Toward Neurodiversity-Affirming Language for ADHD

Authors

Abstract

Language shapes how ADHD is understood and how society treats people with ADHD. Conceptualisation as a disorder underpins the deficit-based, medicalised framing of ADHD that dominates clinical, research, and public discourse, contributing to stigma and limiting how people with ADHD can understand their own experiences. Our perspective piece examines power dynamics in language use and the material consequences of harmful terminology. Drawing on the neurodiversity paradigm, we propose a framework to guide language choices that reconceptualise ADHD as a valued part of human neurocognitive variation rather than inherent pathology. Through a neurodiversity framework, we provide researchers, clinicians, and others with reflective questions and examples to guide language that is neurodiversity-affirming, non-pathologising, and better reflects the lived experiences of people with ADHD. We write as an international collective of researchers and professionals, many of whom are neurodivergent and/or disabled, including ADHDers and parents of ADHDers. Learning from autism advocacy and disability studies, we emphasise how participatory research may improve ADHD narratives, thereby influencing knowledge generation. While acknowledging challenges such as institutional constraints, we advocate for coordinated individual and systemic efforts toward language reform. Thoughtful, neurodiversity-informed language may reduce stigma, support epistemic justice, and create a more meaningful understanding of ADHD.

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