What the Heck is Neurodiversity?

… and how does it fit into the picture of giftedness?

One of my roles in life has been to be the one who asks the questions others wanted to ask but were afraid of looking stupid. So they didn’t ask and sometimes pretended not to have a question even when the teacher or speech-giver asked, “Are there any questions?” People around me picked up on my willingness to take the chance I’d look foolish and would ask me to ask for all of us.

As an example, in a small seminar at the beginning of my doctoral studies in Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota (1986), the word “zeitgeist” kept being bandied about by the professor and I had no idea what it meant. No one there at the school knew me at all yet. Their reactions to my asking the question did make me feel foolish, at first. The subtle smirks, and the knowing looks, kept me from even remembering if the professor answered my question. I don’t think he did. As more people got to know me and became aware of my propensity to ask embarrassing questions, more and more of them came to me during breaks and fed me the questions they wanted me to ask. My writing is largely like that. Whenever I can, I write about and tell readers things that they didn’t even know they didn’t know. Or were afraid to ask.

Everybody has some combination of styles, views, and personalities. The…