 Thanks everyone for joining in. This session is a little bit different. It would be focusing on what neurodiversity is and basically it's an awareness session on neurodiversity and how it impacts various sectors of our life and If in case you have anyone who's neurodiverse in your friends or relative circle, how can you better cope up with them? You know, how can you be more friendly and empathetic towards them and help them out as well in their life's journey? So for this we have Joelle Escody with us. Joelle is a social psychologist, a neurodiversity self-advocate and thought leader He's a seasoned professional with nearly three decades of experience as an educator researcher, learning and development professional and social and entrepreneur. He has pioneered innumerable awareness camps and initiatives in the neurodiversity space globally. He is the president of the Association of Neurodiversity and the founder of the neuro gifted project. Over to you, Joelle. Thanks a lot for joining us in today. Thank you very much Sukanya for having me. Thank you, Paikon. Thank you for all the participants for being here. Let me begin by welcoming you all to this next 45 approximately 50 minutes of discussion and willing on the topic of neurodiversity. So the word neurodiversity is self-explanatory. Sorry Joelle, the PPP. Yes, I will come to that. So the word itself is self-explanatory and well neuro and diversity. Neuro means simply in simple words, it means the brain. It's the different dimensions and variations of different human beings and how their brain works and things and processes information. So I'm going to be sharing my screen in just a minute. Right. So today we're going to call it, we call this session neurodiversity demystified, demystified. Of course, it means that simplifying the topic and make it simple and easy for everybody to understand. And at the end of the session, of course, we will be taking questions. And if anybody has any questions, I would really be happy to address them provided we have the time. Alternatively, my email is also listed there. You can also send me questions that I can't answer right now in this session. Probably it's better if I answer them over email. So without much ado, let's go into the session. So I just want everybody to stop whatever you're doing, put your phone aside just for a minute and focus on what we're doing for the next few minutes. This is a thought experiment. Right. Here's the thought. Think of a bird. Whatever bird. Just think of a bird. Imagine what it looks like. How does this bird move? What does it act like? How does it behave? I'm sure all of us know birds, right? Any bird from the bird kingdom. Think of it, visualize it, imagine it in your head and keep that image. Right there. This is a bird. Is there anything wrong with this bird? Is there something that needs to be attended to here? Is it doing something wrong? Is it in the wrong environment where it should not be? Is it using its wings wrongly when it should actually fly? It's trying to swim with its wings. Is it fair? Does this bird need to be cured? Does it need a treatment? Think about it and compare it with what I'm saying with the image in your mind. What about this bird? Is there anything wrong with this bird? Does it need to be cured? Does it have a disease? Does it have anything unwanted? Can we continue to call this a bird? Hold that thought for a moment and just think about us as human beings as a species. Our human brains also come in a huge variety. There's so many dimensions and there's so much of variations in the human brain. No two human brains are alike. That is neurodiversity. The diversity of the human brain. There are a couple of things you need to remember when we're talking of neurodiversity. One, it is not a choice nobody chooses to be neurodiverse by any way. It's not something that we can change. It's just difference by design. Each human being is designed in a particular way and just like our fingerprints our brains are also very different. And just like biodiversity just like we saw in the pictures of the birds, same way you will find in every aspect of biodiversity you will find that this kind of diversity and variation it's so important neurodiversity is to human beings as diversity, biodiversity is to life in general. So that's how important it is for us to safeguard and also understand the importance of why we are different. Why our brains are so different from each other and that will probably give you an answer to so many questions. Life's questions, your own questions it's also set you off to the beginning of discovery about your own self and trying to understand what makes you what you are and who you are and why you are who you are. So what is neurodiversity? The term, if you go by the definition it refers to the variation of the human brain with regard to sociability, perception sensory and environmental sensitivities motor skills, executive functioning learning, attention, mood and other metal functions. Even if we don't want to get into the definition the whole technical definition of it we can just remember it like this neurodiversity is how different we are in terms of how we receive process store and transmit that information how we receive information process information, store that information and transmit that information that's how simple it is. Now we can, there are so many you can dig deeper and deeper but at this point this much is enough for us. The word itself was coined in the late 1990s by Australian sociologist Judy Singer who helped us popularize the concept along with American journalist Harvey Bloom and in 1999 the Atlantic carried the first printed word of neurodiversity and that since then the word neurodiversity has evolved and it has come to a state where now neurodiversity is something that nobody can ignore and that's why we're talking about it today on this platform, right? We'll see how and why. Just let's imagine the general population of the world that this picture represents the whole population roughly 20% I mean the research varies from between 60 to 30% on the higher side and 16% on the lower side. So let's take an average of 20-25% roughly 20% of people are what we would refer to as neurodivergent but again among the neurodivergence themselves no two neurodivergence are the same each one is unique and different and special but the truth is all of us are neurodivergent, actually no one is identical all of us human beings wherever we are we belong to the neurodiversity spectrum because we are very different from each other we differ in our thoughts and how we process information, how we store it there's so many dimensions to our brain that we can never be identical to one another so let's appreciate the fact at this point that all of us are by definition different from each other so we belong to the neurodiversity spectrum but some of us are a minority and some of us belong to a majority in terms of how our social behaviors and how our learning behaviors are acceptable so broadly we can classify ourselves into two types, neuro types let's say 25% is the neurodivergence whom we consider as you know abnormal or unusual, irregular or what we also call in some times in some situations the specialists and then the larger the majority of the population are what we call neurotypicals who are considered the normal the regular or what we would also term as the generalist so here we have the normal and the abnormal so the question is who defines who is normal what is normal and what is abnormal by what we see in the social model of disability we see that whatever large number of people do that is considered as normal the majority of the people whatever they accept that is normal and anything beyond that is abnormal or unusual but it doesn't mean that this is better or that is worse it just says that normal and abnormal but when we talk of neurodivergence we are talking of many conditions and there is a lot of misgivings and myths surrounding these names when you hear the name autism ADHD dyslexia alkylia or dyspraxia dysgraphia hyperlexia you know for the common man these terms are are some something to do with sickness or something to do with with some kind of a disorder and they have this picture in their minds most of us that we have to do something to cure these people well that is very far from the truth the first myth I want to bust today is none of these conditions are actual sicknesses or diseases this is genetical inheritance most of the time of course they can also be acquired but mostly the conditions associated with all these terms which come under the neurodiversity umbrella which is a large umbrella they are basically conditions that cannot be cured they don't need to be treated or mitigated they just have to be accepted because they bring with them the variance of the human brains neurological conditions that are very important for the human evolution today when you look around you you will find that most of the major scientific discoveries even today when you talk of people like Bill Gates or an Elon Musk or a Steve Jobs all are individuals with neurodiversity Richard Branson and many people in the in the creative art industry in the science and politicians you can google and you can find hundreds and hundreds you'll be surprised to know how many neurodivergence are there around you so you would understand eventually that they play a very important role in how humanity evolves through this this whole evolution process so yes the neurodiversity term has a lot of words under it but generally when we talk of neurodiversity we talk about this from 11 to 10 conditions mostly so what's the fundamental difference between a neurotypical and neurodivergent I don't know how many people interested in psychology are here so when you take a cognitive ability test you will find that this blue line represents mostly how neurotypical profile would would come across you know they would be good in something not so good in something a little better in something they're all very closely matched and evenly there so that generalists they can do a large number of things equally well and there are some things they can't do also equally well this is a neurotypical profile but when you talk of a neurodivergent profile you will find that either they too good at something or too bad at something most of the time most of the time I'm not trying to generalize here but I'm just saying that you will find that they're exceptionally good in a few things and you will also find that at the same time they're very poor in a few in other things and they might need some support also in those areas so while they do come with some very good strengths there are areas where they can face more challenges so this is the difference between a neurotypical and a neurodivergent profile we call this the spiky profile I'll give you an example in the next slide this is a typical spiky profile about a few parameters of course this does not cover everything but typically you will find that you know for example in auditory discrimination the profile says it's very low whereas the visual skills the profile is very high sensory processes are highly sensitive listening is medium long-term memory and short-term memory you will find that long-term memory is very high where short-term memory is very very low so this is not the standard this is just an example what I am showing to you will understand that a spiky profile will be very very spiky there will be highs and lows when it comes to the neurodivergent whereas for a neurotypical individual it will be somewhat balanced so that's something you need to understand and you can understand straight away that there is some fundamental difference between these two these two different types of people right although they are again among the neuro types neurotypicals there will be a lot of variation and a lot of differences among them and same along with the neurodivergency you will find people with a lot of you know variation among that also but generally speaking this is what this is the difference you can find but what's generally accepted across so across the world you know in recent times big tech companies you are undertaking a lot of initiatives to hire, attract and retain neurodivergent talent why would they be doing this it's a question right for anybody to want to understand new people especially who are tech people sitting there you might be wondering is it me am I do I belong to the neurodivergent category maybe yes because statistically speaking if there are say 300 people here in this session today it technically means that nearly 75% approximately 75 people here are from the neurodivergent category your symptoms and conditions may not be so visible but you know that you are and it is something that you cannot avoid so just keep that in the back of your mind so neurodivergent strengths these are commonly accepted strengths when you find neurodivergent people they are original thinkers very creative and innovative you know they are very good at problem solving, finding and thinking outside the box finding solutions complex solutions for complex problems intense focus they can focus extraordinarily hyper focus they are very good in pattern recognition and they have excellent attention to detail their passionate, honest, fair basically almost all the qualities that an employer would want they come with some challenges we are going to see a little bit about the challenges also going ahead so yes when you want something good you have to accept that it comes with a price, it comes with a certain cost it comes with a certain challenge also along with it so it is not going to it is not a one way thing it is a two way process if you want to attract neurodivergent talent so let me give you a few points from the organizational perspective over the last 20 years we saw a lot of organizations beginning to start implementing beginning with SAP of course who started to implement neurodiversity hiring initiatives initially it was just part of their social responsibility and things like that where neurodivergence were taken in as people with disabilities today we know that this is not a disability it is actually an asset for the company for the employer and it is not a liability anymore it is actually a very good return on investment for an employer it's a good business proposition so how does it happen let's see from the experience of companies that have gone on to hire neurodiverse individuals many of them are companies that you or I the people here belong to for example JP Morgan found that autistic workers took just 3 to 6 months versus the usual 3 years to do the same level of work at the mortgage banking technology division imagine that something that would have usually taken 3 years now is taking just 3 to 6 months to complete so that's a huge 150% to 200% productivity increase right so JP Morgan shares also reports that professionals in its autism at work initiative fewer errors and are 90 to 140% more productive than their neuro typical employees see look I'm not giving these figures from my own imagination these are the published figures from companies who are today hiring in the thousands and thousands looking for specific talents from neurodivergent communities these are some of the qualities that you get from a neurodivergent dependability motivation engagement peer integration at least 86% of employees surveyed by the institute for corporate productivity rated employees with intellectual development disabilities as good or very good in all these 4 areas so it's a welcome proposition for any employer to start looking at an option to employ neurodivergence and they're excellent in processing information researchers found that autistic employees have an information processing advantage and are better able to detect critical information which may account for their higher than average prevalence and IT positions you might want to think pause and think for a moment how many of you are actually neurodivergent here and don't know that you are you might want to give it a go and think once and also learn a little bit about neurodiversity and also explore who who is you what more can you discover about yourself what makes you special what is it that is special about you what are your strengths why don't you give it a thought let me tell you a little bit about processing information post 9 11 the American department of home services homeland security and the Australian say homeland security departments began with the Israelis who began to hire neurodivergent talent for their anti terrorist operations especially in their drone technologies processing satellite imagery creating the algorithms to intercept dangerous communications across the world so the excellent in spy networks processing all kinds of communication looking for those science and information that can prevent terrorist attacks so it started like that and now you have neurodivergent populations across various sectors and today with the development of digital technologies artificial intelligence data science you now have this beautiful marriage coming across between the neurodivergent population and technology so this is something like made for each other and that's what attracts a lot of neurodivergence also are attracted to this but no it's not everybody mostly yes so people with autism also excellent excellent pattern recognition and sporting irregularities such as cyber intrusions which is one of the reasons the Australian government department of defense has found success with its cybersecurity neurodiversity program in the end you can also check this network all have retention rates of 90% and more when actually the norm is anywhere between 45 to 55% so statistics say not me statistics say that neurodivergence are twice twice the amount more dependable than the neuro typical counterparts when it comes to loyalty in the job continuity in the job retention EY has a retention rate of 95% which is unheard of in any other company so that's the organizational perspective so now we'll come back to neurodiversity as such see the IBM also has given us some statistics about neurodiverse advantage for example like I said original thinking creative problem solving intense focus and all yes but then there will be some challenges where communication you need to sort out how you're going to communicate with neurodivergent individuals they have sensory sensitiveness to for example loud noise, lights too much of crowd, disturbance they're sensory they're very sensitive to these to these things and they're not very good in their social abilities so they might need some help or they might need some kind of sometimes they need space they don't need to they need people they need to be away from people so they also might have trouble because of all this continued stress they also might have have some trouble in their emotional regulation at the same time companies have to change their entire interview process because if you are going to for example sit in an interview and expect a neurodivergent person to say a person with autism particularly they will have a challenge they might have a challenge with eye contact so they might not be comfortable looking at someone in the eye whereas the interviewer might immediately disqualify a potential candidate just because of their eye contact so yes the interview process also have to be changed but then the company has so much to benefit from the benefits far outweigh the risks when you're hiring neurodivergent individuals you know it raised the innovation benchmark of the company it increased revenues it gives the company a good corporate branding and citizenship it makes there is proof and research has shown that managers have become better managers when they integrated and they worked with neurodivergent individuals it raises the employee morale of the company and it alters the company culture in a very positive way and all this this accommodations that need to be created are actually very expensive so you don't need to worry about what is going to be the cost of bringing in neurodivergent people all it takes is a little bit of will and intention it should be intentional inclusion of this neurodivers individuals right whenever you look at anything there will always be two sides to this coin yeah let's take the example of ADHD ADHD one way to look at it is there impulsive they can't focus I am ADHD as per this dyspraxic individual right so yes I will be impulsive I cannot concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time I might look disinterested when somebody is talking to me but I am listening my brain is thinking of 10 other things I cannot just focus my entire brain on one thing I am hyperactive it will be very difficult to control and very difficult to put me in a box I cannot control my temptation to answer to contribute to a conversation you might think that I am intruding or I am displaying bad manners as to speaking out of turn but it's just out of enthusiasm to participate in that conversation yes I might come across as very disorganized or disinterested I might look like an over worker some of the time I might be tired fatigued and I would be very fidgety not sitting straight or calm you will not find calmness or relaxed atmosphere to me every day but then when you look at the positive side you will find that I am highly energetic I am enthusiastic I can connect dots I can see the larger picture I can visualize well into the future I will persevere where other people won't I can work under pressure I am creative I am innovative I am always looking at all the latest I can also hyper focus while I cannot keep my focus constant on one thing for a long period of time I also have the ability to hyper focus and taking loads of information in a matter of minutes and process that information I am also hyper sensitive to noise sound anything unwanted even a phone call sometimes so some of us might go away for a day or two and not connect to anybody at the same time we are very compassionate we like novelty in everyday life we are hard working and we are project oriented so there are pluses and minuses and just like each and every one of us here today all of us sitting and listening to me even you if you look at yourself you will find that while you do have your challenges there are some amazing strengths that make you who you are and make you a valuable employee a valuable entrepreneur a valuable person in everything that you do so that's one of the things that you need to understand when you are talking about neurodiversity the strengths and weaknesses and today the trust is in looking at the strength model the strength model says that yes the challenges are there just like every other person but we need to appreciate the strengths of these individuals and employ the person based on their strengths not on what they cannot do but what they can do even we as regular people in this world we need to think about how we are going to engage people based on their potential and their strengths and not on what they are not so good at I am sure everybody would agree so that is the argument and the social model of disability which lies at the base of all the neurodiversity movement basically says that disability depends on who you are where you are and in what situation you are let me explain this a little further assume that you are a person who is in the company of okay let's take a short person versus a tall person a tall person is able to reach the shelves right on top but the short person cannot reach them he needs an accommodation maybe a ladder or a stool to reach what a tall person can reach without any accommodation so would you call the short person as disabled because there is some basically the word disabled means this ability to do something right not having the ability to do something so a short person cannot reach a shelf on top so that means that technically means that the short person is disabled in that situation at that time as compared to the tall person same way we take a traveler person or westerner traveling to India and then not being able to cope with the spicy food over here right so would you call that person disabled technically yes because he is unable to eat and enjoy the food over here so you have to look at all the situations swimmers versus non swimmers drivers versus non drivers you getting me people who are allergic to something and can't do some things all these are disabilities right that's what the social model of disability says it says that disability depends on how society has has organized itself if society says keep to left and for some reason a person is unable to keep to left and keeping to right is a disability if a society says use your right hand and a person is ambidextrous or using his left hand instead then you would say that that is a disorder right something that is out of the normally accepted norms so anything that doesn't fit what society says that is considered as a disorder and everybody wants to cure that or everybody wants to change that because our tendency is that every time we see something out of order out of what we think is the right thing we immediately want to change that today my appeal to you is when you find something somebody who thinks differently from you who has these signs of neurodiversity in them is conditions in them you know really shake their hand and appreciate them for it because you also might be having some of those conditions maybe not to the severity or the extent that they have but you also would have them neurodiverse people are equally important as neurotypical people everything that happens in this world you will find that neurodivergent people were at the center of everything science yes Albert Einstein a neurodivergent right Thomas Jefferson a politician neurodivergent you take football sports right the many David Beckham is neurodivergent Messi is neurodivergent today many of the business big tech companies companies who own some of the biggest software companies in the world this Microsoft or Apple they're all neurodivergent Elon Musk is neurodivergent Richard Branson is neurodivergent actress Kira Knightley is neurodivergent almost the entire cast of the pirates of the Caribbean the pirates of the Caribbean are neurodivergent so you might want to rethink and try to reassess and re-understand relearn or unlearn a lot of the myths surrounding the conditions or what we know about the conditions of what neurodiversity it's a good time for us to go back and try to get a grip and grasp about how to how to embrace neurodiversity in our day to day life because it's a big plus for us there's nothing to lose and there's everything to gain right one more thing you have to understand and look at me I am now 50 plus but all my life I have masked my neurodiversity we call it masking because I don't fit into the normal I am forced to behave in a particular way although my real feelings and my real journey is different in the inside my outside I learn how to mask it I wear a mask in society so that people don't spot my peculiarities and immediately understand today I don't care of course but for 40 years of my life I lived through masking today society should learn to embrace people and not call them freaks or call them you know accidents of nature but accept them for who they are so that neurodivergent individuals can come out and openly accept that they are neurodivergent and begin a happy because accepting neurodivergence changed my life and I appeal to all of you to also allow that to happen to other people so let's talk about the diagnosis part why some are called neurodivergence although some people have similar conditions but they are not referred to as neurodivergent or they are not diagnosed the reasons are very simple there are many conditions for example sociability today we know a lot of people are introverts or extroverts that's all we know we don't know why they are introvert we don't know why they are extrovert but if you understand their neurological makeup you can understand their neurological variants you might be able to understand why they are introverts or extroverts for example some people don't like loud noises some people like certain smells and don't like certain smells some people can not talk to people for days and days and still be absolutely fine they don't need company these are not crazy people these are the different types of human beings so the different color dots circles over there represent different conditions right all of us have these conditions some conditions we have less and some conditions are the intensity is high but if you need to be diagnosed as neurodivergent at least one or two of those conditions have to cross a certain level of intensity only then you can say this person is actually diagnosed but that doesn't mean the person does not have the conditions all of you sitting here have different peculiarities different conditions but you may not be diagnosed as a neurodivergent it may not be to a situation where you somebody felt the need for you to go to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist a clinical psychologist to have an assessment made but I am sure that if we start doing small screeners for you people a lot of new things will come out of you and be happy to address those issues from you guys so unless one or two of those conditions cross the threshold you can't actually diagnose and say that yes this person is autistic or is on the autism spectrum or in the case of ADHD or dyspraxic or dyslexia so you need to have a certain level of threshold conditions for your conditions so only then it is diagnosed so below that you can use a lot of screener tests there are many screener tests available I can also help you screen your test these are screeners just to find out who is who today in companies companies don't ask for diagnosis no tech company will ask you for diagnosis it is a self diagnosis meaning that you believe that you are a neurodivergent then you can disclose and your company will immediately put you on to some based on your strengths they will put you on to projects that are more in tune with your you are in tune with due to your strengths and your special abilities so it is a better way of resourcing our human abilities available with the company so that's a little bit about neurodiversity you know we can talk for days and I can bore you out with this I know that there is a limit for human endurance also when you have to listen to such a complicated topic but let me tell you one thing the neurodiversity movement although it is a very young movement has just come of age and today you have every sector starting with the big tech companies and governments intelligence agencies now we are talking of banking financial planning so many companies now looking at neurodiverse talent as a big game changer for their future for the future innovation and solutions that they are going to create for their clients so it's not it's good for all of us to understand neurodiversity is something that we will live within the future if we are not neurodiversity somebody next to us is going to be and we are going to find out a lot about this as we discover and dwell further and learn to understand neurodiversity we will find that you are more and more attracted to it and it becomes more acceptable and that's the stage where you will be in a position to embrace neurodiversity instead of rejecting that human being saying that you know they are different from you they ask them to come to the cafeteria so many times they never join me yes they might be a genuine reason maybe they don't like so much of social the noise of the cafeteria maybe they want to have a coffee alone so let it be just because it doesn't fit into our definition of sociability please don't imagine that a person is unfriendly or doesn't like to mingle with people or is too self-absorbed or self-centered or they can be misunderstood like anything neurodivergent individuals especially in a workplace environment I am sure all of you have friends also who are quirky, who are different who have their own little little fears when they discuss with people so I want you all to think about this we can address any questions that you have to me right now whatever we can take with short answers yes we will for those whom we can't maybe we will email we will communicate via email and answer many of your questions but tomorrow we have a session we are going to have a panel discussion on this subject and that will also I encourage you to attend that also so it will get a clear picture on what exactly is the depth of this subject of neurodiversity so thank you one and all for being patient with me for listening and for trying to understand for spending this time I believe that it will not be a waste of your effort and your time so thank you for the organizers for giving me this opportunity thank you thank you Joel for this wonderful session we do have some interesting feedbacks and people have loved the session and of course I have made an announcement for tomorrow's panel as well we do have a few questions I request Manaswini to maybe post in the questions we can take a few at this point so there is an anonymous question maybe I can put it up on screen there is any personal experience from the person who has asked wanted to stay anonymous but the question is any personal experience that you have with neurodivision people in their life maybe a student or a teacher in your academic career how do they fare up in the class okay thank you so I might have answered this tens of times I myself being ADHD as per this this praxis it's not very difficult to understand that I was a teacher's nightmare everything that a teacher does not want in a student I would I represented that for example I would be very fidgety I would be constantly disturbing other people around in my class I would be always looking outside the window or somewhere else but the teacher she could not get my attention for any particular topic or nothing would interest me beyond a few minutes I would move to the next thing and when a person is communicating with me I would go ten steps ahead and pop a question from that place where the person who is having the conversation here would not even comprehend where this question is coming from so I would look like I'm a crazy person asking crazy questions which have no connection to the topic but actually they are all connected because if you go a little ahead in the topic you will find that that question was already asked so these kind of peculiar things would always come up fumbling forgetting things randomly but at the same time this moments of brilliance comes out in our life your teachers and your parents and everybody are simply amazed so this is a common dialogue you will always hear from a neurodivergent teacher he has great potential if only we could control him so yes there are those moments of sheer genius sheer thinking outside the box I would always come up with crazy answers which were technically correct and they would challenge my teacher and everything that she would she would you know fear have a student like that in a classroom but at the same time I would be in other areas no focus, no nothing and just before exams I would be hyper focused and be able to clear my exams just like that without studying even a normal person would so yes it's a mixed bag of rejection appreciation all those things bundled up together and it's never a normal life it's always full of things to say so one signature thing what I was famous for in school I was always under some punishment or some kind of discipline reaction always so you can understand then on that note I would like to highlight one comment from Ellie Holden they say my spouse and I call that dolphin brain the thoughts you express out loud like a dolphin leaping out of the surface of the water and seeing disconnected from each other but under the surface dolphin is streaming a lot thanks a lot for posting this comment we have a few more questions and we do have some time so maybe we can go along with those yes so maybe one more again an anonymous question is anxiety a medical condition is it required to be treated well anxiety is a condition that is developed due to an underlying cause so for example if you take an autistic individual yes anxiety is a day to day thing that we face because you know going into public sitting in a classroom full of noise so much sound around us can create anxiety in an autistic individual so it is there and then anxiety can also be acquired you know in our day to day life if your family life is not good that will lead to anxiety if you have if you have any traumatic experience it could lead to anxiety so anxiety can be a result of so many different things so yes anxiety needs to be cured and needs to be handled I will not say cured but needs to be handled and needs you need to see an expert help you deal with the anxiety issues some anxiety issues are going to be there for life they are not going to leave you so you should know how to develop a coping mechanism to deal with them but it is not necessary that it is only because of neurodivergence thank you we have a few more questions so maybe I will put one of them up again an anonymous one how should we treat autistic individuals and teach them to be independent or make them survive on their own well to begin with no two autistic individuals are alike autism is a spectrum condition so there are whole conditions associated it is not a line it is not a linear spectrum like low functioning or high functioning it is a whole lot of things so maybe they are good at something they may not be good at something maybe their sensitivity sensory very high or it could be low maybe their sociability is very high or low individual and no two individuals are the same therefore I would not encourage the word treated what do they need to be treated for they are human beings just like you and me there are some people who have allergies to some things and they live to that cannot be treated and they live with it so it's just like that and autism also is not a disease it's not something that what to say can be cured you just have to learn and develop coping mechanisms to develop you know to be developed in that individual yes through therapies and through so many other interventions a person can cope to survive and of course I am not talking about everybody nearly 30% of autism individuals are non-verbal meaning that they do not speak so that is that is a major challenge and some of them may not be even able to live without a person to care for them so so it depends on each individual but a majority of the autistic individuals can live normal lives can live can go about their little lives with a little bit of guidance and little bit of coaching and therapy of course thanks Joel a few more again an anonymous question with Paralympics being similar in popularity as the general Olympics are the times changing yes they are and I certainly hope they are I certainly hope they are yes wonderful another one again an anonymous one can a person have autism and they does not know about it absolutely absolutely and that's what's happening in India in India we don't accept parents we see that even when there is a clear case of autism parents live in denial and people look for alternative solutions yes it's part of my research work as a social psychologist we will find that different societies cultures and religious backgrounds play a very important role in how neurodivergence is accepted in the society and also in a family so if the society is not welcoming you will find that parents will try to hide the neurodivergence try to go for secret treatments which which can be given by quacks which are available all over the internet today and some will try religious solutions some will try yoga some will try some Ayurveda something I'm not against any of these but the point is it cannot be cured it's not possible to cure and the belief that it is some kind of a genetic defect some of us believe that it's a curse so yes as long as society does not is not open of course we are going to have people with autism many of you sitting here are and don't know about it I can guarantee that statistically speaking thank you okay this is an interesting one so again anonymous one so what is the difference between disorder and disability yeah I had given an example about a tall person versus a short person so tall and short people for example they could be disabled in different ways the tall person also could be disabled in certain ways where they cannot reach lower things short person is disabled when they can't reach the things higher things right but it's not disorder they both are perfectly fine you see everything in them is perfectly fine so disorder is something that is out of the order of things so if for example I am expected to be confident and happy in a crowd of people like crowds then you will look at it as a disorder something is wrong with me right disability is my inability to do something I can't do it no matter what you tell me what you give me how you can't do this it's not possible for me to do something that is called disability disorder is when something is just it's not fitting into the normal you see both these words I wouldn't encourage to be used for neurodivergence yes there might be some disabilities included fine human beings there nothing no disorder with them they might have some disabilities thank you Joelle before we take on two new questions I would like to post a comment from Divya Dixit she says hello Joelle I loved how you portrayed neurodiversity not as a disadvantage but as a value proposition for the organization as a parent of a neurodivergence she is really happy that this is being discussed openly thank you Divya for your encouragement okay so we have two more questions so one by one again an anonymous one so should be non-normal be given special treatment if yes what kind so that they won't feel left out or feel different yes that's what we mean by accommodations today after nearly 20 years of hiring experiences by different companies we now know that yes accommodations are to be created and it's I don't know if you can really call them accommodations just of a normal person going to office what are the accommodations created for you a nice chair, a table a good system air conditioning maybe good colored walls all those are made to make you feel better and then some free food in the corridors and then you have a cafeteria you have short breaks where you can go and reach and you know refresh yourself aren't these all accommodations same way a neurodivergent individual needed different accommodations for example it doesn't need the cafeteria he just needs to go a separate place a safe place like even a small cubicle where you can just go and sit alone away from the noise that's enough it doesn't need 10 people around him all the time no thank you and just like you need some many neurodivisions don't need your company get together bonding lunches and picnics no thank you we perfectly find working from home or working by ourselves so all of us need accommodations so how different is it it's just that we need different accommodations I don't know if that answers all the things but I can go on and on because accommodations is a major topic so different companies depending on an individual they ask for the kind of accommodations that an individual requires and they try to create that accommodation and that environment for that individual that's how it's done thank you Joel we can take one more let's see sorry again an anonymous one as an individual diagnosed with ADHD and GAD I'm trying to reduce the issues that I face with every PR I raised tips on how to deal with negative comments so it will be great well first of all there's nothing greater than self acceptance as the president of the association for neurodiversity when I founded the neuro gifted project my first thing was advocacy self advocacy we should be first self accepting not look for acceptance from outside and unfortunately the scales are tipped to our disadvantage you will not find normally people coming and trying to be empathetic because empathy comes very naturally to a neurodivision because they are facing the rejection on a day to day basis and they are facing all these unfriendly comments or you know sarcasm and things like that which they are unable to comprehend I for example took years to even accept myself but I think the change happened there once that happened then began began a new phase in my life where now I'm proud of my work and a lot of people appreciate me now for reasons even I cannot understand the same person who was not appreciated is now appreciated probably it just if you accept yourself I'm sure people will begin to accept you and also there's no need to hide no need to mask anymore no need to hide behind some kind of some kind of a mask where we try to pretend to not be ourselves to be somebody else or pretend to be like the general like how people want us to be the day I stopped doing that I stopped bothering about what other people said and then people began to look at me as if I had some charisma or people wanted to understand me and I think it begins from us how we are going to ward off for me that was a mechanism that worked when I accepted myself other people also began to accept me thank you there are a few more maybe we can go up someone is asking short term periodic numbness in the body occurring due to anxiety and not getting cured after medication will it be for lifetime or is it curable well I think this question is not for me because I don't know what it is about medical condition also my advice would be to please visit a medical practitioner for this thank you another one so again anonymous one how does an interviewer identify and he and she can he or she can initiate things to make a neurodivergent candidate comfortable so that he or she can give the best of them during an interview yeah I could thank you for asking we are just closing the session but this is a very important question for one the interview process that we traditionally understand that is the face to face interview first round, second round, third round the whole thing gets disturbed when you are trying to onboard neurodivergent talents because neurodivergence different neurodivergence need different type of interview process so not everything is going to be face to face and it doesn't have to be synchronous all the time we have now using different types of interview processes for different individuals giving the choice to them sometimes even sending the questions to them beforehand so that they can prepare properly for the interview and come you may be surprised by this but sometimes to avoid a sensory overload for the neurodivergent we take pictures of the interviewing room the colors of the wall for example so that they get an idea when they enter the room they are overwhelmed they already seen the pictures so they come and sit and they are not overwhelmed by that so these are some of the steps I can go on there are tens and tens of things that we do in different situations but yes the interviewer has to be sensitized he should understand what he is looking for exactly and if he is looking for things like eye contact non-figility or perfect poisture then it is probably not the best place to start so we have to look at the real things that offer value to the company what are the strengths and to discover those we have to create a process specific to the job role and based on the individual accommodations required thank you