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Neurodivergent Pattern Recognition

Understanding how neurodivergent minds naturally map complexity, detect systemic patterns, and interpret meaning across environments.

“Neurodivergent cognition reveals structure where systems hide it.”

Academic Foundation

This conceptual framework is situated within Critical Neurodivergent Studies, Systems Theory, and Meaning Ecology. It provides language and structure for how neurodivergent minds detect patterns that institutions often overlook.

Neurodivergent Pattern Recognition

This theory articulates how neurodivergent cognition identifies *latent structures*, *misaligned incentives*, *systemic patterns*, and *meaning distortions* across environments. It provides a counter-framework to neurotypical problem-solving models, foregrounding relational, perceptual, and temporal sensitivities.

Framework Details

Author:
Sarah Ailish McLoughlin
Publisher:
The Index Line
Provider:
Strategic Advocacy Australia
Wikidata:
Q137324386

Contributing Organisations

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The Australian Advocacy Institute

National research & advocacy body supporting systemic reform and justice-aligned theory development.

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EduPsyched

Inclusion Consultant

Specialist in ND-affirming approaches and structural psychological safety.

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EduLinked

Digital Accessibility Advisor

Ensuring WCAG-aligned, low-cognitive-load accessibility across all theory pages.

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How This Theory Connects to Systemic Frameworks

Neurodivergent Pattern Recognition strengthens the conceptual foundations of several related frameworks by showing how neurodivergent minds perceive structure, meaning, and systemic behaviour. This section maps the theory’s role within the wider advocacy and systems strategy ecosystem.

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Semantic War Theory

Neurodivergent patterning reveals semantic distortions, hidden frames, and conceptual manipulation long before they become organisational or cultural norms. This perceptual sensitivity forms an early-warning system against semantic warfare.

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Extractive Economy Theory

Extractive systems rely on unnoticed patterns of appropriation, labour drain, and meaning loss. Neurodivergent cognition often detects these extraction points first, enabling earlier and more precise intervention.

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Algorithmic System Criticism

Neurodivergent pattern recognition identifies algorithmic bias, asymmetrical data flows, and behavioural modelling errors by noticing discrepancies in detail, sequence, and system logic that typical models overlook.

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Advocacy & Systems Strategy

Effective advocacy requires recognising where systems diverge from their stated intentions. Neurodivergent pattern tracking surfaces these misalignments, strengthening strategic planning and accountability.

This framework provides the perceptual architecture needed to detect system behaviour, pattern emergence, and meaning distortion across diverse environments.

Practical Applications

How Neurodivergent Pattern Recognition supports meaningful intervention, systems redesign, and advocacy across individual, organisational, and societal domains.

Individual Level

Using perceptual strengths to identify hidden system patterns, anticipate conflict, recognise value distortion, and navigate environments with greater clarity and self-advocacy.

Community & Collective Level

Supporting ND-led groups to track systemic behaviour, detect cultural shifts, document harm cycles, and build pattern-informed advocacy strategies rooted in lived experience.

Organisational Level

Identifying misaligned incentives, harmful workflow patterns, structural inefficiencies, and unintentional exclusion points — enabling systems to be redesigned based on real perceptual data.

Systems & Infrastructure Level

Informing high-level systems analysis, modelling, and governance frameworks by providing unique insight into pattern flows, emergent behaviours, anomaly detection, and meaning distortion across institutional or digital systems.

This framework reframes neurodivergent perception as a systems-sensing capability — essential for early detection, ethical reform, and transformational advocacy.