Neurodivergent glossary
Cognitive Load
The total amount of mental effort being used in working memory at any given moment—often higher for neurodivergent people navigating systems designed for neurotypical brains.
What it means
Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental processing your brain is handling at any given time. Everyone has a limited capacity, but for neurodivergent people, the baseline load is often higher because tasks that are automatic for neurotypical brains require conscious effort.
Consider a simple meeting: a neurotypical person might just listen and respond. An autistic person might be simultaneously processing sensory input, monitoring their facial expressions, interpreting social cues that don't come naturally, suppressing stims, and managing anxiety—all while trying to follow the actual content. The "same" meeting is a fundamentally different cognitive experience.
This is why neurodivergent people can be exhausted by activities that seem effortless to others. It's not about stamina or attitude—it's about how much invisible processing is happening behind the scenes. Reducing cognitive load through accommodations, routine, and environmental control isn't laziness. It's smart resource management.
In practice
What this can look like
- After a day of navigating social interactions, processing fluorescent lighting, and suppressing stims at work, you get home and can't even decide what to eat. Your cognitive load has been at maximum all day—there's nothing left.
- You need complete silence to do math that other people can do with music playing. The math itself isn't harder for you—but the sensory filtering uses bandwidth that other brains get for free.
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