Six Things Every Neurotypical Should Know
If there is one new-to-me thing about autism that I want everyone to consider, it is monotropism. If there are six things that I want everyone to know about monotropism, they are these six things from Fergus Murray.
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Coping with multiple channels is hard This can be sensory channels or other information streams.
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Filtering is tricky and error-prone Sometimes I can’t tune things out, other times I filter them out completely.
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Changing tracks is destabilising Task-switching is hard, and new plans take work.
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I often experience things intensely Usually things that relate to my concerns and interests.
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I keep looping back to my interests and concerns It’s hard to let things drop.
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Other things that drop out of my awareness tend to stay dropped I may need reminders.
There should be a wallet-sized card of these six things for neurotypicals who interact with autistics to carry around with them.
These six things are not useful just when thinking about autism writ large. In some way, every single one of them likely factors into any conversation you’ll ever have with me, whether you can see them happening or not.