A Field Guide to Neurodiversity

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Read by Erin Kathleen Bahl. Audio length: 4:37.

Image 1

Image: Title panel with binoculars.
Text: A Field Guide to Neurodiversity by Erin Kathleen Bahl

Image 2

Image: The author (a white woman with brown curly hair and glasses) at various stages of life engaging with birds: as a baby watching birds beyond a glass door; as an elementary student holding an Eastern screech owl; as a high school student painting birds on a blue wall; as a fluffy yellow bird avatar with a black scarf.
Text: All my life, for as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by birds.

• first words, circa 1990
• ornithology summer camp, 2001
• bedroom wall murals, 2003-2008
• webcomic, 2018-present

Image 3

Image: The author sits blissfully amidst a heavy stack of bird field guides; a fly buzzes off in one corner. One exceptionally large book, Birds of America, is labeled "more or less true to size."
Text: I especially loved field guides. I spent countless hours poring through them, soaking in every detail. (I generally avoided "the field" itself, though--far too many bugs!)

• Birds of America
• Sibley Guide to Birds
• Encyclopedia of Raptors
• American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection
• Birds of the World
• Birds of North America

Image 4

Image: A field guide page for an American kestrel (Falco sparverius), specifying taxonomy, plumage differentiations, range, and call.
Text: Field guides were so neat, structured, and orderly, with every detail clearly categorized.

• Aves - Falconiforms - Falconidae - Falco - sparverius
• Adult female / adult male
• Range: North and South America
• Call: kilee kilee kilee kilee kilee

Image 5

Image: The author sets off into the field cheerfully carrying a backpack, binoculars, and field guide. She trips over a log, slips in a puddle, and sits dripping in the puddle with equipment scattered.
Text: When I first started navigating diagnostic rhetorics around neurodivergence, I expected a similar level of clarity in seeking medical guidance. (This was not the case.)

• generalized anxiety disorder, 2017
• PDD-NOS (per DMS-IV), 2017
• ADHD, 2019
• wait, this is actually autism spectrum (per DSM-5), 2022

Image 6

Image: The author sits with birds swirling around her head, spirals over her eyes and mouth twisted in confusion.
Text: Unfortunately, this rocky diagnostic path is a pretty common experience, particularly for late-diagnosed adult women and other folks who don't match stereotypical diagnostic profiles.

Image 7

Image: The author floats toward a globe encircled by birds whose flight paths trace the shape of an infinity loop.
Text: Thankfully, neurodivergent communities from around the world have flocked to a wide variety of social media platforms--from blogs to Instagram, TikTok to Twitter (or X, or whatever it is now!)--to share stories and experiences, make connections, offer mutual support, educate audiences, and advocate for their needs.

Image 8

Image: The author floats behind a flock of birds carrying banners featuring Instagram handles of neurodivergent content creators.
Text: (As one example, here's a tiny selection of passionate neurodivergent content creators currently active on Instagram!)

• @zelue
• @adelaide_saywell
• @hat.talks.uk
• @autistic.qualia
• @morganharpernichols
• @adhd_girls
• @actuallyowltistic

Image 9

Image: Looking up with a smile, the author holds open an unmarked book, golden phoenixes swirling around her.
Text: Field guides (and diagnostic guides) are important resources, but for all their detail, they can't capture every dimension of life "in the wild." Maybe what's needed are more opportunities to share stories, connect with other birds of a feather, and learn how to navigate the world on your own wings.

Artist Statement

Summary

1) Diagnoses in neurodivergent conditions (such as autism spectrum and ADHD) have significantly increased in recent years, especially for late-diagnosed adult women.
2) Formal diagnostic processes can be complicated to navigate, and social media platforms can serve as spaces for individuals to connect, share their stories, and offer mutual support in navigating neurodivergent lived experiences.

Exigence

This short comic is intended to draw attention to the vibrant conversations around neurodiversity and neurodivergent lived experiences taking place on social media, as well as to share one account of a (fairly common) experience attempting to navigate diagnostic rhetorics as a late-diagnosed adult woman. "Neurodiversity" is a framework that views differences in cognition and brain function as part of a broader spectrum of human diversity, and includes conditions such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, among many others (for further discussion, access Garcia, 2022; Price, 2022; Silberman, 2016; Yergeau, 2018). Neurodiverse refers generally to natural diversity in human cognition; neurodivergent refers specifically to individuals whose brains processes information differently from normative patterns. (For further distinction on differences between these terms, access Rakshit, 2023; Neurodadversity, 2022; Wise, 2023a; and Wise, 2023b).

The rising rates of autism and ADHD diagnosis, especially for women, have been widely reported (consider for example Ciccone, 2023; Ghorayashi, 2023; Harmens et al., 2022; Hopkins, 2022; Rudy, 2023; Russell et al., 2023). Some factors include increased awareness of how these conditions present in populations other than that around which diagnostic criteria were initially developed (straight white upper/middle-class boys), as well as changes in diagnostic categories (such as the DSM-5's [2013] shift to include conditions formerly diagnosed as autism, Asperger's, and PDD-NOS under the single umbrella of "autism spectrum disorder") (Garcia, 2022, pp. 3-5). Social media platforms have served as tools for many neurodivergent individuals to seek community, connection, and support in making sense of their experiences, particularly in light of gaps in formalized medical support. These platforms serve as informal spaces to come together to navigate and challenge institutionalized medical rhetorics through creative vernacular responses grounded in lived experiences (Blank & Kitta, 2015).

Scholarship

Within digital rhetorical and disability scholarship, this comic is deeply informed by the work of M. Remi Yergeau (Heilker and Yergeau, 2011; Yergeau, 2011; Yergeau et al., 2013; Yergeau, 2018), work on autistic social media advocacy by Ruth Osorio (2020), Devon Price's Unmasking Autism (2022), and many, many memoirs and self-accounts by neurodivergent individuals from a range of backgrounds (Kim, 2014; Prahlad, 2017; Warman, 2022; May, 2023, Lim, 2023). Specifically regarding neurodivergent expression via comics and visual art, this piece is in conversation with the Sensory anthology (Ollerton, 2022) and Drawing Autism (Mullin 2014), as well as webcomics on autistic and ADHD experiences (such as by @actuallyowltistic, n.d., and @ADHDcouple, n.d.). Concerning using short comics to share lived experiences and advocate for marginalized groups' health and wellbeing, this piece especially builds on the work of The Most Costly Journey (Bennett et al., 2021), Technical Communication Quarterly's special issue on "Comics and Graphic Storytelling in Technical Communication" (Bahl et al., 2020); ImageText's special issue on "Technical Storytelling: Comics and Community" (Slotkin & Gonzales, 2023), and the arts-based research of Sally Pirie (n.d). Stylistically as a life narrative work presented through brightly colored cartoon figures, this piece is especially intended as an homage to Raina Telgemeier's brilliant cartooning and emotional visual storytelling.

Process

This comic was created in Affinity Designer using layered vector art shapes (with solid black outlines—a distinct stylistic departure from my typical bird illustration style in creating anthropomorphic fantasy bird webcomics, intended to reflect a different approach to reflective personal narrative grounded in human embodied experience). The web shell was created in HTML using Atom.io, and adapted from a collaborative webtext co-authored and co-designed with Margaret Price, published in Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, and recipient of the Kairos Best Webtext Award in 2023. Bird illustrations were borrowed from other author-created comics, including Little Yellow Bird (n.d.), "Ashen Cadence" (2023), and another in-progress project. The piece was developed as a set of modular square panels that could be adapted for a number of online formats, including vertical scroll, swipe through, and more traditional page layouts. Reflecting the narrator's evolving understanding of complicated medical diagnostic processes, there's a movement from sharp, hierarchical lines in the field guide image, to zigzags in various (mis)directions, to softer, rounder shapes and swirls in emphasizing communities connecting through lived experiences. As a short digitally generated comic, the format also lends itself to experimentation with multiple access options, including author-read audio plus transcript and short video with images plus audio description. This modularity and accessible design is an attempt to build on the work of the Accessible Comics Collective (2023), as well as to work toward making accessibility an integral part of the design of creative multimodal communication (Bahl and Price 2022; Zdenek, 2018; Butler, 2018).

I would like to especially thank the anonymous peer reviewer for their kind, clear, and through explanation in highlighting key definitional distinctions between neurodiversity and neurodivergence.

A Few (Highly Selective) Works Cited and Informing Sources

Accessible Comics Collective, Longmore Institute. (2023). Innovations in accessible comics for blind & low vision readers. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sd9Le3jmmM&ab_channel=LongmoreInstitute

Actually Owltistic (@actuallyowltistic). (n.d.) Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/actuallyowltistic/

Ingri (@adhd_couple). (n.d.) Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/adhd_couple/

Asta, Catherine. (n.d.). The late discovered club podcast. https://www.podpage.com/the-late-discovered-club/

Bahl, Erin Kathleen. (n.d.). Little Yellow Bird. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/lybcomic/

Bahl, Erin Kathleen. (2023). Ashen cadence. In Collective Panels, Volume 2, edited and compiled by the Storytelling Collective. DriveThruComics. https://www.drivethrucomics.com/product/436566/Collective-Panels--Volume-II

Bahl, Erin Kathleen, Sergio Figueiredo, and Rich Shivener, eds. (2020). Special issue on comics and graphic storytelling in technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly 29(3). https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/htcq20/29/3

Blank, Trevor J. & Kitta, Andrea. (2015). Diagnosing folklore: Perspectives on disability, health, and trauma. University Press of Mississippi.

Bennett, Marek, Andy Kolovos, and Teresa Mares, eds. (2021). The most costly journey/El viaje mas caro: Stories of migrant farmworkers in Vermont drawn by New England cartoonists. Vermont Folklife Center.

Butler, Janine. (2018). Embodied captions in multimodal pedagogies. Composition Forum 39. https://compositionforum.com/issue/39/captions.php

Ciccone, Carla. (2022, 5 September). Coming into focus. Harper’s Bazaar. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a41083545/adhd-in-adult-women/

Dhakar, Lokesh. (n.d.). Lightbox2. https://lokeshdhakar.com/projects/lightbox2/

Garcia, Eric. (2022). We’re not broken: Changing the autism conversation. Harvest Press.

Ghorayashi, Azeen. (2023, April 10). More girls are being diagnosed with autism. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/10/science/autism-rate-girls.html

Harmens, Miriam, Felicity Sedgewick, & Hannah Hobson. (2022). Autistic women’s diagnostic experiences: Interactions with identity and impacts on well-being. Women’s Health 18. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17455057221137477

Heilker, Paul & M. Remi Yergeau. (2011). Autism and rhetoric. College English 73(5), pp. 485-497. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23052337

Hendrickx, Sarah. (2015). Women and girls with autism spectrum disorder: Understanding life experiences from early childhood to old age. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Hopkins, Caroline. (2022, Dec. 17). ADHD in women: Symptoms develop in childhood, but the signs are often missed. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/adhd-women-symptoms-overlooked-rcna60240

How to ADHD (@HowtoADHD). (n.d.) YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@HowtoADHD

Hubrig, Ada (@AdaHubrig). (n.d.). Twitter. https://twitter.com/AdaHubrig

Kim, Cynthia. (2014). Nerdy, shy, and socially inappropriate: A user guide to an Asperger life. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Lim, Hazel. (2023, Apr. 6). Interview with Catherine Asta. The late discovered club podcast. https://www.podpage.com/the-late-discovered-club/episode-15-breaking-barriers/

May, Katherine. (2023, June 20). 220. Why so many women don’t know they are autistic. Interview. We can do hard things with Glennon Doyle. https://momastery.com/blog/we-can-do-hard-things-ep-220/

Mom on the Spectrum (@MomontheSpectrum). (n.d.) YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@MomontheSpectrum

Mullin, Jill. (2014). Drawing autism. Akashic Books.

Neurodadversity. (2022, Aug. 15). What is neurodivergence? Am I neurodiverse? Are you neurodivergent? Neurodiversity explained. Neurodiversity Matters. https://neurodiversitymatters.com/what-is-neurodivergence-am-i-neurodiverse-are-you-neurodivergent-neurodiversity-explained/

Ollerton, Bex, ed. (2022). Sensory: Life on the spectrum: An autistic comics anthology. Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Osorio, Ruth. (2020). I am #ActuallyAutistic, hear me tweet: The autist-topoi of autistic activists on Twitter. enculturation: a journal of writing, rhetoric, and culture. https://enculturation.net/I_Am_ActuallyAutistic

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Prahlad, Anand. (2017). The secret life of a Black Aspie: A memoir. University of Alaska Press.

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Rudy, Melissa. (2023, Apr. 5). ADHD numbers climbing dramatically in the U.S., especially among women: study. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2023/04/05/adhd-numbers-rise-in-the-u-s-especially-among-women-study/

Russell, Jim, Blaine Franklin, Alex Piff, Steve Allen, Eric Barkley. (2023, Mar. 30). Number of ADHD patients rising, especially among women. Epic Research. https://epicresearch.org/articles/number-of-adhd-patients-rising-especially-among-women

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