What’s Your Broccoli?

“Broccoli Neurons?”

I wanted to share something I learned about in a psychology class I took which helped me to understand neurological differences in people, and helped me to understand and comes to terms with (and not feel ashamed) about having autism spectrum disoder. And I will admit that I was very upset for a long time after having been diagnosed (at the time with Asperger’s Syndrome, now just called Autism Spectrum Disorder).

In my psychology class, we learned about someone who had a brain injury. And after the brain injury, he was completely unaffected, except for his ability to recognize broccoli. The only thing the injury affected was that you could show him a piece of broccoli and he could not identify what it was. So there is literally some part of the brain that is able to recognize a piece of broccoli, and if that “neuron” or whatever it is, is injured, you can lose that very super specific cognitive ability to recognize broccoli.

So just think about all the things you can do that your brain and your neurological “equipment” enables you to do. Whether it is talking to other people, writing, doing arithmetic or calculus, speaking, singing, walking, taking in sensory information and interpreting it, all the physical and mental actions required in playing a sport or performing a task, the ability to process time, to follow the steps in a task, eating, listening. All of these things have specific parts of your brain and nervous system which facilitate your ability to do all those things. In some people, certain parts of the brain or nervous system are either wired differently, or maybe damaged, or affected by some kind of environmental interaction, for whatever reason, people have different neurological setups. Some abilities might be super advanced in some people, and in others they might be diminished, or maybe overactive and sensitive, or not well developed. But for whatever reason, people have different parts of their brain and nervous system that are not what would be considered “normal” or “average” or “neurotypical”.

And this isn’t something to be ashamed of, or embarassed by. It is just something to recognize. We are set up differently neurologically, and we just have to find ways to understand and identify what we have trouble with, and see if we can develop ways to either compensate for those differences, or look for support from others who can help us overcome the difficulties we have in those areas.

Some people on the autism spectrum can live independently without any special support. While others need some supports, and others need a lot of support with absolutely everything. It all depends on how much the neurological differences affect each person, and in what ways, and to determine what someone can do with their neurological makeup, and what sort of assistance or outside support is necessary for that particular person.