Who Gets to Define “Good” Communication?

Every culture creates rules around communication, but very few people ever stop to ask where those rules came from or who they were built to serve. Most of what gets called “good communication” in workplaces, schools, healthcare settings, and public life is not universal human behavior. It is a culturally specific, neurotypical template that privileges speed, spontaneity, immediate verbal response, emotional neutrality, and the ability to think and speak at the same time. These expectations are so normalized that they often go unnoticed. Yet they shape everything from hiring decisions to classroom participation to medical appointments to social belonging. And they quietly exclude neurodivergent people every day.

Autistic and ADHD communication styles often look different because our nervous systems process information differently. Many autistic people need time to think before responding, need clarity rather than implication, and rely on direct language to stay regulated and present. Many ADHD people communicate through associative thinking, nonlinear storytelling, rapid idea generation, and emotional immediacy. These patterns are not deficits. They are expressions of a different cognitive rhythm. But because institutions treat one style as the default, neurodivergent communication is routinely misinterpreted as rude, excessive, flat, confusing, or unprofessional.

The idea of “good communication” becomes a form of control when only one style is allowed to count.