Opening up understanding of neurodiversity: A call for applying participatory and open scholarship practices

Abstract

Recent movements towards a more open, intersectional, and inclusive academia (Birhane & Guest, 2020) focus on the need to address traditional power imbalances detrimentally affecting under-represented individuals (e.g., women: Pownall & Rogers, 2021; people of colour: Berhe et al., 2022; non-WEIRD [Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic] societies: Puithllam et al., 2022). Hitherto, neurodivergent perspectives —i.e. non-pathological variations in human brains (Walker, 2021)— are often overlooked and misunderstood within behavioural and cognitive sciences. It is common to encounter assumptions that anything outside of neurotypicality is at best dismissed as outlier data, or at worst, considered disadvantageous and in need of ‘fixing’ (e.g., Gernsbacher & Pripas-Kapit, 2012). Such viewpoints hinder a broader understanding of human behaviour and cognition. Here, we call for more open and Participatory Research on neurodiversity through addressing the issue of power imbalance.