We Still Don’t Understand Neurodivergent Minds Even Beyond the Question of Usefulness

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Part 5 of a seven-part series exploring how neurodivergent minds are understood through the lens of usefulness. This article brings together the perspectives developed across the series to examine how that framing persists beneath more positive language in modern thinking, and argues that moving beyond it requires changing the environments we build rather than continuing to sort, adapt, or reshape different kinds of minds.

Contents

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: We Asked the Wrong Question

This series began with a question about usefulness: how neurodivergent minds are understood in terms of what they can produce, contribute, or solve.

That question appears in different forms across different contexts. In history, it appeared in its most explicit and uncomfortable form, where human value was assessed in terms of social and economic utility, while in modern economies, it appears in more positive language, where neurodivergent cognition is framed as valuable, innovative, and desirable.

In lived experience, it takes on a more personal shape, where the same traits that make someone effective in technical or analytical work can exist alongside persistent difficulty in social environments that operate according to different expectations. In diagnosis, the question appears again in a different form: how to classify a range of cognitive profiles in a way that is both clinically useful and descriptively accurate.

Across all of these perspectives, the same underlying idea is present: we are still trying to understand different kinds of minds in terms of what they are for.

That framing has consequences because it shapes how people are included, supported, and understood, influencing which differences are recognised, overlooked, and quietly excluded.

The problem is not simply that usefulness is incomplete, but that it distorts the conversation, because once usefulness becomes the organising principle, everything else begins to orbit around it.

1.1 Series Overview

This short series explores the “question of usefulness” across seven perspectives: historical, social, personal, diagnostic, systemic, experiential, and constructive.

Taken together, these essays explore a simple but important idea: that understanding neurodiversity requires looking not only at cognitive strengths, but also at the historical, social, human, and structural contexts in which those strengths are interpreted, and what follows when those frameworks break down.

2. This Was Always About Sorting People

The question of usefulness is not new; it has been present, in different forms, for as long as societies have attempted to classify and organise human difference.

In its most explicit form, it appeared in systems that openly evaluated individuals in terms of their perceived value to society, and the history of Asperger’s syndrome sits within that context, where children were described, assessed, and in some cases defended on the basis of their potential usefulness.

That history is uncomfortable, but it is also instructive, because it shows that classification is never neutral. The categories we create do more than describe reality: they shape how that reality is interpreted and acted upon, and in that context, the distinction between “valuable” and “burdensome” was not abstract, but something that had direct consequences.

While modern systems are very different in both intent and structure, the underlying impulse to classify remains. We still create categories, define boundaries, and decide, often implicitly, which forms of difference are easier to accommodate and which are not.

The language has softened, and the stakes have changed, but the act of sorting has not disappeared; it has simply taken on more subtle forms, and understanding that continuity matters because it challenges the idea that we have fully moved beyond those earlier ways of thinking.

We have not; we have adapted them.

3. The Same Logic, Just More Polite

The language has changed, but the underlying logic has not. The system has not changed. Only the language used to describe it has. Where earlier systems spoke openly about usefulness, modern systems tend to frame the same idea in more positive terms. Neurodivergent cognition is now described as valuable, innovative, and even a competitive advantage.

In fields such as technology, engineering, and cybersecurity, traits associated with autism are actively sought after. Pattern recognition, sustained focus, and system-level thinking, these are presented as strengths that organisations should embrace. On the surface, this looks like progress. For much of the twentieth century, neurodivergence was framed almost entirely in terms of deficit, so the shift toward recognising strengths is real, and it matters.

But the framing introduces a different kind of problem. When neurodivergent people are valued primarily for the outputs they produce, the acceptance offered becomes conditional. The message is not simply that different kinds of minds are understood, but that certain kinds of minds are useful. That distinction is easy to overlook because the language surrounding it is positive, but the underlying structure is familiar.

You are included because you contribute, recognised because your cognition aligns with what the system needs, and valued in a specific and bounded way. This is not the same as understanding, and it is not the same as acceptance. It is a refinement of the same sorting process, deciding which kinds of difference are worth accommodating, and which are not. The logic has not disappeared; it has been made more polite.

4. You Do Not Want to Understand

And the reason this persists is not a lack of information. It is a lack of willingness.

There is a common assumption that the gap between neurodivergent and neurotypical experience exists because of a lack of awareness, and that if people simply had more information, more exposure, or more training, the problem would begin to resolve itself. In practice, the situation is more complicated. This is not a failure of awareness. It is a failure of willingness.

The difficulty is not only that neurodivergent cognition is different, but that those differences can be uncomfortable to engage with because they disrupt expectations about how communication should work, how social signals are interpreted, and how interactions unfold. For many people, the instinctive response to that disruption is not curiosity but avoidance.

This shows up in small ways, conversational hesitation, a shift in tone, a subtle recalibration of attention when something feels “off”. These are rarely conscious decisions; they are immediate, almost automatic reactions that accumulate over time. The result is not open rejection but distance, where neurodivergent individuals are perceived as difficult to read, difficult to connect with, and difficult to place within familiar social frameworks.

The responsibility for resolving that gap then falls, quietly, on the neurodivergent person: learn the rules, adapt the behaviour, reduce the friction. This is where the idea of misunderstanding becomes misleading, because it suggests a neutral gap waiting to be bridged, when in many cases the gap is maintained by one side choosing not to engage with what feels unfamiliar.

Understanding requires effort, tolerating ambiguity and engaging with patterns of communication that do not immediately make sense, and these are not things people are naturally inclined to do. So instead, the burden shifts. Neurodivergent people are expected to become legible within neurotypical systems, while the reverse expectation remains minimal.

This asymmetry is rarely stated explicitly, but it is consistently present, and it helps explain why increased awareness has not resolved the issue. The problem was never purely informational; it is, at least in part, a matter of willingness.

5. Competence Is Not Belonging

Even when you succeed within this system, the underlying dynamic does not change.

There is a persistent assumption that competence leads to acceptance, that if you are good enough at what you do, the rest will follow. In practice, that is not how it works.

You can be technically valuable and still remain socially peripheral. The work may be recognised, but the way the mind producing that work functions often is not. In many environments, this creates a quiet asymmetry, where neurodivergent people are called upon when systems become complex, when problems need to be untangled, and when patterns need to be identified, but outside of those moments, they can remain at a distance from the informal structures that define belonging.

It is rarely explicit and does not usually present as hostility. More often, it is a kind of background separation, a sense that participation is conditional, even if no one states it directly. The phrase “the work speaks for itself” is often treated as a reassurance, implying that if you deliver enough, everything else will take care of itself, but the reality is more complicated.

Work can establish credibility, but it does not automatically create understanding, and without understanding, belonging does not follow. Usefulness grants access. It does not grant inclusion. This is where usefulness becomes a kind of social currency: it grants access, but not necessarily inclusion, allowing someone to remain in the room without necessarily feeling part of it.

Over time, that distinction matters because if belonging is tied to output, then output must be continuously maintained. Competence becomes not just something you have, but something you must repeatedly demonstrate in order to justify your presence, and that is not the same as being accepted.

6. Masking Is the Cost of Staying in the Room

And this is what that conditional inclusion requires.

One of the most common responses to this misalignment is masking. It is often described as adaptation, learning to navigate social environments more effectively, but that framing misses something important.

Masking is not a neutral adjustment; it is a cost. It involves continuously monitoring behaviour, controlling tone of voice, managing facial expressions, rehearsing responses, analysing interactions in real time, and suppressing instinctive reactions in favour of calculated ones. From the outside, it can look seamless, with the individual appearing to function within expected social norms, but the effort required to maintain that alignment is rarely visible. This is not adaptation: it is sustained compensation.

Over time, that effort accumulates. For many neurodivergent people, masking becomes less a conscious strategy and more a background process, a constant layer of cognitive load running alongside everything else. This is particularly true in professional environments, where the expectation to perform socially sits alongside the expectation to perform technically.

The result is a form of double work: the visible work of the job itself, and the invisible work of maintaining alignment with the environment in which that job takes place. The cost of that invisible work is not evenly distributed; it is carried primarily by the individual, not the system, and that matters because it shapes how we interpret what we are seeing.

When someone appears to be functioning well, it is easy to assume that the environment is working, that the adaptation has been successful, and that the problem has been resolved. But invisibility does not mean absence; it often means the cost has been internalised.

When that cost builds over time, it can lead to exhaustion, anxiety, and eventual burnout, and at that point the system often reads the outcome as individual failure rather than recognising the sustained effort that preceded it. Masking, in that sense, is not a solution to misalignment but a way of surviving within it, and survival is not the same as belonging.

7. Safe Spaces versus Safe Environments

There is a growing tendency to respond to neurodivergent differences by creating “safe spaces”. The intention is usually good: reduce pressure, remove friction, and provide somewhere people can function without constant strain. But there is a problem with how this idea is often implemented.

A safe space, by definition, is a separate space, and separation, even when well-intentioned, carries implications worth examining more closely.

Andy has a strong reaction to this. He finds the idea of designated “safe spaces” for neurodivergent people uncomfortable, even insulting. His point is simple and difficult to dismiss: if you created separate spaces for other groups, defined by race, for example, it would be immediately recognised as segregation. It would not be framed as support; it would be challenged as exclusion.

Yet when it comes to neurodivergence, similar patterns can appear under softer language. A “safe space” can easily become a place where difference is managed by moving it out of the main environment, rather than addressing why the main environment does not work.

This is the distinction that matters. A safe space says you go over there and things will work better; a safe environment says we change this space so more people can function within it. Those are not the same thing.

If someone can only function when removed from the shared environment, then the problem has not been solved: it has been bypassed.

And bypassing problems is something this entire conversation has a habit of doing. We see it in masking, where individuals absorb the cost of misalignment; we see it in hiring narratives, where usefulness becomes the condition of inclusion; and we see it here, where instead of redesigning environments, we create parallel ones.

The risk is not that safe spaces exist; in some contexts, they are necessary, but that they become the default solution.

Because once separation becomes normalised, the underlying issue remains untouched. We still have environments built around a narrow set of assumptions about how minds work, and instead of changing those assumptions, we quietly move the people who do not fit them.

8. Equality Before Equity

This same pattern appears again in the shift from equality to equity.

There is a related shift happening in the broader conversation, from equality to equity. In principle, equity of outcome sounds like progress, because if people start from different positions, then adjusting outcomes can seem like a way to correct imbalance. Like usefulness, this appears to solve a problem, but often does so by smoothing over underlying differences rather than addressing them.

But this assumes something that does not hold true in practice: that people are operating through comparable processes.

Neurodivergent cognition does not work that way. It is not evenly distributed, not linear, and not consistent across domains; it is often spiky.

Someone may struggle with everyday social interaction yet be capable of sustained, high-level analytical work that most people would find difficult to replicate, while another person may require significant support in some areas while demonstrating strengths in others that are not immediately visible.

Trying to force those profiles into equivalent outcomes creates a different kind of distortion, because equal outcomes imply comparable inputs, comparable processes, and comparable capabilities, and that is not what neurodiversity looks like.

Before we talk about equity of outcome, there is a more basic question that often goes unaddressed: have we actually achieved equality of environment?

In most cases, the answer is no. Many environments are still structured around neurotypical assumptions, implicit communication, rapid social processing, tolerance for constant interruption, and unspoken rules governing interaction, and in those environments, neurodivergent people are not starting from an equal position.

So instead of fixing the environment, we move to adjusting the outcome.

This creates two problems. First, it introduces artificial constraints, because if outcomes are levelled, then differences in capability, in either direction, are suppressed, making strengths harder to express and difficulties harder to address honestly. Second, it creates friction because people recognise when outcomes feel disconnected from underlying reality, and that perception leads to resentment, not because people oppose fairness, but because the system feels misaligned.

More importantly, it misses something fundamental. Neurodivergent people do not need their outcomes forced into alignment with neurotypical norms; they need environments where they can operate as they are.

For some neurodivergent profiles, this becomes actively limiting.

For me personally, this is not theoretical. I do not operate at neurotypical levels. In some areas, I exceed them significantly; in others, I do not. That unevenness is not a problem to be corrected; it is the reality of how my cognition works.

If you tried to enforce equalised outcomes across that profile, you would not be supporting it; you would be reducing it, and that reduction would not make anything fairer; it would simply make it less accurate.

Equality, in the sense that matters here, is not about identical outcomes; it is about creating conditions where different kinds of minds can function without being forced into the same shape.

We have not achieved that yet, and until we do, shifting the conversation to outcomes risks repeating the same pattern: adjusting the surface while leaving the structure underneath unchanged.

This is not a separate issue. It is the same pattern expressed differently.

9. When Fairness Becomes Flattening

There is a point at which the pursuit of fairness begins to undermine the very differences it is supposed to accommodate, because when outcomes are forced into alignment, variation becomes a problem to be managed rather than a reality to be understood. Differences in capability, in processing, and in cognitive style are flattened in order to produce something that looks balanced from the outside.

But neurodivergent cognition does not distribute evenly, and it is not designed to. It is uneven, often extreme, and highly dependent on context, which means that some individuals will outperform significantly in certain domains while struggling in others. That unevenness is not a flaw in the system; it is the system.

When fairness is interpreted as equivalence of outcome, that unevenness becomes difficult to accommodate, because strengths are dampened as they create imbalance, while difficulties are obscured as they disrupt symmetry. The result is not fairness but simplification.

And simplification comes at a cost, because it reduces the visibility of real differences, making it harder to understand what support is actually required and harder to recognise where genuine strengths exist. Over time, this produces a distorted picture of capability, where people are measured against an artificially levelled baseline rather than being understood in terms of how they actually function.

That distortion does not make systems fairer; it makes them less accurate, and when systems become less accurate, they become less useful, not in the sense of productivity, but in the sense of understanding the people they are supposed to include.

Fairness, in this context, cannot mean forcing different profiles into the same shape. It has to mean allowing those profiles to exist as they are, even when that produces uneven outcomes.

10. The Spectrum Didn’t Solve This… It Smoothed It Over

The move to a single autism spectrum was intended to simplify diagnosis and reflect the wide variation present in autistic experience, and in some ways it achieved that by reducing confusion between overlapping categories and acknowledging that rigid boundaries often failed to capture clinical reality.

But simplification introduces its own problems, because when a wide range of cognitive profiles is grouped under a single label, important distinctions can become harder to describe. Differences that once had names become less visible, and experiences that are fundamentally different begin to appear as variations of the same thing.

The spectrum model is often misunderstood as a linear scale ranging from mild to severe, when in practice it is closer to a multidimensional space where individuals vary across different domains such as communication, sensory processing, and cognitive style. Even so, the use of a single category creates a kind of conceptual flattening.

People whose experiences differ dramatically are described using the same diagnostic term, so that someone who requires lifelong support and someone who lives independently while navigating invisible challenges are placed within the same framework.

That does not mean the spectrum is wrong; it means it is incomplete. It is clinically useful, but descriptively limited, and the risk is that the model becomes a substitute for understanding, so that once something is placed within the category of “autism,” the differences within that category receive less attention.

This mirrors a broader pattern, where complexity becomes difficult to manage and systems simplify, where variation is hard to describe and it is grouped together, and where distinctions create ambiguity and are smoothed out.

The spectrum did not resolve the underlying question of what autism is; it made that question easier to handle, and in doing so, it may also have made it easier to overlook the diversity it was meant to represent.

11. The Real Problem: Misaligned Minds in Shared Systems

The problem is often framed as a deficit within the individual, as though neurodivergent people are failing to meet the expectations of the environments they inhabit. But that framing assumes that those environments are neutral, or at least broadly compatible with the range of minds expected to operate within them.

In reality, most environments are built around a relatively narrow set of assumptions about how cognition works, including how communication is structured, how attention is directed, how information is processed, and how social interaction unfolds. These assumptions are not usually explicit, but they are embedded in the design of workplaces, institutions, and everyday social systems.

When someone does not align with those assumptions, the misalignment is often interpreted as a problem within the individual, rather than as a mismatch between different cognitive styles and the structures they are expected to operate within.

This is where the idea of misaligned minds becomes more useful than the idea of disordered ones.

The issue is not simply that neurodivergent cognition differs from neurotypical cognition, but that both are operating within shared systems that are optimised for one set of patterns over another. The resulting friction is not one-sided, even if it is experienced more acutely by those who do not fit the dominant model.

Communication breaks down not because one side lacks ability, but because both sides are working from different assumptions about how meaning is constructed and interpreted. Social interaction becomes difficult not because one group is inherently deficient, but because the rules governing interaction are unevenly distributed and rarely made explicit.

In that context, expecting one side to fully adapt is not a neutral solution. It is a reflection of which set of assumptions the system is designed to support.

The problem, therefore, is not simply located within individuals. It is located within the relationship between different kinds of minds and the environments they share.

12. What Are We Actually Trying to Build?

Once the problem is understood in those terms, a different question begins to emerge.

What are we actually trying to build?

Are we trying to create systems that select for certain kinds of cognition while managing or compensating for others, or are we trying to create environments that can accommodate a wider range of cognitive styles without requiring constant adaptation or separation?

These are not the same goal.

The first approach leads to optimisation. It identifies which traits are most useful within a given system and organises itself around them, making adjustments where necessary to incorporate those who can align closely enough to function within it.

The second approach leads to redesign. It requires examining the assumptions built into the system itself and asking whether those assumptions are unnecessarily narrow.

In practice, most current approaches sit somewhere between these two positions, but the direction of travel matters.

If the goal is optimisation, then neurodivergent inclusion will continue to be framed in terms of usefulness, accommodation will remain conditional, and difference will be managed rather than understood.

If the goal is redesign, then the focus shifts toward creating environments where different kinds of minds can operate without needing to be translated into a single dominant framework.

That shift is not trivial. It requires moving away from the idea that there is a single “correct” way for cognition to function within shared systems, and toward the recognition that variation is not something to be smoothed out, but something to be designed for.

At that point, the question of usefulness begins to lose its central role. Because the goal is no longer to determine what different kinds of minds are for, but to understand how they can exist together within the same space without one being required to become the other.

13. Beyond Usefulness Means Changing the Environment

Moving beyond usefulness is not simply a matter of changing language or adjusting attitudes; it requires a more fundamental shift in how environments are designed. As long as usefulness remains the organising principle, inclusion will continue to be conditional, because people will be valued in proportion to how well their cognitive profiles align with the needs of the system, and that alignment, even when framed positively, still operates as a filter.

Changing that dynamic means shifting the focus away from individuals and toward the structures they are expected to operate within. It means recognising that many of the difficulties associated with neurodivergence are not inherent to the individual, but emerge from environments that assume a narrow range of cognitive styles, where communication norms, expectations around attention and responsiveness, and the structure of social interaction are all shaped by those assumptions.

When environments are designed around a limited model of cognition, those who do not fit that model are required to adapt, compensate, or withdraw, which is why moving beyond usefulness is not about finding better ways to identify or utilise neurodivergent strengths, but about creating conditions in which those strengths, and the differences that accompany them, can exist without being filtered through a single standard.

This does not mean removing all structure or expectation, but it does mean questioning whether existing structures are unnecessarily restrictive, and it also means recognising that inclusion is not achieved through separation or forced equivalence, but through environments that can accommodate variation without requiring constant translation.

That kind of change is more difficult than adjusting outcomes or creating parallel spaces, because it requires rethinking assumptions that are often invisible to the people who benefit from them, but without that shift the underlying pattern remains the same, and difference continues to be managed rather than understood.

14. Conclusion: Understanding Requires Effort (And We Avoid It)

Across this series, a consistent pattern has emerged, where whether in historical classification, modern economic narratives, lived experience, or diagnostic frameworks, the same underlying tendency appears: to simplify, to categorise, and to evaluate difference in terms of usefulness. That tendency is not accidental, because it reflects a broader preference for systems that are easy to manage, easy to interpret, and easy to optimise.

Understanding, by contrast, is difficult, because it requires engaging with complexity, tolerating ambiguity, and recognising patterns that do not fit established expectations, all of which require effort, and effort is something that systems, and the people within them, tend to minimise.

As a result, the burden of adaptation falls disproportionately on those who do not align with the dominant model, so neurodivergent individuals are expected to become legible within systems that were not designed with them in mind, while the systems themselves remain largely unchanged, which helps explain why increased awareness has not resolved the issue, because information alone does not produce understanding, and understanding alone does not produce change.

What is required is a willingness to engage with difference in a way that is not immediately efficient or comfortable, and that willingness is often absent, because it is easier to sort than to understand, easier to optimise than to redesign, and easier to adjust outcomes than to change structures.

So the pattern continues, with neurodivergent people adapting while systems remain stable and the appearance of progress is maintained, even as the underlying misalignment persists.

If there is a single conclusion to draw, it is this: the problem was never that neurodivergent minds were difficult to understand, but that understanding them requires effort, and we have built a world that avoids that effort wherever possible.

This question is explored further in: When Autism Doesn’t Work: The Human Cost of the Question of Usefulness.

The history of Asperger’s reminds us how societies once judged human worth through usefulness. Lived experience reminds us why that question still matters. The later articles explore what happens when that framework breaks down and what follows.

This article is part of a series:

  1. Asperger’s Syndrome and the Question of Usefulness — Historical Origins
  2. Neurodiversity and the Question of Usefulness — modern economic narratives
  3. Lived Experience and the Question of Usefulness — personal realities
  4. The Spectrum Problem after The Question of Usefulness — diagnostic frameworks
  5. We Still Don’t Understand Neurodivergent Minds Even Beyond the Question of Usefulness — systemic perspective
  6. When Autism Doesn’t Work: The Human Cost of the Question of Usefulness — how it feels from the inside
  7. Choose to Build Your Own Meaning Anyway: Beyond the Question of Usefulness — constructive series finale

15. References

  1. References Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem’. Disability & Society.
  2. Chapman, R. (2023). Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism. Pluto Press.
  3. Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer Heresies.
  4. Horkan, W. (2026). The Work Speaks for Itself.
    https://horkan.com/2026/01/02/the-work-speaks-for-itself
  5. Horkan, W. (2026). Can’t Understand Neurodivergent Thinking.
    https://horkan.com/2026/03/01/cant-understand-neurodivergent-thinking
  6. Horkan, W. (2025). Neurodivergent Couples: Why Autism and ADHD Pairings Are More Common Than You Might Think.
    https://horkan.com/2025/04/17/neurodivergent-couples-why-autism-and-adhd-pairings-are-more-common-than-you-might-think
  7. Horkan, W. (2025). Rethinking Autism: The Evidence Behind Milton’s Double Empathy Theory.
    https://horkan.com/2025/02/11/rethinking-autism-the-evidence-behind-miltons-double-empathy-theory
  8. Horkan, W. (2024). The Reduction of Diagnostic Categories in the DSM-5: Overlooking Important Distinctions.
    https://horkan.com/2024/07/27/the-reduction-of-diagnostic-categories-in-the-dsm-5-overlooking-important-distinctions
  9. Horkan, W. (2026). The Hidden Costs of Masking: What Research and Autistic Voices Reveal.
    https://horkan.com/2026/01/01/the-hidden-costs-of-masking-what-research-and-autistic-voices-reveal