When Offence Replaces Recognition: The Cost to Neurodivergent Children
In recent years, I’ve noticed a growing shift in how autism and ADHD are discussed within professional spaces.
Increasingly, conversations focus on whether language feels comfortable rather than whether it helps children and families access support. Words like difficulty, weak skills, or success are challenged — not because they are inaccurate, but because they make some professionals uncomfortable.
That discomfort matters.
But it cannot be allowed to outweigh early recognition and access to support.
Autism and ADHD are neurodevelopmental conditions. They are identified and diagnosed based on functional impact — difficulties with executive functioning, emotional regulation, impulse control, sensory processing, and daily living. Children are not diagnosed because of their strengths. They are diagnosed because those differences affect their ability to cope in everyday life.
When professionals avoid naming difficulty clearly, several things happen:
early signs are missed
referrals are delayed or softened
families are told to “wait and see”
crisis becomes the point of entry into services
Parents do not come to services asking for their child’s difficulties to be reframed. They come asking for answers. They need language that explains why things are hard so that help can be accessed.
There is also a growing contradiction within systems. Families are required to evidence impairment and impact to access EHCPs, CAMHS, DLA, housing, or safeguarding support — while professionals debate whether those same words should be used at all.
That inconsistency creates confusion, delays support, and leaves families translating between systems at their most vulnerable moments.
Lived experience is essential in shaping services. Autistic and ADHD professionals bring valuable insight. But no single lived experience represents all neurodivergent people. When one perspective becomes dominant — particularly one that prioritises professional comfort over functional need — families who require clear recognition and support are left behind.
Feeling offended is valid.
But offence is not evidence.
Professional responsibility requires us to ask harder questions:
Does this language help children get support sooner?
Does it improve recognition of need?
Does it reduce the likelihood of crisis?
If the answer is no, then the language is failing the people it is meant to protect.
Strength-based approaches matter. But strengths do not cancel out impairment. And pretending difficulties do not exist does not make children safer — it makes support harder to access.
If we truly want better outcomes for neurodivergent children and young people, we must prioritise clarity over comfort, recognition over reassurance, and support over semantics.
Because the cost of getting this wrong is not professional discomfort.
It is children waiting years for help.
