These paradoxes are part of the human experience and highlight the wide variety of ways in which our brain works.  We learn, communicate, and process experiences all in our own, unique way. These unique experiences will be explained in this blog, using the seven dimensions of neurodiversity.

Are you different? Maybe you are just neurodiverse

Too often we try to squeeze these differences into limited categories. Labels like ‘ADHD’ or ‘autism’, though sometimes a source of familiarity, stigmatising and an unjustified sense of being ‘ill’. They narrow our identities and put the focus on limitations. Neurodiversity offers a refreshing and humane approach. It doesn’t define these differences as disorders that have to be corrected, but as natural and valuable variations within the human spectrum.

This blog will take you right past the different labels, and explore the seven dimensions of neurodiversity: a handy framework to understand how everybody has a unique profile of sensitivities and talents. By looking at these dimensions, you’ll discover a new, nuanced language to talk about yourself and others – a language that moves the focus from limitation, to potential.

The seven dimensions of neurodiversity – a new take on yourself

 Your experience, that you have have thanks to your brain, is not a statistic. Neurodiversity is the result of a lifelong, dynamic interaction between developmental neurological processes (the growth and ageing of your nervous system) and developmental psychological processes (how you think, feel, and learn through experiences). Therefore, your unique profile is not a congenital ‘defect’, but a formed and ever-evolving combination of nature and nurture.

The neurodiversity model helps us understand that uniqueness by looking at seven core dimensions within which we all vary.

1. Cognitive Processes: Your unique way of thinking and learning

This dimension covers how you process information, focus your attention, remember things, and solve problems. It’s about your capacity to think abstractly, your understanding of language, and your creativity. Where an ADHD label focuses on ‘easily distracted’, this dimension helps you see that maybe you need a different, more associative type of attention.

Sensitivity and Talent

A sensitivity could be that you’re easily distracted in a tumultuous environment, or that you struggle with abstract concepts. But at the same time, a huge potential lies in this: the talent to see patterns that other people miss, and an exceptionally creative and problem-solving capacity, or a talent for getting your teeth into a subject that fascinates you. The context decides whether a characteristic is a challenge or a strength.

2. Emotional Processes: The depth and colour of your emotional life

This domain describes how you experience, express, and cope with emotions. It’s about the intensity of your feelings, how you recognise emotions in yourself and others, and how you express them. Instead of speaking of ‘emotional dysregulation’, this dimension invites you to look into the unique dynamic of your emotional life.

Sensitivity and Talent

A sensitivity can consist of struggling to recognise your own emotions, or in impulsive reactions that overtake you. On the other hand you could be very empathic, have a great sense of justice, or be extremely passionate. An intense emotional experience can be a burden in an overwhelming environment, but in a safe, creative context it can be a source of profundity and artistic expression.

3. Behavioural Processes: Your tempo and way of being

This dimension relates to your actionability, your impulsivity, flexibility, and motivation. It affects how you make decisions, adjust to changes, and what motivates you. It helps you to see that behaviour that’s labelled ‘rigid’ or ‘impulsive’, can actually be very functional

Sensitivity and Talent

A sensitivity can be a strong, sometimes rigid need of routines and predictability. The talent in this dimension can be the unbridled energy and dynamic that leads to innovation and entrepreneurship and the ability to act impulsively. By adjusting the environment – by offering predictability where necessary and giving space for project-based work – both sides can come into their own.

4. Social Processes: Your way of connecting with others

This is about starting and maintaining social relationships. It involves your ability to be empathic, your need for social contact, and how you see yourself in relation to other people. This perspective passes a label like social impairment, and acknowledges that there simply are more ways to connect with someone.

Sensitivity and talent

Sensitivities can manifest themselves in trouble with reading social, non-verbal signals (‘cues’), or social anxiety. The talents lie in having unique, sharp insights in human behaviour or the ability to start deep, honest, and loyal connections to others. Misunderstandings in communication often work both ways (this is called the ‘double-empathy’-problem) and suggests that communication problems between autistic and non-autistic people arise by both parties not understanding each other, rather than just the autistic person’s deficit.

5. Body experience and Interoception: The connection with your inner world

Interoception is the ability to to observe inner processes, like hunger, thirst, pain, and tiredness. This dimension explains why some people have a very different consciousness of the signals their body gives them, something that is often overlooked when assigning traditional labels.

Sensitivity and Talent

A sensitivity here can mean that you struggle to recognise hunger – or tiredness signals, which results in you forgetting to eat or rest. A talent could be a very meticulous form of body control, which can be extremely useful in disciplines like dance, art, or other elite sports. It explains why self care like eating on time and resting properly requires more effort for some people.

6. Vigilance, Responsiveness, and Energy: Your natural rhythm

The sixth dimension is all about your natural energy levels, your alertness, and sensitivity to stress. It decides your sleep cycle and how you react to the demands of your environment. This frame helps you to not see a disrupted rhythm as a problem, but as a different, personal rhythm.

Sensitivity and Talent

A sensitivity you could experience is a unique sleep cycle that isn’t in sync with the 9 to 5 society, or a high sensitivity to stress. An extraordinary talent is the ability to hyperfocus: providing amazing performances in short, intense periods of a high level of concentration. The key is to not force a ‘normal rhythm’, but to plan your day around your natural energy levels.

7. Sensorimotor Systems: How you observe and experience the world

Also called high sensory sensitivity, this dimension describes how you process sensory experiences: sound, light, touch, smell, and texture. Instead of labelling this as ‘highly sensitive’, this model sees it as a spectrum of perception with your own advantages and disadvantages.

Sensitivity and Talent

A sensitivity often expresses itself in being hyper- or hypo-sensitive to stimuli. Loud noises can be painful, labels in clothing unbearable, and bright light overwhelming. On the other hand, a talent in this dimension can lead to exceptional skills, like an excellent ear for music, or a keen eye for artistic detail, thanks to a very precise sensory observation. This is one of the most well-known aspects of neurodiversity, and simple adjustments like ear defenders or a quiet workspace can make all the difference.

Past the labels: From ‘What is wrong with me?’ to ‘What do I need?’

The true power of the neurodiversity-model is the shift in perspective it creates. The clinical conversation shifts from ‘what DSM-label is appropriate here?’ to ‘what do you need to thrive?’. This approach hands the power back to the individual. It invites you to look at yourself, and be compassionate to yourself, instead of waiting for an external diagnose to tell you who you are.

It isn’t primarily about medicalisation, like instantly reaching for medication, but about smartly and consciously setting up arranging your environment. By understanding your own profile of sensitivities and talents, you can proactively adjust your environment. You might benefit from reducing your stimuli, like ear defenders in the office. Or maybe you’d benefit from a clear rhythm and predictability of your day. For another person a project-based approach, with room for hyperfocus might work. The use of sensory tools like a weighted blanket or a stress ball is not a sign of weakness, but a smart strategy for self-regulation.

“Neurodiversity is not a fashionable term, but a practical framework that normalises, nuances, and offers action perspective. It is the acknowledgement that we are all on the same spectrum of human diversity.”

Conclusion: Embrace your unique experience

Your experience, via your brain, is not a standard product; it is a unique, complex, and dynamic system. The seven dimensions of neurodiversity show us that your way of thinking and feeling is not a disorder, but a variation with your own challenges and unique advantages. By using this point of view you can stop measuring yourself against the imaginary ‘norm’ and start appreciating and using your own, specific wiring.

Now that you know about the seven dimensions and are past the labels, which hidden talents do you find in yourself or the people around you?