Opposite view
For De Bruin, conducting interviews is not new. He had already applied this method in a study on the shifting self-image of patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a condition that affects the central nervous system in the brain and spinal cord. “A key finding of that study was that many interviewees wanted to be seen as an individual, regardless of their condition. For many neurodivergent students, the opposite is true: they indicate that it is important for them to be able to identify with their autism, for example. Being able to say ‘I am autistic’ provides them with an identity. Whereas MS patients mainly label their condition as negative, neurodivergent students reported also experiencing positive aspects of their diagnosis.”
As an example, De Bruin cites hyperfocus and something known as ‘stimming’: wiggling movements that people with autism make to relax. Furthermore, some students mention that their neurodivergence diagnosis opened doors that would otherwise have remained closed to them. “Without that diagnosis, they probably would have had to adapt to the environment to such an extent that they would not have been able to study at a university,” De Bruin explains. “Somehow, it is a pity that they need this label to be able to get understanding and the right support. But by being open about it, they can make sure their needs are taken into account at, say, a university.”
Still appropriate for everyone?
According to De Bruin, who is neurodivergent himself, the interviews are also an opportunity to think out loud about how we design our educational environment. “Is it actually normal for students to experience pressure because they only have two hours to complete an exam, for example? And is it effective teaching to have five hundred students sit in a lecture hall, with so much sensory stimuli? We do these things because we agreed to a long time ago. But we rarely ask ourselves whether everyone is comfortable with this form. The same applies to socio-cultural norms: these are things we as humans agreed on a long time ago, so now we think a person is abnormal if they deviate from them. But are these norms actually appropriate for everyone?”
These are precisely the kinds of questions that De Bruin is interested in pondering. At Radboud University, he does so in a Neurodiversity Special Interest Group, which will soon also be devoting attention to neurodivergent lecturers. So far, he has received several responses to his audio interviews. “Although many of the listeners are not neurodivergent, they indicate that they still recognise themselves in many aspects of the students interviewed. The interviews show how neurodivergent students, despite various struggles, find their way in life. And in the process, they go through developments that can affect their identity. I recently interviewed a student who switched gender and they talked about how doing so affected their identification as autistic. This person had become much more outgoing and expressive as a result. For me, that shows that these stories can help us to get a richer and fuller understanding of a person.”
For his series, Léon de Bruin interviewed a number of students in Dutch, and some in English. Are you curious about their life stories? Listen to the interviews.
