourses are then adopted in everyday discussion, including the media, greatly impacting the lives of neurodivergent people. For example, using medical description and calls for intervention in discourses framing ADHD, can fuel concerns that interventions are required to change neurodivergent behaviour (Danforth & Navarro, 2001). This can also have impacts on the self-identity of neurodivergent people, as explored in relation to Autism by Anderson-Chavarria (2022).

The term ‘neurodiversity’ was developed by Autistic activists in the 1990s (Botha et al., 2024). It refers to the natural diversity in human minds, and has been described as a positive for society, akin to biodiversity (Chapman, 2020). The word ‘neurodiversity’ itself refers to all neurotypes and thus covers all humans. It can be sub-divided into ‘neurotypical’, accounting for the majority of the population whose minds function within the expected dominant norm, and ‘neurodivergent’, whose minds function in ways that are different to the dominant norm (Walker, 2021). The term ‘neurodiverse’ is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to those who are ‘neurodivergent’, which can result in ‘poor and clumsy communication’ of intended meanings, leading to confusion and perceptions that the person communicating is ignorant (Walker, 2021, p. 33). Considering the term ‘neurodivergence’ in more detail, it describes individuals whose way of communicating, processing, perceiving, moving, and interacting diverges from what might be considered ‘typical’ in a multitude of ways (Stenning & Rosqvist, 2021).

There is no universally accepted definition of who is considered neurodivergent, although neurodevelopmental diagnoses, including Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia, are commonly referenced (Stenning & Rosqvist, 2021). However, these communities, or individuals within them, may not all equally feel connected to the term, for example, Brown and Fisher (2023, p. 36) note that neurodiversity terminology can be associated with ‘gifted outliers’ rather than all, or even most, neurodivergent people. Moreover, Hobson et al. (2024) have suggested that those with Developmental Language Disorder are not yet connected to the neurodiversity movement and by extension neurodiversity-associated language. More recently, mental health conditions, including bipolar and borderline personality disorder (Wise, 2024), and other ‘neuro-minorities’ who are ‘marginalised by a “neuronormative” organisation of society’ (Chapman, 2020, p. 58) have been included in neurodivergence definitions by some.

The majority of research on neurodiversity terminology has been focused on Autistic people in English-speaking countries’ views of Autism terminology, with them showing a preference for identity first language (e.g.,: ‘Autistic’) rather than person first language (e.g.,: ‘person with Autism’) and the removal of terms like ‘disorder’ and ‘condition’, as they were deemed more offensive (Bury et al., 2020; Kenny et al., 2016; Taboas et al., 2023), although these studies reached unrepresentative samples of highly educated participants, limiting generalisability. By contrast, research from the Netherlands reports a strong preference in Autistic adults for person first language (e.g., ‘person with Autism’) (Buijsman et al., 2023), highlighting that neurodiversity language preferences are not universal. In addition, emerging evidence from Australia also suggests a preference among dyslexic adults for dyslexia-focused terminology, as opposed to less specific disability terminology (Wissell et al., 2025).

To date, there has been limited research on neurodivergent people's views about neurodiversity-specific terminology. A survey of staff and students, including both those who were neurodivergent and neurotypical, from one USA university asked participants what does neurodiversity mean to you? (Accardo & Cormier, 2025). They found that the majority of open-text responses (71%) subscribed to a social model of disability, although a minority (16%) adopted a medicalised deficit model, and few (6%) referenced a neurodiversity affirming culture. Further research, undertaken with Autistic and non-Autistic people from a range of countries, found stronger identification with the neurodiversity movement was associated with a stronger preference for neurodiversity-terminology, including the terms ‘neurodiverse’, ‘neurodivergent’ and ‘neurominority’ (Dwyer et al., 2025). Accordingly, there is a need to better understand the views of language around neurodiversity from neurodivergent people.

Methodology

Our research adopted a cross-sectional approach. As such, we report our article following the Consensus-Based Checklist for Reporting of Survey Studies (CROSS) (Sharma et al., 2021).

Data Collection Methods

Our online survey, hosted on Qualtrics, contained four main sections (see Appendix 1 for full instrument); participants were not required to answer any of the questions. First, demographics were collected (see Table 1). Second, closed and open questions were asked about each developmental neurodivergence, including ADHD, Autism, and dyslexia, that participants reported; these are reported separately (Pearson et al., under review). Third, participants were asked two closed questions on neurodiversity terminology and three open questions where they could write about neurodiversity terminology.

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Table 1.

Participant Demographics.

		Closed Text Responses (n = 901)		Included Open Text Responses (n = 398)
Demographic		n	%	n	%
Neurodivergence type	Autism	691	76.6	303	76.1
	ADHD	450	49.9	189	47.5
	Dyscalculia	89	9.9	44	11.1
	Dysgraphia	29	3.2	18	4.5
	Dyslexia	166	18.4	86	21.6
	Dyspraxia	202	22.4	78	19.6
	AAC users and non-speaking people	17	1.9	9	2.3
	Learning disability	8	0.9	2	0.5
	Pathological Demand Avoidance	98	10.9	45	11.3
	Sensory processing disorder	229	25.4	103	25.9
	Stuttering	20	2.2	6	1.5
	Tourette syndrome	28	3.1	11	2.8
Identify as disabled	Yes	837	92.9	372	93.5
	No	64	7.1	26	6.5
Does your condition reduce your ability to carry out day-to-day activities?	Yes a lot	337	37.4	151	37.9
	Yes a little	472	52.3	215	54.0
	Not at all	86	9.5	28	7.0
	Prefer not to say/ not disclosed	7	0.8	4	1.0
Gender	Female/woman	622	69.0	277	69.6
	Male/man	116	12.9	40	10.1
	Non-binary	137	15.2	70	17.6
	Other	5	0.6	4	1.0
	Questioning	19	2.1	6	1.5
	Not specified	3	0.3	1	0.3
Place of residence	England	746	82.8	321	80.7
	Scotland	90	10.0	43	10.8
	Wales	51	5.7	25	6.3
	Northern Ireland	13	1.4	9	3.3
	Prefer not to say	1	0.2	—	—
Race & Ethnicity	White British and Irish	841	93.3	372	93.5
	Mixed race	31	3.4	15	3.8
	Asian and British Asian	10	1.10	5	1.3
	Black, African, Caribbean	3	0.3	—	—
	Any other background	16	2.6	6	1.5
Employment status	Full- time employed	310	34.4	134	33.7
	Part-time employed	206	22.9	91	22.9
	Self-employed	98	11.0	47	11.8
	Unemployed	71	7.9	28	7.0
	Retired	19	2.1	6	1.5
	Student	154	17.2	80	20.1
	Unable to work	125	13.9	53	13.3
	Carer	85	9.5	32	8.0
	Other	35	3.9	17	4.3

Please note: N may add up to more than total sample size as people could select more than one category for most demographics.

The closed questions were:

Have you heard the word ‘neurodiversity'?

Do you use words related to neurodiversity to describe yourself? For example, ‘I am neurodivergent’

They each had three responses: yes, no and not sure. Following this, we asked participants to ‘Write as much as you like’ in response to each of these open questions:

Is there anything else you would like to tell us about neurodiversity and the words used?

How do you feel about the words (linked to your neurodiversity) used towards you by other people?

Please feel free to give examples of language you liked and also language you didn’t like in this study. You can choose to tell us about who uses language you like and who uses language you don’t like, such as family, friends, health professionals, employers etc. You may also want to think about where, when and why.

Findings

In total, 902 people took part in the full survey. Of these, 901 answered at least one closed question related to neurodivergence. 650 participants provided at least one open text response to the neurodiversity-related questions, with 398 participants commenting specifically about neurodiversity-related terminology and included in this analysis. The other responses were focused on Autism, ADHD and other forms of developmental neurodivergence, rather than language relating specifically to neurodiversity, and are reported on separately (Pearson et al., under review). By contrast, in the responses to questions focused on the individual forms of developmental neurodivergence (e.g.,: dyspraxia, Autism, Tourette syndrome), there was no data discussing terminology related to a more global form of ‘neurodivergence’ or ‘neurodiversity’. Our findings are presented as follows: demographic data; findings from closed questions related to awareness and use of neurodiversity-terminology; thematic analysis of open text data.

Awareness and Use of Neurodiversity Terminology

Table 2 shows that the vast majority of participants across all forms of developmental neurodivergence had heard of neurodiversity (98.8%). When considered in relation to individual forms of neurodivergence, the lowest reported familiarity was among those with learning disabilities (85.7%) and Tourette syndrome (93.0%), but these were both small groups (n = 7 and n = 28 respectively).

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Table 2.

Awareness and Use of Neurodiversity Terminology.

Have You Heard of the Word Neurodiversity?
		Yes		No		Unsure
	N (total)	n	%	n	%	n	%
Total across all participants	898	888	98.8	6	0.7	4	0.4
Autism	688	686	99.7	2	0.3	0	0
ADHD	447	443	99.1	2	0.4	2	0.4
Stuttering	20	20	100	0	0	0	0
Dyscalculia	89	88	98.9	1	1.1	0	0
Dysgraphia	28	28	100	0	0	0	0
Dyslexia	165	159	96.3	3	1.8	3	1.8
Dyspraxia	201	201	100	0	0	0	0
AAC users and non-speaking people	17	17	100	0	0	0	0
Learning disability	7	6	85.7	1	14.2	0	0
Pathological Demand Avoidance	97	97	100	0	0	0	0
Sensory processing disorder	228	227	99.6	1	0.4	0	0
Tourette syndrome	28	26	93.0	1	3.5	1	3.5

Do You Use Words Related to Neurodiversity to Describe Yourself?
		Yes		No		Unsure
	N	n	%	n	%	n	%
Total across all participants	901	674	74.8	185	20.5	42	4.7
Autism	690	538	78.0	120	17.4	32	4.6
ADHD	449	375	83.5	56	12.5	18	4.0
Stuttering	20	15	75.0	3	15.0	2	10.0
Dyscalculia	89	74	83.1	13	14.6	2	2.3
Dysgraphia	29	27	93.1	2	6.9	0	0
Dyslexia	166	111	66.9	51	31.0	4	2.41
Dyspraxia	201	162	80.6	30	15.0	9	4.5
AAC users and non-speaking people	17	13	76.5	3	17.6	1	5.88
Learning disability	7	2	28.6	2	28.6	3	42.9
Pathological Demand Avoidance	97	87	89.7	10	10.3	0	0
Sensory processing disorder	228	193	84.6	25	11.0	10	4.4
Tourette syndrome	28	20	71.4	6	21.4	2	7.1

Roughly three-quarters of participants across all forms of developmental neurodivergence used the word ‘neurodiversity’ or associated language to describe themselves (74.8%). Again, there was some variation by neurodivergence type, with the seven participants with learning disabilities least likely (28.6%), followed by those with dyslexia (66.9%; n = 111) and Tourette syndrome (71.4%; n = 28). The developmental neurodivergence groups most likely to use neurodiversity-related terminology were those with dysgraphia (93.1%; n = 29) and Pathological Demand Avoidance (89.7%; n = 97).

Discussion

Our study aimed to explore the views and experiences of neurodiversity-related terminology among adults from the UK with developmental forms of neurodivergence. Over 900 people completed our survey, and the vast majority had heard of neurodiversity, and over two-thirds of all groups except those with learning disabilities used neurodiversity terminology to describe themselves. Alongside this, 398 of our participants left open text comments specifically relating to neurodiversity terminology, providing a rich dataset, with many strong feelings on terminology provided. Whilst findings from our closed questions suggest a reasonably high level of acceptability of neurodiversity terminology, the open question responses provide a more nuanced account. Of significant importance to many participants was people using the language correctly; by saying ‘neurodivergent/neurodivergence’ when they meant a person or group of people who are neurodivergent, rather than incorrectly using ‘neurodiverse’ (meaning all people) to refer to neurodivergent people (see Walker, 2021 for further details on correct usage).

Some of our participants specifically noted that language has the power to stigmatise, a concept well established in cultural (Hall, 1997) and disability (Shakespeare, 2004) studies. Neurodiversity terminology was often felt by participants to be less stigmatising than the use of specific neurodevelopmental diagnoses, which is unsurprising in the context of stigma arising from deficit narratives of ADHD (Visser et al., 2024) and Autism (Turnock et al., 2022), whilst simultaneously leading to stigmatising ‘superpower’ narratives of dyslexia (Wissell et al., 2025). Using neurodiversity terminology about themselves thus appeared to offer a safer form of partial disclosure in contexts that did not fully feel safe. That said, greater alignment with the neurodiversity paradigm has been associated with a preference for neurodiversity-terminology (Dwyer et al., 2025) and partial disclosure in minoritised sexualities has been associated with internalised homophobia (Berman et al., 2023). It may thus be that those who experience less internalised ableism find disclosure less challenging; the reasons behind partial disclosure should be explored in more depth in future research. Internalised ableism has impacts on physical and mental health (Jóhannsdóttir et al., 2022), and thus it is essential to create more accepting societies so that underserved groups can flourish.

In addition, some participants noted that using neurodivergence terminology could have the unintended consequence of adding stigma to individual forms of neurodevelopmental difference. This finding is not unique to our population, with reducing use of the word ‘disability’ occurring alongside a context in which disabled people face stigma, discrimination and reduced public services (Andrews et al., 2019). Furthermore, some academics – who are more aligned with a medical model of disability – argue that it is the word ‘disability’ itself that is disabling (Mousavi et al., 2020). This view point is robustly contrasted by proponents of the social model of disability who argue that disability is caused by a social context in which the human rights of disabled people are systematically ignored (Shakespeare, 2004).

We also feel the use of medicalised language in relation to developmental forms of neurodivergence is worthy of note. Epistemic injustice occurs when marginalised persons or groups are either discredited as knowledge producers or are excluded from societal meaning-making practices and concept development (Fricker, 2007). One form of epistemic injustice is hermeneutic injustice, where the marginalised group does not have the societal resources – including language – available to describe issues because their experiences have been excluded during the development of such resources. Arguably, much of the other language used about and by neurodivergent people, including pathologizing medical model categorisations and language, including terms that include the word ‘disorder’, has been developed without our input. As the term neurodiversity was developed by neurodivergent (albeit mainly Autistic) people (Botha et al., 2024), it may be expected that it would reduce hermeneutic injustice. However, recent research with neurodivergent and neurotypical faculty and students shows that neurodiversity terminology does not necessarily result in thoughts aligned to the neurodiversity paradigm, with only a small number of those using neurodiversity terminology doing so in ways aligned to the neurodiversity movement (Accardo & Cormier, 2025). It may also explain why so many of our neurodivergent participants felt very strongly about neurodiversity terminology being used accurately; inaccurate use may feel like another form of epistemic injustice, testimonial injustice, where a minority group's views are disregarded by the majority. This inaccurate usage of neurodiversity terminology may be evidence of a ‘euphemism treadmill’ – where new diversity-related words are constantly needed because newer words lose their positive meaning when more widely adopted, and become stigmatised once again (Pinker, 1994). Further study of neurodiversity-terminology and its relation to epistemic injustice and the euphemism treadmill would be beneficial.

Our participants also sometimes reported that neurodivergence terminology was not always useful because the terminology encompassed so many different neurotypes, and thus did not clarify their needs. Similar arguments have recently been seen in relation to Autism specific terminology, with some clinicians arguing to sub-divide Autism into ‘profound Autism’ and Autism, which has been robustly critiqued by many Autistic academics (Bottema-Beutel et al., 2023; Natri et al., 2023). A major factor in such critiques is that the term ‘profound Autism’ does not say anything about that person's support needs, and can imply that those who do not meet the criteria for ‘profound Autism’ cannot be profoundly disabled by being Autistic in a society that does not meet their needs. Our participants reported that using neurodivergence terminology could reduce clarity about their needs, which could be beneficial in terms of retaining privacy, but also obscured their needs which would be unhelpful when arguing for support and understanding. Regardless, the fact that most participants used neurodiversity terminology about themselves shows that having the choice was valuable. Furthermore, whilst our study focuses on terminology within the UK, the neurodiversity movement itself is a global one (Botha et al., 2024). As such, our findings can contribute to wider international debates about neurodiversity discourses (Quigley & Gallagher, 2025), even if the linguistic and cultural ideas differ across contexts. That said, it is important that global (Buijsman et al., 2023) and indigenous (Rose, 2024) perspectives on neurodiversity terminology are considered.

Conclusion

Language choices relating to disability are deeply personal. Whilst many of our neurodivergent participants used neurodiversity terminology themselves, there were strong feelings about the terminology being used incorrectly by others. For this reason, it is important that organisations and those providing services to neurodivergent people use neurodiversity terminology correctly when communicating publicly. However, because of variability of preferences expressed by participants, when communicating on a one-to-one basis, individuals may choose to mirror the language used by the individual neurodivergent person, including whether to use terminology associated with their particular form(s) of neurodivergence (e.g.,: dyscalculia, Tourette syndrome) or more general neurodiversity terminology (e.g.,: neurodivergent, neurodivergence).

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