1. neurodiversity AND THE STIGMA OF EVERYDAY LANGUAGE
Walker Ladd, PhD

2. Ground rules
Please do not disclose personal information about yourself or others.
Please do not discuss or identify anyone at Buckley by name.
Keep your emotional-self safe if you feel overwhelmed. Allow yourself to take a break and breathe.

3. What is stigma?
Stigma is the most damaging factor in the life of anyone who has a mental illness. It humiliates and embarrasses; it is painful; it generates stereotypes, fear and rejection; it leads to terrible discrimination. –Former First Lady, Rosalynn Carter

4. STIGMA is a ‘mark’
An invisible but powerful social label that “marks” people as defective, deviant, dangerous, or incompetent.
KEY TERMS: Label, construct

5. STIGMA is A process
Labelling
separation
Stereotype
Awareness
Endorsement
Prejudice
Discrimination
“A process involving labelling, separation, stereotype awareness and endorsement, prejudice and discrimination in a context in which social, economic or political power is exercised to the detriment of members of a social group” (Link & Phelan, 2001 as cited in Clement et al., 2014, p. 1).
KEY TERMS: stereotype awareness, stereotype endorsement

6. Stigma happens in social context

7. TYPES OF STIGMA
PERCEIVED STIGMA - Beliefs about how others view something as negative. ANTICIPATORY STIGMA - Anticipating negative behavior, discrimination, prejudice based on association with difference/disorder TREATMENT STIGMA - Stigma associated with getting treatment for mental illness, or treatment itself. EXPERIENCED STIGMA – The actual experience of negative behavior based on association with difference/disorder. INTERNALIZED STIGMA - Holding negative views about oneself based on negative association difference/disorder.

8. Violence toward those with differences
Results of stigma
#1 Barrier to treatment
Social distance
Social rejection
Violence toward those with differences
Incarceration
Morbidity
Mortality

10. REMEMBER:
1 in 4 will experience a mental illness in their lifetime (NIMH, 2014)
42% of the 5.7 million school-age children with all kinds of disabilities have learning disorders.
Two-thirds of students identified with LD are male.
Black and Hispanic students are overrepresented in many states while white and Asian students are underrepresented in the LD category. (NCLD, 2016)

11. KEY TERMS: Dyslexia (reading), dysgraphia (writing), dyscalculia (math), dyspraxia (motor skills)

13. The noun argument ADJECTIVE NOUN He is schizophrenic She is ADD
He is mentally ill
She is autistic
He is dyslexic
He has schizophrenia
She has ADD
He has a mental illness
She has autism
He has dyslexia
‘‘There are not ‘schizophrenics’;
there are only people with
schizophrenia.’’
Dr. Elyn Saks, June 2012 TED.com talk entitled, A tale of mental illness – from the inside

14. The pride argument
Similar to how LGBTQA2 communities are reclaiming the word “queer”, Mad Pride activists seek to reclaim language that has been used against us such as “mad”, “crazy”, “lunatic”, “maniac”, and “psycho”.
Reclaiming language is political and challenges discrimination. Mad Pride participants use and refuse a variety of labels. We choose “mad” as an umbrella term.

15. Should we have courageous conversations about neurodiversity?
What conditions do we need to create enough trust to have conversations?
What do our teachers, staff and administration need to learn, understand, and put in place?
Where do parents fit in?
What about social media?
What are risks of disclosing?

16. resources Learning Disability Navigator http://ldnavigator.ncld.org/
National Center for Learning Disability
Understood: Resources and Simulation for peer education.