Neurodiversity is an approach to learning and disability that argues diverse neurological conditions are result of normal variations in the human genome. This portmanteau of neurological and diversity originated in the late 1990s as a challenge to prevailing views of neurological diversity as inherently pathological, instead asserting that neurological differences should be recognized and respected as a social category on a par with gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability status.
There is a neurodiversity movement, which is an international civil rights movement that has the autism rights movement as its most influential submovement. Sharing the Disability Rights slogan, "Nothing About Us Without Us", the movement promotes self-advocacy of its members. Neurodiversity advocates promote support systems (such as inclusion-focused services, accommodations, communication and assistive technologies, occupational training, and independent living support) that allow those who are "non-neurotypical" to live their lives as they are, rather than being coerced or forced to adopt uncritically accepted ideas of normality, or to conform to a clinical ideal. Challenging pervasive social norms and stigmas, it frames autism, ADHD/ADD, dyslexia, bipolarity and other neurotypes as a natural human variation rather than a pathology or disorder, and rejects the idea that neurological differences need to be (or can be) cured, as they believe them to be authentic forms of human diversity, self-expression, and being.
According to the 2011 National Symposium on Neurodiversity held at Syracuse University, neurodiversity is: