The Trauma Amplifier (Part 3)
Severity isn’t baked into a neurotype. Autism or ADHD may be the baseline but trauma, environment, and other factors amplify challenges. What we call 'severe' often says more about the world’s wounds than about the person’s brain.
In Part 1, I explored why neurotypical doesn’t exist. In Part 2, we looked at how the idea of ‘normal’ was invented to serve industry and control. Now in Part 3, I want to ask why do we see such different levels of severity or disability within the same neurotype?
What if this was’t down to the neurotypical itself? What if it was because of trauma, environment, or other genetic factors?
Research by Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, shows that autism can exist as a baseline profile but often coincides with other conditions, such as delayed speech. He argues that much of the struggle in autism comes not from lack of intelligence, but from communication differences: things like reading unpredictable facial expressions or navigating the hidden rules of conversation. At the same time, autistic people are often highly equipped for pattern recognition, system building and creative invention. As Baron-Cohen notes, being non-speaking doesn’t mean lacking intelligence, it means needing different forms or support and expression.
This view is echoed by autistic scholar Nick Walker, who frames neurodivergence as a natural form of human variation rather than pathology. The baseline isn’t the problem, it’s the world’s refusal to accommodate difference.
We also know from research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (Felitti et al., 1998) that trauma profoundly amplifies difficulties across every domain of life, from physical health to mental health to social functioning. Higher ACE scores are linked to higher risk of disability, illness and emotional struggles. So when a child with a sensitive of system-building neurotype faces chronic stress, neglect, or exclusion, it’s no surprise that their ‘symptoms’ become more visible and severe.
So what about ‘severity’? This is where trauma and environment come in. Severity can be shaped by:
- Societal trauma - exclusion, stigma, discrimination
- Social trauma - bullying, rejection, isolation
- Interpersonal/emotional trauma - family dynamics, neglect, abuse
- Physical/environmental trauma - illness, poor nutrition, pollution, overstimulation
- Chemical/biological trauma - stress in pregnancy, deficiencies, genetic vulnerabilities
Maybe the question isn’t whether autism (or any neurotype) exists on a scale of severity. Maybe it’s that autism is the base and the challenges we call ‘severe’ emerge when trauma, environment and other factors stack on top of it.
The myth is that neurotypes themselves cause dysfunction. The truth is that trauma and environment decide how loudly those challenges show up.
In Part 4, I’ll dig deeper into the Pathology Paradigm - the idea that society divides us into ‘normal’ and ‘defective’ - and how this framework fuels shame, stigma and control.
References
Baron-Cohen, S. (2008). Autism and Asperger Syndrome. Oxford University Press.
Walker, N. (2014). Neurodiversity: Some Basic Terms & Definitions. Available at: https://neuroqueer.com/neurodiversity-terms-and-definitions
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.
