A round-up of research and academic books related to monotropism, collated by Helen Edgar with Fergus Murray. This is just a snapshot of some things that have crossed our path between June and December 2025. Nearly all of these mention monotropism and have been peer-reviewed, or accepted as academic dissertations. Inclusion does not imply endorsement.
Research is listed in date order as we discussed in our Monotropism Discord community server.
Feel free to message us if you are undertaking your own research or have come across something of particular interest, we’d love to hear from you!
Research
Jackson-Perry, D. (2025). Unknowing in Practice: The Promise of Discomfort, Failure and Uncertainty in Neurodiversity Studies. Neurodiversity, 3.
The practice of unknowing I am thinking of is not a state or a thing, not a noun, like ignorance, but decidedly a verb, an orientation, an ambition to stay with the discomfort, to re-imagine and embrace failure as holding creative potential, to sit with uncertainty…
…Looking outside the academy to engage with and cite work produced by neurodivergent lay-people, advocates and scholars publishing outside academic journals holds considerable potential to unknow, or to re-story, with advantages to both ethics and knowledge production.
Heaton, P. (2025). Autism, musicality, and empathy: Through the lens of first-person accounts. Research in Neurodiversity, 1, 100001.
Heartwood, Rachel (2025) I Spy with my Monotropic Eye: Photography as a Particularly Autistic Medium. Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture: Vol. 6: Iss. 2, Article 12.
Rosqvist, H. B., Nygren, A., & O’Donoghue, S. (2023). EarthLove – Theorising Neurodivergent Reader Love of a room called Earth. Journal of Language Literature and Culture, 70(1), 25–37.
Field, Claire & Sylvan, Kurt (2025). Neurodiversity and Attentional Normativity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 111 (2):513-531.
After exploring some ways that existing views of attentional normativity might try to accommodate neurodivergent cognition, we propose a new constitutivist framework for evaluating cognition that does better.
Nicholas, D. B., et al., (2025). Advancing care priorities for health and quality of life among older adults in the autism and/or intellectual disabilities communities: proceedings of an international Think Tank. BMC Proceedings, 19(S11), 15.
Lacroix, T. et al., (2025). What Do Philosophers Talk About
When They Talk About Autism? Department of Philosophy, Durham University.
Wood, R., Gagat-Matula, A., Domagała-Zyśk, E., & Mazur vel Butynski, M. (2025). ‘We are here and we deserve it’: being an autistic teacher in Poland. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1–16.
Mahal, a., (2025). Neurodivergent Music Therapists: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis on Lived Experience. Masters thesis, Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas.
Duffin, S., Bath, P. and Sbaffi, L. (2025) The role of online groups for autistic people in users’ autism information journeys. Journal of Documentation. ISSN 0022-0418
Ulman, A. H. (2025). The Double Empathy Problem Through a Phenomenological
Perspective: Exploring Autistic People’s Experience of Empathy. Göteborgs Universitet, Psykologiska Institutionen.
Sperry, M. P. (2025). Understanding teamwork experiences of neurodivergent students: a phenomenological exploration of conflict and collaboration in engineering teams. Master’s thesis, University of Calgary, Canada.
“An enactive framework can be applied to understand the experiences of neurodivergent individuals within workplace settings. Jurgens (2020) detailed how enactivism considers both the role of internal (embodied) and external (embedded) factors in influencing intersubjective experience. The author described intersubjectivity as individuals’ relations to others and the social world and that together, enactivism and intersubjectivity can explain how institutions impact individuals’ cognition and personal identity. Murray et al. (2005) suggested that a monotropism—a deep, narrowly distributed attentional pattern associated with autism and ADHD—gives rise to cognitive, behavioural, and social differences. Cognitive and behavioural differences may include but are not limited to language development, sensorimotor coordination, and interpreting social cues.”
Radford, H., Reidinger, B., Kapp, S. K., & De Marchena, A. (2025b). “There is just too much going on there”: Nonverbal communication experiences of autistic adults. PLoS ONE, 20(7), e0325465.
“Many of the strategies for managing NVC differences (Theme 4) appeared to be related to monotropic vs. polytropic attention. For example, nonverbal cues were described as less salient for contributors compared to the content of spoken or written words, and a distinct preference for written communication was apparent, corroborating preferences expressed by autistic adults in previous studies [24,59]. A preference for more uni-modal communication also highlights how some social communication behaviours traditionally conceived of as weaknesses may indeed be strengths in the context of another autistic or accommodating communication partner.”
Ludovico Boratto, Federica Cena, Mirko Marras, Noemi Mauro, and Giacomo Medda. 2025. Small Data, Big Impact: Navigating Resource Limitations in Point-of-Interest Recommendation for Individuals with Autism. In Proceedings of the 48th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR ’25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 3110–3112.
Schwichtenberg, A. J., Mirah, K., Janis, A., West, M., & Atkin, A. L. (2025). Diversity in Education Study (DivES): Investigating a neurodiversity module in higher education. PLoS ONE, 20(7), e0327379.
Kapp, S. K., & Gudknecht, J. (2025). The Strengths of Speech Divergence in Autistic People: Implications for assessment and support. Infant and Child Development, 34(3).
Some autistic people with early speech acquisition divergence acquire speech unusually ‘late’, but the field often does not clearly report on the speech (vs. language) in samples well into childhood and older (see Girolamo et al. 2024). According to the enhanced perceptual functioning model (Mottron et al. 2006) and monotropism theories of autism (Murray et al. 2005), multisensory or multi-channel domains may not integrate as automatically or sometimes easily as in non-autistic people, such as in audiovisual speech processing…..The review provides support for the enhanced perceptual functioning model of autism and the Montreal group’s related re-search comparing strengths in A-SD, A-NoSD and non-autistic people. Additional support comes from neurodivergence-affirming autistic-produced models such as monotropism (Murray et al. 2005).
Hassmén, P., Hindman, E. (2025). Sensory Sensitivity and Strengths in Autism. In: Emotion Control Strategies for Peak Performance in Neurodivergent Brains. Global Perspectives in Applied Sport and Performance Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Papasileka, A. E. (2024). Navigating motherhood with ADHD: A qualitative
exploration of women’s experiences. Doctoral thesis, City St George’s, University of London.
McGoldrick, E., Munroe, A., Ferguson, R., Byrne, C., & Doherty, M. (2025). Autistic SPACE for Inclusive Education. Neurodiversity, 3.
Waldock, K. E., & Khan, R. (2025). Working as ‘Rebellious Disruptors’: Neuroqueering and Cripping Academic Spaces Within the Sociology of Religion. Religions, 16(9), 1113.
Dwan, S., & Brice, A. E. (2025). Integrating polyvagal theory and the neurodiversity paradigm for inclusive practice. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 1–16.
Tarragnat, O. (2025). Autistic Situated Knowledges and the Science Question in Autism: Non-Innocent Metaphors in the Theory of Monotropism. HUMANA.MENTE Journal of Philosophical Studies, 18(47), 133-156.
Piercy, W. (2025). Improving Breaktime Experiences for Autistic
Children: Insights from Resource-enriched Playgrounds. Doctoral thesis in Professional Educational, Child and Adolescent Psychology, Institute of Education, University College of London.
Zhong, Y. (2025). Asperger writers’ attention and awareness in written production. Language Awareness, 1–26.
Bonneville, L. (2025). Autism and Dysautonomia, Autoimmune Disorders, Anxiety and Monotropism. Not peer reviewed.
Leisman, G., & Melillo, R. (2025). Autism Spectrum Disorder: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go? Brain Sciences, 15(9), 1010.
“Cognitive diversity is increasingly emphasized. Monotropism theory suggests deep, sustained focus on restricted domains, explaining both restricted interests and exceptional skills”
Dwyer, P., Williams, Z. J., Lawson, W., & Rivera, S. M. (2025). A Trans-Diagnostic Investigation of Attention and Diverse Phenotypes of “Auditory Hyperreactivity” in Autism, ADHD, and the General Population. Journal of Attention Disorders, 30(1), 57-81.
Heartwood, Rachel (2025) I Spy with my Monotropic Eye: Photography as a Particularly Autistic Medium. Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture: Vol. 6: Iss. 2, Article 12.
Hagen, Å. M., & Kalandadze, T. (2025). Unmasking Inclusion: Reclaiming Neurodivergent Childhoods in Scandinavian Early Childhood Education. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 0(0).
“Honoring children’s special interests—often dismissed as “obsessions” in clinical and educational discourse—can become a powerful way to engage neurodivergent children in learning, communication, and connection (Kapp, 2020). This aligns well with Scandinavian ECE’s broader emphasis on play and child agency. From a neurodiversity perspective, these focused interests are not incidental but often reflect deeper cognitive styles. According to Monotropism theory, many autistic individuals have a cognitive tendency to focus their attention deeply on a limited number of interests at a time, which can enhance engagement, learning, and emotional regulation when these interests are supported (Murray et al., 2005). Rather than seeing narrow interests as barriers to inclusion, a monotropism-informed pedagogy recognizes them as pathways into meaningful connection, learning, and self-expression (see also Dawson et al., 2008 discussing learning in autism).”
Hedlund, Å., Wester, M. E., Edenvik, P., Ingard, C., Isakson, K., Sabel, L. K., Unéus, D., Lindström, T., Black, M. H., & Rosqvist, H. B. (2025). A good autistic life: an autistic-led conceptualization of autistic flourishing through autistic women’s-lived experiences. Frontiers in Sociology, 10, 1611803.
(Technically doesn’t mention monotropism, but cites four monotropism-heavy papers!)
Lawson, W. (2025b). Research by autistic researchers: an “insider’s view” into autism. The autistic way of being. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 16, 1664507.
Research by Autistic Researchers: An “Insider’s View” into Autism. The Autistic way of Being. This paper introduces us to an increasingly popular understanding of autism, but as understood and experienced by Autistic people: the descriptive theory of Monotropism. Initially this paper sets out the background to monotropism as the author briefly mentions various autism theories and highlights some reasons why such theories didn’t resonate with Autistic people. Uncovering how monotropism explains autism and Autistic experience takes the reader into the very heart of Autistic experience in ways not previously shown. As well as discussing attention, interest and connections to the Autistic sensory experiences (external and internal) the author highlights the experience of Object Permanence (OP) and its impact upon Autistic lives. Current research is beginning to demonstrate that OP is experienced differently in Autistic lives to non-autistic lives (Lawson and Dombrosky, 2015:2017). Initially though Autistic people were thought to relate to OP in similar ways to non-autistic people (e.g. Adrien, et, al. 1993), although there were hints that aspects of OP in Autistic people were experienced differently. The reasons for why monotropism has grown in popularity and how this theory explains the Autistic experience are set out below.”
Grace, K., Remington, A., & Crane, L. (2025). “Trapped in a No-Win Situation”: A qualitative exploration of autistic adults’ experiences of loneliness. Autism in Adulthood.
Our findings show that autistic adults face dilemmas as they try to balance their desire for social connection with their limited energy for engaging in social experiences. Our results also highlight the societal and environmental factors that contribute to loneliness in autistic people, such as a perceived lack of acceptance of autistic differences. Finally, we identified potential ways to alleviate loneliness among autistic adults (e.g., connecting with similar others and understanding oneself).
Cox C, Fusaroli R, Nielsen YA, Cho S, Rocca R, Simonsen A, Knox A, Lyons M, Liberman M, Cieri C, Schillinger S, Lee AL, Hauptmann A, Tena K, Chatham C, Miller JS, Pandey J, Russell AS, Schultz RT, Parish-Morris J. Social Context Matters for Turn-Taking Dynamics: A Comparative Study of Autistic and Typically Developing Children. Cogn Sci. 2025 Oct;49(10):e70124.
Hecker-Deel, O., & Finke, E. (2025). Autistic children can and do play. Topics in Language Disorders, 45(4), 276–294.
Cairns-Ratter, N. (2025). Autistic Knowledge: A Discussion from a UK Context. SENTIO Journal, Issue 7. ISSN 2632-2455.
Being, knowledge, society, politics and powers all intersect in the construction of the concept of autism. In this article, I will present the changing and complex concept of what it means to be autistic and how societal structures, and the socio-political context affect some autistic individuals within the UK. Critical autism studies will be used as a theoretical approach that interrogates power structures and enables autistic lived experience to inform autistic knowledge within research. Neuro-affirming practice will be used as a philosophical lens to demonstrate that values and beliefs are interconnected with autistic knowledge and being.
English, M. C. W., Gignac, G. E., Visser, T. a. W., Whitehouse, A. J. O., Enns, J. T., & Maybery, M. T. (2021). The Comprehensive Autistic Trait Inventory (CATI): development and validation of a new measure of autistic traits in the general population. Molecular Autism, 12(1), 70.
Keski-Rahkonen, A & Saure, E 2025, Neurodiversity-affirming autism assessment and support: a scoping review. Psychiatria Fennica, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 140-151.
Monotropism is number 3 in their table of ‘Some important neurodiversity-affirming theoretical concepts.
Dantas, S., & Fletcher, A. (2025). Focused Interests, Motivation, and Museum/Gallery Attendance – A Mixed-Methods Survey Exploring Autistic Adults’ Experiences and Wellbeing Outcomes. Neurodiversity, 3.
Autistic people reported focused interests more frequently than non-autistic people, but the content and purpose of their interests were similar. Both groups talked about good experiences in visiting museums/galleries and exploring their focused interests there, but autistic people specifically complained about environment that were not accessible. Our findings show that being able to explore focused interests in galleries and museums can lead to positive feelings, while barriers in the environment and accessibility issues can stop autistic people from enjoying their visits and exploring their interests.
Hughes, E. Signifying the Autistic Sense of Self. Topoi (2025).
Dantas, S., & Fletcher, A. (2025). Focused Interests, Motivation, and Museum/Gallery Attendance – A Mixed-Methods Survey Exploring Autistic Adults’ Experiences and Wellbeing Outcomes. Neurodiversity, 3.
Friedel, E., Staniland, L., Baker, L., Koperska, A., Mathy, A., Ramji, A. V., Dwyer P., & Zaneva, M. (2025, November 14). Toward Neurodiversity-affirming Language for ADHD. The Lancet Psychiatry.
Lawson, W., & Mellifont, D. (2025). Autism and physical disability.
Dark, J. (2025). Inclusion by design a-neuro-cognitive trait interaction approach-to neurodivergent research. Methodological Innovations, 0(0).
NCTIM encourages researchers to respond to how neurodivergent people process information, interact, and communicate, rather than relying on diagnostic labels. Grounded in the neurodiversity paradigm and informed by epistemic justice, NCTIM focuses on how cognitive processing traits such as communication preferences, executive functioning, sensory processing, and attention styles shape research participation. It follows a three-stage process: mapping study demands, identifying potential trait interactions, and embedding inclusive features.
Makin, L., Meyer, A., Mondelli, V. et al. Regulating with food: a qualitative study of Neurodivergent experiences in adults with binge eating disorder. J Eat Disord (2025).
Shirtliff, A. (2025). Sleep: the missing piece in chronic disease reviews. EBSCOhost.
Carreras, L. (2025). Neurodivergence as environmental adaptation. Exploration of Neuroprotective Therapy, 5.
Mosquera, L. M. (2022). Navigating Social Expectations: Lived Experiences of Autistic Adults in the UK and Spain. Doctoral thesis, Institute of Education, University College London.
Books
See also Book News
Keates, N., & Waldock, K. E. (eds) (2025). Applications and Practices for Empowering Neurodivergent Learners. Information Science Reference.
Atkinson, A. (2026). An Interest-Based Exploration of Monotropism and Its Use in the Classroom. In N. Keates & K. Waldock (Eds.), Neurodivergent Education and Lifelong Learning (pp. 129-146). IGI Global Scientific Publishing.
Davis, R., O’Neill, C., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2025). It takes all kinds of minds: fostering neurodivergent thriving at school. Routledge.
Quigley, E., Eddy, A., Frawley, T., Valeur, C., & Gavin, B. (2025). Neurodiversity and mental health.
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