What are neurodevelopmental conditions?

Neurodevelopmental conditions are a broad range of conditions which affect how a person experiences the world around them. These include:

Many neurodevelopmental conditions overlap or occur together. This means that if you have one neurodevelopmental condition, you’re more likely to have another condition, or elements of another condition.

Not everyone with neurodevelopmental differences has or needs a diagnosis. Some people have elements of several different neurodevelopmental conditions, but do not meet the formal criteria for a diagnosis. This is because every person is different, and while researchers best attempt to define the most common ways people can develop differently, they cannot accurately capture everyone who has neurodevelopmental differences.

However, people who have neurodevelopmental differences but do not have a diagnosis deserve to be understood and supported. They may have specific strategies they find helpful, or supports that allow them to contribute their best.

For many people, their neurodevelopmental differences can bring strengths or qualities unique to them or their condition. However, people with neurodevelopmental differences can also encounter difficulties such as:

• Living in a world that is built for people who think differently to how you think. This may mean that:
• People may communicate a bit differently to your natural way of communicating, making it harder for you to be understood, or leading to misunderstandings, or:
• People may do things differently to how you naturally want to do things, leading to confusion or people making incorrect assumptions
• People not being aware of, not asking about, or not understanding neurodevelopmental differences.
• Your neurodevelopmental differences themselves make it harder for you to do (or not do) certain things, even with support. For example, some people are not able to use spoken language and can find the limitations of other ways of communicating frustrating.