SOMA Neurodiversity Community Network
​The SOMA Neurodiversity Community Network, or SNCN, is a resource to connect neurodivergent community members of South Orange and Maplewood to one another and to bridge the gap between neurodivergent and neurotypical community members.​
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SNCN enhances visibility and understanding of neurodivergence and neurodiversity in SOMA through providing opportunities for neurodivergent community members to share their experiences with one another and through providing a platform for self advocacy.
Sensory Experience
Thoughts resulting from information taken in from the five senses; touch, smell, tase, sound and/or sight.
Neurotypical
Relating to or showing cognitive functioning that aligns with sociocultural norms and expectations. Neurotypical individuals tend to have sensory experiences, internal processing, communication and behavioral habits that are considered standard or the default.
Ableism
Systems, actions, and attitudes that hold non-disabled individuals as ideal and disabled individuals as less than. Ableism marginalizes, devalues, and excludes those with disabilities and intersects with other forms of systemic oppression, disproportionately affecting disabled individuals from marginalized communities.
Cognitive Processes
The mental processes that establish knowledge and understanding through thought.
Neurodivergent
Relating to or showing cognitive functioning that departs from neurotypical. A neurodivergent person has sensory experiences, internal processing, communication and/or behavioral habits that distinguish them from what is socioculturally expected. Including cognitive variations diagnosed as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia as well as those without specific diagnosis, neurodivergence is a type of invisible disability.
Invisible Disability
A disability that is not immediately apparent to others but impacts the disabled person's lived experience. Because invisible disabilities are not always recognized, accommodations are rarely provided.
Patterns of Behavior & Communication
Recurring or habitual actions and mannerisms including those involved in method and manner of conveying information.
Neurodiversity
Coined by Australian sociologist Judy Singer, this concept acknowledges the reality that people experience, process, and engage with the world in a variety of ways rejecting the idea of a singularly "correct" cognitive functioning.
Neurodiversity Affirming
Validating of both neurotypical AND neurodivergent experiences; particularly, engaging with neurodivergent experiences as valid rather than something to be "fixed" or "overcome."