In psychiatry, mental dysfunction is typically framed in relation to models that seek to be continuous with physiology or evolutionary biology and that compare individual fitness to a broader functional norm. Proponents of the neurodiversity movement, however, challenge the pathologization of minority cognitive styles and argue that we should reframe neurocognitive diversity as a normal and healthy manifestation of biodiversity. Neurodiversity proponents have thus far drawn on social-relational models of disability to challenge the medical model of disability, but they have not developed an alternative functional analysis to replace conceptions of neurological dysfunction or impairment. Here I clarify and defend the neurodiversity perspective by drawing on ecological functional models that take relational contributions to collectives, and group functioning, into account alongside individual functionality. Using the example of autism as well as recent developments in the study of cognitive diversity, I apply these models to human mental functioning and argue that what I call the ecological model has greater utility for research and practice than the leading psychiatric functional analyses of mental functioning.

在精神病学中，精神功能障碍通常与寻求与生理学或进化生物学连续的模型相关联，并将个体适应性与更广泛的功能规范进行比较。然而，神经多样性运动的支持者挑战少数认知风格的病态化，并认为我们应该将神经认知多样性重新定义为生物多样性的正常和健康表现。迄今为止，神经多样性的支持者已经利用残疾的社会关系模型来挑战残疾的医学模型，但他们还没有开发出另一种功能分析来取代神经功能障碍或损伤的概念。在这里，我通过利用对集体做出相关贡献的生态功能模型来阐明和捍卫神经多样性的观点，和组功能，与个人功能一起考虑。以自闭症为例以及认知多样性研究的最新进展，我将这些模型应用于人类心理功能，并认为我所谓的生态模型比领先的心理功能分析更适用于研究和实践.