Explore how monotropism shapes Autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD attention. Dispelling myths, uncovering research and exploring why neuroaffirming support matters for our wellbeing.| Autistic Realms
SPACE-TIME: A Monotropism-Informed Neuroaffirming Framework for Autistic People| Autistic Realms
Learn how monotropism differs from polytropism, plus research showing ADHDers and AuDHDers score higher on the Monotropism Questionnaire.| Autistic Realms
Journey from Autistic Realms into More Realms—where neuro-affirming support meets creative, sensory, and neuroqueer explorations of other ways of being.| Autistic Realms
Glimmers are small, powerful moments of Autistic joy that emerge when we’re deeply immersed in what matters to us. Learn how monotropism & flow create space for joy in an overwhelming world. #AutisticJoy #Glimmers #monotropism| Autistic Realms
A practical guide for Autistic parents and carers to support energy flow, sensory regulation, and family balance through the summer holidays| Autistic Realms
Autistic burnout recovery often means going deeper into flow, not switching off. Find out about reclaiming rest through monotropic focus, spiral time, and m ...| Autistic Realms
Mingling with the Universe" exploring Autistic meaning-making as sensory, felt, and more-than-human, where solitude becomes connection, and the world speaks in textures, rhythms, and resonance. It’s not about escaping, it’s about finding belonging otherwise.| Autistic Realms
Exploring masking and unmasking: reclaiming our monotropic attentional resources, reconnecting with ourselves and community| Autistic Realms
An exploration of moss and monotropic ways of being. An invitation to slow down, sink in, and reconnect through sensory depth and shared presence in liminal spaces.| Autistic Realms
Restorying is how we reclaim our Autistic voices, honour our ways of knowing, and build futures rooted in connection, not correction.| Autistic Realms
Written by Chantell Marshall aka Shy Little Pixie Imagine you are watching a highly anticipated movie at the cinema: You […] The post Transitioning Autistically: A Case of Can’t, Not Won’t appeared first on Reframing Autism.| Reframing Autism
Written by Alex* “She laid alone during her best days as a work of art reading naked on the bed […] The post Autistic Inertia: Stranded in the Moment appeared first on Reframing Autism.| Reframing Autism
Written by Amy Adams Each of us experience the world, at least in part, through our senses. Sensory processing is […] The post Hypersensitive, Hyperfocused and Ready for ‘Hijack’: An Autistic Experience of Sensory Anxiety appeared first on Reframing Autism.| Reframing Autism
“Art opens up space for healing and a way of reclaiming your own narrative". Letting go of how we should rest or should work opens up a pathway towards restorative flow.| Autistic Realms
For those of you who are visual thinkers, it may be helpful to imagine the executive functions as senior staff responsible for managing a large company. Senior staff delegate and plan tasks for a business, in a similar way to how executive functioning skills enable us as individuals to plan, organise and ultimately carry out our day-to-day activities. EF skills include far more than planning and organising, some of which I will elaborate on below: The post Beyond Awareness: Exploring Your ...| Stimpunks Foundation
About Viv Dawes I am late identified AuDHD with a PDA profile. I am a lived experience author, trainer and consultant and originally trained as an artist in the 1980s. As well as my work as an author and trainer I am a keen photographer. Thinking about how deep attention tunnels can be like a […] The post Attention tunnel wombs first appeared on Stimpunks Foundation.| Stimpunks Foundation
Memory may not be linear for neurodivergent people. It may feel like a spiral of felt sensations. Being monotropic shapes how I re-sense moments, navigating echoes and threads of sensory experiences rather than always recalling events.| Autistic Realms
Rest can become a radical act in a world that often equates our worth with productivity, especially for Autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people navigating the tides of burnout, where even our ways of resting may look different.| Autistic Realms
The Map of Monotropic Experiences: Reframing Autism Through A Neurodiversity-Affirming Lens Training for Professionals, Families and Community Groups to Sup ...| Autistic Realms
Autistic/ADHD people are more likely to be monotropic and resonate with the theory of monotropism. Dinah Murray, Wenn Lawson, and Mike Lesser developed the theory of monotropism in the late 1990s. It is typically described as a neuro-affirming theory of Autism, but I think it is also a temporal mode. I am considering whether being […]| Autistic Realms
Monotropic Time: A Different Rhythm If you are Autistic, ADHD, or AuDHD, time may not feel like a straight line, and you may feel you are constantly battling against the time on the clock. Your internal perception of time may feel more like a spiral, looping, stretching, expanding and contracting, sometimes speeding up and other […]| Autistic Realms
Be Curious Having worked in Early Years SEND settings for over twenty years, one recurring concern I sometimes heard from parents and carers was that their child seemed to be “going backwards” or “regressing.” It may have looked like the child was losing previously learnt skills such as speech and language, fine or gross motor […]| Autistic Realms
Dwelling in Resonance: Monotropism, Monotropic Time, Spirals & Neuroqueer Temporalities “Lodged in all is a set metronome” – (W. H. Auden, 1969 – from the poem In Due Season) Consider if you’re Autistic/ ADHD/ Monotropic and what happens if your internal metronome beats to a different rhythm to other people? For many of us who are […]| Autistic Realms
Each person's experience of time is likely to be influenced by culture, age, disability and neurodivergence. For Autistic/ADHD/AuDHD people, time is an ...| autisticrealms.com
Written by Tanya Adkin and Helen Edgar, based on the presentation we delivered to the National Autistic Society Professionals’ Conference in March, 2025. Shared with permission from NAS. We will explore the importance of the theory of monotropism and the significance of flow states and suggest some practical strategies educators can implement to create more […]| Autistic Realms
All play is ok! There is no right way to play! All play is ok! There is no right way to play! To embrace Autistic play is to embrace the theory of monotropi ...| autisticrealms.com
Open Invite: Share your experiences of being monotropic. Share poems, art, blogs, essays, videos, podcasts, music, etc., that reflect your experience of being monotropic. We will publish across Stimpunks & Autistic Realms as part of our community project. Some stories may be chosen for a community ebook that will be openly licensed; if you would […]| Autistic Realms
Monotropism is a neurodiversity-affirming theory of autism (Murray et al., 2005). Autistic /ADHD/ AuDHD people are more likely to be monotropic(Garau et al. ...| autisticrealms.com
Monotropic (Autistic/ ADHD) people have fewer tunnels of interest to process and use their energy than polytropic people (non-Autistic/ADHD). Polytropic peo ...| autisticrealms.com
Autistic burnout is a term often used within the autistic community to describe an intense exhaustion that many autistic people experience where input and d ...| autisticrealms.com
This is a revised and updated version of the article I previously published with Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism ‘Supporting Your Young Person Through Autistic Burnout’ (Sep 2023). Click here to download ‘Autistic Burnout: A Family Guide‘ (137-page PDF resource) Being autistic is not an illness or a disorder in itself, but being autistic can […]| Autistic Realms
Monotropism seeks to explain Autism in terms of attention distribution and interests. OSF Preprints | Development and Validation of a Novel Self-Report Measure of Monotropism in Autistic and Non-Autistic People: The Monotropism Questionnaire This map highlights 20 common aspects of my personal monotropic experiences. How many do you experience? Where are you on the map […]| Autistic Realms
In Milan Kundera’s novel, ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ (1981), he described the heaviness of life, the restrictive oppression and boundaries that can tie us all down, yet there is freedom in the possibilities the mind can bring and in the choices we can make. We can subvert the restrictions of neuronormative society; we can, […]| Autistic Realms
Being autistic is not an illness or a disorder in itself, but being autistic can have an impact on a person’s mental and physical health. This is due to the often unmet needs of living in a world that is generally designed for the well-being of people who are not autistic. In addition, three-quarters of […]| Autistic Realms
Explaining what it is like to be autistic to non-autistic people can be difficult. To quote Dawn Prince-Hughes (Cultural Autism Studies at Yale), being autistic is like “being human without the skin”. This can be difficult for non-autistic people to understand. Seeing and feeling the blank looks and Double Empathy Problem (Milton, 2012) at a […]| Autistic Realms
Kieran Rose (2018) describes autistic burnout as a ‘crash where you keep on crashing’. This resonates deeply. I have experienced cycles of burnout throughout my life due to systemic unmet needs living as an autistic person in a world primarily designed for non-autistic people. The double empathy problem (Milton, 2012) is real, and as explained […]| Autistic Realms
“Quantumness tends to prosper in very cold systems that are carefully isolated rather than part of a tepid soup awash with other activity.” (Lewton, T. 2024) This may be a weird take, but … I think we could use the idea of quantumness and reframe it around an interpretation of marginalised groups living on the edges of […]| Autistic Realms
Neuroqueering in Liminal Spaces “By silencing our bodyminds, they (neurotypical society) have halted the growth of a chaotic self. We are no longer able to move fluidly through our experience, instead frozen like ice on an arctic tundra” (Gray-Hammond, 2023) David Gray-Hammond (Emergent Divergence) and I are responding to each other’s blogs to help expand the […]| Autistic Realms
“The growing cracks in the thin veneer of our “civilised” economic and social operating model are impossible to ignore”, Jorn Bettin (2021). The double empathy problem (Milton, 2012) creates a gap of disconnect experienced between people due to misunderstood shared lived experiences. It is “a breakdown in reciprocity and mutual understanding that can happen between people […]| Autistic Realms
Top 5 Neurodivergent-Informed Strategies By Helen Edgar, Autistic Realms, June 2024. 1. Be Kind Take time to listen and be with people in meaningful ways to help bridge the Double Empathy Problem (Milton, 2012). Be embodied and listen not only to people’s words but also to their bodies and sensory systems. Be responsive to people’s […]| Autistic Realms
I am autistic and monotropic, and I am interested in exploring Helen Mirra’s theory of holotropism (2023) and how this may impact flow states and regulation. Holotropism synthesises the theory of monotropism (Murray, 2005) with deep ecology and holistic anatomy. Holotropism is a: “multi-dimensional, spacious, edgeless terrain under the monotropism map…To be holotropic is to have […]| Autistic Realms
A behind-the-scenes look into the collaborative workflow between Helen Edgar (Autistic Realms) and Ryan Boren (Stimpunks) as we write about Neuroqueer Learning Spaces (NQLS) and continue our neuroqueering journeys, connecting with awe-inspiring people and discovering new ideas to explore along the way. Liminal Spaces Ryan Boren (Stimpunks) and I are neuroqueering ourselves and the spaces we […]| Autistic Realms
Hello! I have never done an introduction post for Autistic Realms, so after 18 months and some one kindly nominating me for the Positive Role Model Award as part of the National Diversity Awards and receiving so much lovely feedback, I thought I would share a bit about myself! I am Helen Edgar, late identified […]| Autistic Realms
The information below will hopefully provide some clarity for anyone who has taken the Monotropism Questionnaire and are unsure what their results may mean.| autisticrealms.com
Creating a sense of acceptance and belonging is likely to be more meaningful for autistic people than putting pressure on them to try and fit into the neurotypical expectations of socialising| autisticrealms.com
(A guest blog, originally written for and published by ThePDASpace, May 2023) Family life can be busy and chaotic, and you may feel like you are constantly juggling to try and keep some balance to get through the day and avoid a crisis. Changes to everyday routines, such as celebration days and events, can be […]| Autistic Realms
This article was originally written for and published by Neurodiverse Connection (Aug 2023) What is monotropism? The theory of monotropism was developed by Murray, Lawson and Lesser (2005) in their article, Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Monotropic people focus more attention and energy resources on a more limited number of channels of interest […]| Autistic Realms
Article originally written and published for Neurodiverse Connection (Sept 2023) Autistic and ADHD people are more likely to be monotropic than the rest of the population (Garau, V. et al., June 2023). This means they focus more energy and resources on fewer interests/tasks/ sensory input at any one time compared to non-autistic polytropic people. Developing a […]| Autistic Realms
This blog has been inspired by Dr Jeremy Shuman's (PsyD) presentation, 'Neurodiversity-Affirming OCD Care' (August 2023), available here. Exp ...| autisticrealms.com
Over the past few weeks, there has been a sudden surge of interest in the Monotropism Questionnaire (MQ), pre-print released in June 2023 in the research paper ‘Development and Validation of a Novel Self-Report Measure of Monotropism in Autistic and Non-Autistic People: The Monotropism Questionnaire.‘ by Garau, V., Murray, A. L., Woods, R., Chown, N., […]| Autistic Realms
Recognising the demands of transitions and finding ways to reduce the pressure for the young people you support. Original article written for The PDA Space Recognising the demands of transitions and finding ways to reduce the pressure (thepdaspace.com) July 2023. Corrina Wood (specialist autism practitioner and advisor) has created a great webinar about recognising and […]| Autistic Realms
The theory of Monotropism was developed by Dr Dinah Murray, Wenn Lawson and Mike Lesser (2005) in their article, Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Monotropism is increasingly considered to be the underlying principle behind autism and is becoming more widely recognised, especially within autistic and neurodivergent communities. Fergus Murray,(2018), describes montropism as: […]| Autistic Realms
I am starting my new blog in the middle. I am in the middle of what is known as ‘midlife’ as I am forty-five; I am also mid-career, having resigned from teaching and not yet working in any other defined role. I also live much of my life in and between the online (primarily neurodivergent) […]| Autistic Realms
According to OCD-UK charity, there are,’ around three-quarters of a million people thought to be living with severe, life-impacting and debilitating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) here in the UK’. Many of these people may also be autistic. Stone and Chen (2015) explain that the co-occurrence rate of OCD in autistic people ‘being 3-7% is 6-14% times the […]| Autistic Realms
A guest blog for PDA Space – the original more concise version of this article is here: Monotropism = Happy Flow State (thepdaspace.com) As a parent entering into the realms of Autism, ADHD, PDA or any other neurodivergence it can feel overwhelming. Not just because of the weight those labels hold and possible difficulties with […]| Autistic Realms
Autism is not a disorder and does not need fixing or any ‘interventions’. Autism comes under the umbrella of neurodivergence, it is a different way of thinking, interacting and responding to people and the world. Nick Walker (2021) in her book Neuroqueer Heresies, states; ‘Autism is a genetically-based human neurological variant…..autistic individual’s subjective experience can […]| Autistic Realms
The theory of monotropism was developed by Murray, Lawson and Lesser in their article, Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism (2005). ...| autisticrealms.com
