Talk:Neurodevelopmental disorder

Empirical failures.

I generally feel uneasy when a class of very complicated, very broad issues is reduced to, rather pre-emptively so, presumed but not actually proven mechanisms.

The article reads; "NDDs are a group of mental disorders causatively related to atypical development of the nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord."

There is no clear proof nor really any coherent testing involved that would reliably show neurodevelopmental abnormality as the cause of things like ADHD or learning disabilities. Even for intellectual disability, clear cause on a developmental level can only be established in 50 % of all cases. ID/DD can also happen due to social deprivation and similarly, social rather than neurological processes. I'm aware this is the definition given by the APA although I'm less certain about the DSM. It has been acknowledged by some that rebranding developmental disorders into neurodevelopmental ones lacks any scientific argumentation, instead being motivated by financial and industrial interests, e.g. notably the pharmaceutical industry.

Continuing: "All of these disorders and their levels of impairment exist on a spectrum, and affected individuals can experience varying degrees of symptoms and deficits, despite having the same diagnosis."

The sentence may be struck because I presume, really expect, that it should be generally known, that most diagnoses cover both a full presentation and minimal ones.

Continuing: Neurodevelopmental disorders can be managed with behavioral therapy, applied behavior analysis (ABA), educational interventions, specific medications, and other such treatments. The source is linked to private interest groups, making it biased.

The article goes on to list possible causes, including trisomy 21, which is falsely stated to constitute a neurodevelopmental disorder of its own. It's not.

Elsewhere, the referenced sources are often unsure about what to define as "neurodevelopmental", surprisingly enough there is little or no coherence in what things are counted as neurodevelopmental and the DSM-5 definition is not legally binding. Source [69], in example, limits neurodevelopmental disabilities to developmental delay (fuzzy term), autism (but only infantile autism is actually accounted for in the source), intellectual disability, and curiously enough, congenital deformities.

Confirmatores (talk) 23:19, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

NDD as mental disorders

@Confirmatores has changed the first sentence to say:

"Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of mental disorders thought to be causatively related to atypical development of the nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord."

The WP:CITED source is:

• "Neurodevelopmental disorder". EBSCO Research Starters: Health and Medicine. EBSCO Information Services. Retrieved 2026-07-10.

Nothing in this source says that NDDs are mental disorders (e.g., Major depressive disorder or Anxiety disorder). The source instead says "Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are impairments caused by abnormal development of the brain or central nervous system."

The claim that NDDs are "mental disorders" has {{failed verification}}. Additionally, I can't find a reliable source that supports this. For example, searching Google Books for the quoted phrase "neurodevelopmental disorders are" (to see what various sources say they are) found a variety of descriptions (e.g., "are rare", "are characterized by develop- mental deficits of the central nervous system", "are best characterized as falling along a spectrum", "are heterogeneous and can range in severity", "are important conditions for all clinicians to be aware of").

The DSM-V does not describe them as mental disorders; instead, the DSM opens its chapter on NDDs by saying that "The neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of conditions with onset in the developmental period. The disorders typically manifest early in development, often before the child enters grade school, and are characterized by developmental deficits that produce impairments of personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning." They go on to specify that NDDs can result from "an acquired insult during the developmental period", so it is not necessary to be lifelong.

ICD-11 says "Neurodevelopmental disorders are behavioural and cognitive disorders that arise during the developmental period that involve significant difficulties in the acquisition and execution of specific intellectual, motor, language, or social functions". It does not say that they are mental disorders.

Google Scholar finds just two sources (one book and one a master's thesis) that say "Neurodevelopmental disorders are mental disorders". At the very most, we could call that a minority POV (where "minority" means "a single-digit number of authors"), but we cannot have that POV be in the MOS:FIRST sentence.

We need to change this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:04, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Iztwoz, you did a lot of work on this article a couple of years ago. Do you have any suggestions? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Sorry WAID for delayed response - Have just reworded early lead hope that covers things.? Iztwoz (talk) 07:42, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

It's good from my pov. Confirmatores (talk) 08:34, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

@Iztwoz, it's better than saying they're mental disorders, but I don't think it fairly represents the cited source. The cited source says "Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are conditions that arise from atypical development of the brain or central nervous system...", and the new wording says that "Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are a group of disorders listed in [a book]". This is a significantly different focus, and the wording makes it sound like the DSM category itself is the subject of this article, rather than the disorders.

We normally take that "it's a thing in one source" approach only for altmed and other contested/disproven subjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Neurodevelopmental disorders are, by definition, mental disorders. Absolutely unclear to me why this guy keeps insisting they're not.

The DSM-V's description of the NDDS does not suggest, in any meaningful way, that we're not dealing with mental disorders. What it suggests is that NDDs, besides being mental disorders, also fulfill criteria of being developmental disorders. However, again, developmental disorders does not specify cause nor nature of the subsumed disorders.

c.f. "ICD-11 says "Neurodevelopmental disorders are behavioural and cognitive disorders that arise during the developmental period that involve significant difficulties in the acquisition and execution of specific intellectual, motor, language, or social functions"

The described difficulties, by definition, are mental difficulties, hence mental disorders.

c.f but we cannot have that POV be in the MOS:FIRST sentence.

1. There is no relevant consensus that neurodevelopmental disorders have a known as opposed to a suspected neurological cause.

2. The article as it stands now already reflects the majority consensus without introducing factually false claims e.g. claiming that neurodevelopmental disorders have BEEN shown to involve abnormal development of the nervous system. Confirmatores (talk) 09:16, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

If NDDs are mental disorders by definition, then you should easily be able to find multiple high-quality reliable sources that provide this as a definition, using words remarkably similar to "NDDs are mental disorders". In the absence of sources that say this, then we cannot have the first sentence start with "Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of mental disorders".

The only thing I want to talk about in this section is whether or not this article should use the words mental disorders (or any of its near-synonyms, such as mental illnesses or mental conditions) to describe NDDs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Sources: DSM-5/ICD.

Question: If NDDs aren't mental disorders, what are they? Neurological diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's?

Question 2: If NDDs are diseases of the nervous system, 1. why aren't they usually progressive, 2. why wouldn't the ensuing severe mental and cognitive issues not qualify them as mental disorders? Confirmatores (talk) 16:27, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Neither the DSM-V nor the ICD use the exact words "mental disorders" to describe NDDs.

For the purpose of this problem, it doesn't matter what NDDs are. What matters here is which words are used in MEDRS-quality sources to complete the sentence "Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of ______". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Please, stop making up arbitrary definitions or introducing idiosyncratic notions into articles.

Neurodevelopmental disorders are, by definition, mental disorders. This is explicitly defined in the DSM-5 and ICD and I will NOT spoonfeed the relevant bits to you.

(Personal attack removed) Confirmatores (talk) 20:57, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

I've read the DSM-5 and ICD-11 descriptions, and I don't see a single word in there that supports your claim. We have no source that says Neurodevelopmental disorders are, by definition, mental disorders. If you want that to be in the article, then the WP:BURDEN is on you to produce at least one reliable source that Wikipedia:Directly supports the claim. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:17, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Since we're not making any progress, I've asked for a Wikipedia:Third opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:51, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

I was unable to find a definition of a neurodevelopmental disorder as an mental disorder in DSM-5 and ICD. I do believe that as such, the burden would fall onto the person who wished to make the change to the article, i.e. @Confirmatores. Also, it can be tempting to appeal to nature and say that neurodevelopmental disorders are by definition mental disorders, but unless provided with a specific citation, I would be for @WhatamIdoing's proposal to change the relevant portion. Also, lets try and keep things civil. Mentioning an editor's prior history is not a very constructive way to critique the issues that they are raising in the moment. - Otherwise (Antibacklog Aktion!) (talk?) 21:43, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

The Google Scholar search for a particular sentence fragment is not really a good indicator for whether something is a mainstream opinion. A better search with Boolean operators does render more sources which describe NDDs as mental disorders, at least implicitly:

• Augustine, Lilly; Lygnegård, Frida; Granlund, Mats (2022-04-24). "Trajectories of participation, mental health, and mental health problems in adolescents with self-reported neurodevelopmental disorders". Disability and Rehabilitation. 44 (9): 1595–1608. doi:10.1080/09638288.2021.1955304. ISSN 0963-8288. Retrieved 2026-08-01.

"Being diagnosed with NDD (a mental disorder) does not necessarily include having a mental illness or mental health problems."

• Fraga González, Gorka; Karipidis, Iliana I.; Tijms, Jurgen (2018-10-19). "Dyslexia as a Neurodevelopmental Disorder and What Makes It Different from a Chess Disorder". Brain Sciences. 8 (10): 189. doi:10.3390/brainsci8100189. ISSN 2076-3425. PMC 6209961. PMID 30347764.

"First, what constitutes a disorder? According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning [...] Furthermore, in DSM-5, neurodevelopmental disorders (which encompass specific learning disorders) are considered a group of conditions with onset in the developmental period, typically early in development, before the child enters school, and are characterized by developmental deficits that produce impairments of personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning."

• Durukan, İbrahim; Kara, Koray; Almbaideen, Mahmoud; Karaman, Dursun; Gül, Hesna (2018). "Alexithymia, depression and anxiety in parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorder: Comparative study of autistic disorder, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified and attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder". Pediatrics International. 60 (3): 247–253. doi:10.1111/ped.13510. ISSN 1328-8067. Retrieved 2026-08-01.

"Also as in AD, mothers have a higher risk of state and trait anxiety in this group. In clinical practice, an important predictor of child mental health service utilization is parental stress or perceived burden of the child's mental disorder."

Other articles describe certain unambiguous neurodevelopmental disorders, like ADHD, as mental disorders:

• Mayes, Rick; Bagwell, Catherine; Erkulwater, Jennifer L. (2009-01-31). Medicating Children: ADHD and Pediatric Mental Health. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03163-0. Retrieved 2026-08-01.

"Why and how did ADHD become the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder among children and adolescents, as well as one of the most controversial?"

• Mayes, Rick; Bagwell, Catherine; Erkulwater, Jennifer (2008). "ADHD and the Rise in Stimulant Use Among Children". Harvard Review of Psychiatry. 16 (3): 151–166. doi:10.1080/10673220802167782. ISSN 1067-3229. Retrieved 2026-08-01.

"Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) holds the distinction of being the most extensively studied pediatric mental disorder..."

• Brinkmann, Svend (2016). "Toward a cultural psychology of mental disorder: The case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder". Culture & Psychology. 22 (1): 80–93. doi:10.1177/1354067X15621485. ISSN 1354-067X. Retrieved 2026-08-01.

"I begin by introducing a case of a person who has been diagnosed with a mental disorder (ADHD)..."

I suppose that there are not likely to be many sources which make the set inclusion explicit because it is probably just assumed to be a basic implication: neurodevelopmental implies mental. Is cheese an organic substance? Of course, but why would any source come out and say that? wound theology◈ 11:32, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

@Wound theology, how would you use that approach to discover whether it's the mainstream/dominant position that all NDDs are "mental disorders"? A non-MEDRS source about ADHD doesn't verify anything about NDDs as a whole; ADHD could be a mental disorder without other NDDs, such as tics, being a mental disorder. (For clarity: none of these are WP:MEDRS-quality sources. If we're going to put this in the article, we do actually need a MEDRS-quality source that we can cite for this claim.)

Additionally, have you considered whether that language will be understood by anyone reading it? Consider the very fine distinction they make in the sentence "NDD (a mental disorder) does not necessarily include having a mental illness or mental health problems". Mental illness and Mental health problem are both redirects to Mental disorder. To the ordinary person, that sentence reads as "NDD (a foo) does not necessarily include having a foo or a foo", which is illogical. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

First, sources about ADHD as a mental disorder do say something about NDDs as a whole, it shows that some NDDs are mental disorders: $N\subset M\Rightarrow \exists x\in N,M$. Proving the right hand side or the proposition itself does not prove the left hand side, but it does add supporting evidence in combination with the other sources.

These sources demonstrate terminology and how it is actually used, ultimately this is a discussion of semantics. Whether neurodevelopmental disorders are classified as mental disorders is an issue of classification which has little (if any) bearing on how such disorders are actually treated.

Confirmatores (talk · contribs) has argued that neurodevelopmental disorders are mental disorders by definition. According to policy, definitions are WP:NOTBMI and WP:MEDRS therefore does not apply.

Further, basic calculatuon does not count as WP:OR per WP:CALC and I assume this holds for syllogisms; if it were a meaningful reflection of the sources that cheese is organic then I doubt we would need a source outright stating that. wound theology◈ 01:43, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

What has to be proved here is not "All cheese is organic". What's being proposed here is the equivalent of "Since some people eat cheese and cheese is organic, then chalk is organic, too, because some people eat chalk". We need a source that WP:Directly supports the alleged definition. AFAICT the only support for this, other than one editor's personal beliefs, amounts to "It's called Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, so everything in it is a 'mental disorder', right?"

We either need to (a) not claim that all NDDs are mental disorders or (b) have a source that directly defines all NDDs as mental disorders. Actually, for the first sentence, we need to have a preponderance of sources showing that it's the mainstream POV that all NDDs are mental disorders. And so far, nobody's finding any evidence that this is the normal, typical, ordinary way to describe these conditions. Consider, e.g., this source:

"In this review, neurological disorders include Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease, tension-type headache, migraine, idiopathic epilepsy, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and idiopathic developmental intellectual disability; mental disorders include major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, dysthymia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and conduct disorder; and substance use disorders include opioid use disorders, cocaine use disorders, amphetamine use disorders, cannabis use disorders, and alcohol use disorders."

This is based on https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00757-8/fulltext, which is apparently the definitions used for the Global Burden of Disease Study. This is not an unimportant POV, and it directly contradicts the claim that autism and ADHD are best described as mental disorders/aren't neurological disorders. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:42, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Regarding: (b) have a source that directly defines all NDDs as mental disorders

-> DSM-5/ICD, authoritative manuals for the NDDs.

Regarding: "And so far, nobody's finding any evidence that this is the normal, typical, ordinary way to describe these conditions"

C.f. DSM-5/ICD.

The cited source: "Global prevalence and disability burden of brain disorders: Impact of neurological, mental, and substance use disorders" clearly states that IT chose to classify ADHD and autism as neurological rather than mental disorders. This has no bearing on the actual classification.

The Global Burden of Disease Study is an economic and not a psychological/psychiatric measure. Confirmatores (talk) 22:38, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@Confirmatores, what we're missing here is any evidence that the DSM-5 or any of the ICDs (which one?) actually use the term mental disorder. For example:

• Source: DSM-5
  • Page number: 31
  • Key quotation: "The neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of conditions with onset in the developmental period. The disorders typically manifest early in development, often before the child enters grade school, and are characterized by developmental deficits that produce impairments of personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning."
    • Does this page contain the term mental disorder anywhere on it? N No.
• Source: ICD-11
  • URL: https://icd.who.int/browse/2026-01/mms/en#1516623224
  • Key quotation: "Neurodevelopmental disorders are behavioural and cognitive disorders that arise during the developmental period that involve significant difficulties in the acquisition and execution of specific intellectual, motor, language, or social functions."
    • Does this description contain the term mental disorder anywhere in it? N No.

If we want to make the claim that the subject of this article is a Mental disorder, then we need a source for that claim. The DSM-5 is not an adequate source for this claim, because the DSM-5 N does not say that NDDs are mental disorders. Similarly, the ICD-11 is not an adequate source for this claim, because the ICD-11 N does not say that NDDs are mental disorders.

I do not think this is a complex point. If you want to have that claim in this article, then you need to find a source that uses words identical or very similar to "Neurodevelopmental disorders are mental disorders". You need to stop waving vaguely at the DSM-5 and ICD-11 because they do not claim that NDDs are mental disorders. NB that the goal here is a source that "says" it, and not merely one that you believe "should say" it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:47, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

You're resistant to information even when it is directly spoonfed to you. You don't engage with the previous arguments introduced by me and others which clearly show that NDDs are mental disorders. Confirmatores (talk) 18:28, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I have no interest in "arguments". I only care about "reliable sources". Specifically, if you want to convince me that you're right at the DSM and ICD consider NDDs to be "mental disorders", then I need you to provide a direct quotation from those sources that uses the exact term "mental disorder", or one very similar to it.

You have not done this. You have claimed that these sources WP:Directly support your belief, but you have not shown that your claim is true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:49, 4 August 2026 (UTC)